House Cup PS/SS / House Cup: Terrible Idea? (Re: Two Weeks of Posts...)

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 156614

> >>Julie17 wrote in
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/156206>:
> Note Dumbledore's deliberately humiliating method of awarding the
> [House] House cup to Gryffindor [in PS/SS]

> >>Catlady:
> Someone pointed out on some previous occasion where that event was
> discussed, that for all we know DD was following standard practise,
> that maybe always the Great Hall starts out decorated in the      
> colors of last year's winner, last-minute points are awarded, and 
> the Great Hall is re-decorated if another House is this year's     
> winner. It was a nice piece of suspense writing for Harry and a    
> terrible disappointment for Draco because they, first-years,      
> didn't know the custom.

Betsy Hp:
I recall that speculation, but canon shoots it pretty firmly down:

"The Great Hall was normally decorated with the winning House's 
colors for the Leaving Feast." [GoF scholastic hardback p.720]

One could speculate that since it takes four books for JKR to make 
clear what the normal custom is, she had a different idea in mind 
for book 1.  But the fact of the matter is that, as per canon, 
there's nothing to suggest the final result of the House Cup 
competition isn't known to everyone by the time the Leaving Feast 
starts.

This is a bit of an aside, but I wonder if the House Cup isn't more 
of a problem than the whole Sorting thing?  I mean, I've never had a 
problem with the students being broken into smaller, and more 
managable groups.  And I especially like that those groups aren't 
segregated by age.  That the Houses are at each others' throats 
strikes me as the real problem.  (Though really, the competition 
seems at its worst between Gryffindor and Slytherin.  Maybe because 
their founders never made up as Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw did?)

Anyway, in a babbly sort of way I wonder if doing away with a big 
shiny reason for intense House rivalry wouldn't help bring Hogwarts 
together?

Betsy Hp, who rather likes the House system and would hate to see it 
go, but does see the thematical reasons it might and shudders to 
think of Gryffindor becoming "1st & 2nd year dorms" and Ravenclaw 
becoming "NEWT student dorms" etc.  Talk about icky, boring and 
generic.