Personality-based Sort - Impact on House Rivalry (was Re: CHAPDISC: DH, EPILOGU

[happyjoeysmiley]

No: HPFGUIDX 185513

> >4. If there is no difference (at least officially) among houses, 
why is there still a Sorting Hat?
> 
> Joey: <snip> School houses are a common feature and competition is 
healthy as long it is not overdone. Sorting Hat just segregates 
students based on their actual or rather want-to-be personalities so 
that they can all be together in a single house. So, Sorting Hat is 
still kept.

> Laura replies:

> I know that houses are a common feature of private schools, but 
aren't 
the kids sorted into them randomly? <snip> 

> bboyminn:
> 
<snip> Even if students were assigned to Houses at random, there 
would 
still be House rivalry. <snip> I think the rivalries are just as 
fierce, but probably not quite as bitter as they were in Harry's day. 
I also suspect we have a very narrow view of House rivalry as we see 
it mostly through Harry and Draco's eyes. <snip>
<snip>

>Laura replies:

>But a random sort is going to produce a different kind of rivalry 
than 
a sort based on personality characteristics. It's one thing to say 
"we want our house to win" and it's another to say "we have to beat 
those losers in Hufflepuff". [Just an example, everyone knows Badgers 
rule!] If the sorting is still being done on the old basis, it would 
seem to me that the same problems would arise in a very short time.
<snip>

> jkoney:
<snip> I'm sure it still puts the smartest 
> people who love to study in Ravenclaw. That way they are with 
others 
> who are similar to them. <snip>

> Laura says:

> But do you think that's the best way of sorting? Canon suggests to 
me 
that putting people with the same characteristics all in the same 
house results in exaggerating those characteristics to the exclusion 
of other, equally important ones. It's not a good balance, in my 
view.

Joey now:

Hmm, I see what you mean, Laura. The expected result of this type of 
sort is a "birds of a feather flock together" scenario but many 
exceptions seem to exist as well. Pettigrew in Gryffindor, Zacharias 
Smith in Hufflepuff, for example. I guess the Sorting Hat segregating 
students based on their *want-to-be* personalities (rather than 
*actual*) almost gives the effect of a random sort. I mean, people in 
the same house don't seem to necessarily possess similar qualities. 
Hermione, Ginny, Parvati, Lavender, Romilda Vane - looks like an 
array of pretty different characters to me. Do you agree? :-)

Cheers, 
~Joey :-)