Sorting Hat

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 106266

xtremesk8ergurl asked:
<snip> Another question I have, is if Slytherin and its house is all
dark magic, then why do they have a Slytherin house?

Carol responds:
Someone else asked this question recently and I answered in another
post, so I hope everyone will forgive me for repeating my ideas here.
(I'd hunt up the original post, but I don't have time to deal with our
search engine, which, alas, was designed by Yahoos and is not very
efficient.)

The short answer is that most Slytherins are chosen not for their
interest in Dark magic but for their ambition and cunning, traits
valued by Salazar Slytherin but not in themselves necessarily evil. As
the Sorting Hat says in SS/PS(?), "Maybe in Slytherin you'll find your
true friends" (paraphrasing, sorry)--the implication being that these
children would not be happy sorted into a different house. There might
be exceptions for unusually intelligent Slytherins who were sorted
into Ravenclaw (young Severus Snape?), but not many Slytherins have
the courage (or reckless disregard for personal safety) required for
Gryffindor. Most are evidently more interested in self-preservation
("Discretion is the better part of valor," as Phineas might have said
if Falstaff had not beat him to it). Again, we might make an exception
 for the young Severus, assuming that he had the courage we see in his
older self, but with his particular interest and values (and the
particular set of boys who would have been his dormmates), he would
have been miserable in Gryffindor. Also there's pride and tradition
for those like Draco, who says in book 1, "Imagine being sorted into
Hufflepuff"--apparently the ultimate disgrace from his perspective.
His family on both sides (not counting a certain renegade first cousin
once removed) have all been sorted into Slytherin, and it never occurs
to him that any other house might be desirable, but Hufflepuff in
particular is for outcasts and rejects (his view, not mine).

Think about it this way. Where should the Sorting Hat put Draco if not
in Slytherin? He seems reasonably intelligent but definitely not
bookish. Would he fit into Ravenclaw? I doubt it. He wouldn't be a
leader there because no one would care about his family's pureblood
status or money, as the Slytherins in general evidently do. (Theo Nott
is a possible exception. We'll see!) How about putting Crabbe and
Goyle or Pansy Parkinson in Hufflepuff? Wouldn't they all be
misfits--and make the other Hufflepuffs miserable through their
resentment and antagonism? As it is, Crabbe and Goyle get to be
hangers-on and Pansy has her own gang of Slytherin girls. So at least
they're not being rejected by the other kids for their values and
personalities and they feel that they belong.

Ideally, of course, the houses could be based on something other than
personality traits (random selection?) or eliminated altogether. But
as things are, wouldn't it be discriminatory to eliminate a house for
the ambitious, cunning types, or the children of former Slytherins who
have been brought up to value cunning and ambition even if they don't
have those traits themselves? Suppose that the Sorting Hat looked into
a child's mind and said, in effect, "Well, you're not loyal,
courageous, or book-smart. We have no place for you here. Better try
Durmstrang. Or get a job washing dishes at the Leaky Cauldron"? I
think that would be even worse for relations within the WW than the
present situation.

Well, not the short answer I intended, except by my standards. Hope
it's helpful, or at least gives you something to think about.

Carol, who remembers when American public school students were
"sorted" into "college-bound," "regular track," and "special ed." and
was fortunately spared humiliation by being sorted into the first group