The Sorting Process (was: names - Percy and Ginny / Percy Weasley)

[sophierom]

No: HPFGUIDX 104911

 
> Cathy Drolet at cldrolet at s... wrote:
> 
> > I live with the person who JKR could have used as a model for Percy. My
> > 'Percy' would NEVER go back to the family after making such an idiot of
> > himself. He has too much to apologise for and simply would not lower himself
> > to say 'know what folks, I was wrong." No courage.

Jocelyn wrote: 
> Hmmm. Well the omens, if what we have been discussing about names is true,
> are not good for him returning manfully to the Weasley fold. I hate to
> think that the hat was so wrong, but after all, it is just a hat! *G* I
> wonder why it _didn't_ put him in Slytherin. Perhaps his ambition was not
> so developed at age 11.


Sophierom:

I wonder if the hat suggested to Percy, like Harry, that he was supposed to go into 
Slytherin, but Percy, also like Harry, talked the hat into sorting him into Gryffindor. While 
Harry chooses Gryffindor because he's heard (and seen) bad things about the Slytherin 
House members, perhaps Percy chose Gryffindor because he believed it was expected of 
him.  If I remember correctly, doesn't Ron mention something about his whole family 
being in Gryffindor? Maybe Percy feels that's where he's supposed to go, even if he may 
have tendencies that lead him in another direction.

This makes me wonder:  How much choice does a person have in the sorting process? My 
inclination is that the students might actually have a good deal of say over where they get 
sorted. What i mean is that for students like Draco, who simply assume they're going to be 
placed in a certain house, the hat simply chooses what that student already believes to be 
true.  For the students like Harry (and perhaps Percy? Neville? Hermione?), who are perhaps 
less certain of who they are (or less willing to be pigeon-holed), the hat actually engages 
in the same sort of internal dialogue we see with Harry.  But, in the process of this 
dialogue, the student chooses his own course.  In either case, it seems to be the student 
who ultimately sorts himself, whether for good or ill. (I don't think Percy benefited from 
being a Gryffindor, for example. Perhaps if he could openly admit his ambition for power, 
he might be better off than masking it with self-righteousness.)

I wish I knew more about Peter Pettigrew's background ... he seems like another "mis-
sorted" Gryffindor. Did he also choose to be in Gryffindor? Pettigrew does follow Black 
alphabetically ... did he meet sirius on the train and, in a fit of hero worship, choose a 
house that was acutally ill suited for him? Or, did his family also expect him to be a 
Gryffindor when he was really a Hufflepuff or a Slytherin? Had he been sorted into another 
house, would he have been able to avoid the lure of Voldemort? 

Though we don't know yet what Percy's fate holds, it seems that Gryffindor is a particularly 
bad house for those like Percy and Peter - wizards we might call "other directed" to borrow 
a term from sociologist David Riesman. The other-directed desires to be loved, admired, 
and, in the extreme form, does whatever he can in order to please others.  Perhaps Peter 
and Percy seek power not so much for themselves but for the approval of others.  And who 
might the other-directed wizards want to please and impress? Why, those with the most 
power, the most authority in their lives.  Peter tells LV about the Potters. Later, he
gives up his hand in order to please Voldemort.  

Perhaps Percy, at 
age 11, chooses Gryffindor, studies hard, aspires to be head boy, because his parents 
(particularly Molly?) want him to succeed.  When Percy gets older and his authority figures 
change, so do his loyalties (in which case, it wasn't courage that led him to break with his 
parents but a greater desire to please Fudge and the Ministry than to please his parents).  
We see this shift in loyalties throughout GoF.  The big question is: whose approval will he 
seek in HBP? The new administration (and if this new administration is friendlier with 
Dumbledore and the Order, will Percy come crawling back to his family?)?  Or, dare I 
suggest it, will Percy come to believe, like Peter did in the first war, that the ultimate 
authority figure is Voldemort, and will Percy seek his approval next? 

I hope not.  In any case, if the sorting process allows for some student choice, I think both 
Peter and Percy chose Gryffindor for the wrong reasons, and it probably hurt them in the 
long run.  They would have been better off in a house that could curb (but not 
necessarily destroy) their tendencies to seek approval.  Being other-directed, after all, is 
not such a bad thing; those people who care nothing about pleasing others (Sirius? and, 
don't kill me for mentioning him in the same parenthesis, but ... Tom Riddle?) can be 
dangerous to htemselves or to society.  Obviously, there needs to be a good middle 
ground between following one's own desires and following the desires of a larger society.  
Peter never found that middle ground.  Hopefully, Percy will.

Sophierom