The Sorting Hat and Houses, with a side-helping of Salazar and the Founders

[Juliet <lilpurplealdy@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52957

Andrea:
>>Ahhhh. Actually, speaking through the Hat's "mouth" didn't even 
occur to
me. Hee. Just shows how tunnel-visioned we get sometimes. :) Anyway,
I'd always thought of *that* as for the Hat's voice alone, but as 
with the
rest of this theory, I have no basis for it. :) >>

Ah, yeah, it seemed like you might've thought that from your fanfics. 
*nods*  But, if the Hat is gonna provide any useful information on 
the Founders(to...say, I don't know, the Order of the Phoenix[wild 
speculation from the title here, of course! ;)]), I'd rather it be 
doing so through that Hat's "mouth", so that the entire group can 
hear what it has to say.


>>Without getting into yet *another* "Slytherin isn't necessarily 
evil,
dangit!" posts (because I do waaaaaaaaay too many of those), I'll 
just say
that all we know of Salazar Slytherin so far is based off thousand 
year
old rumors and the actions of Voldemort, so I'm not going to say he's
evil...yet. :) >>

Alright, then I won't drag you into one. :)  Granted, but all we know 
of the Sorting Hat is that it sorts people into their Houses, can 
look into people's minds, used to be Godric's, and was enchanted by 
the Founders, and look at what all we can speculate on from that..? =P


>>You mean...JKR *isn't* going to sift through here and use our 
ideas? *sob*>>

If only! :)

>>That's possible too, of course, but I think the Hat has to either 
have SOME kind of actual personality beyond just Sorting students 
*snip*>>

Enter the Founder's disembodied voices!  An idea I like very much, 
and which slips perfectly into canon(as you demonstrated yourself 
with your fics :), but we can only wait and see if that is the road 
JKR will take.

>>OR is a very powerful object we haven't seen used to full 
capacity.>>

In CoS, JKR proved to us that the Sorting Hat does have a few things 
up it's sleeve(er..rim?), and there is a thread here quoting JKR 
saying that CoS has some clues in it leading to other books.  
Hopefully, revealing the Sorting Hat's unseen powers is one of those 
clues... 

>>He lost a bet? *g*>>

Thinking of Godric losing a bet makes me think he'd rather stick that 
sword into something -other- than a hat... *eg*

~Aldrea, wishing anyone who wants to try and start quoting Andrea and 
herself lots of luck on keeping the names straight.