Sorting Hat for a Day

[juli17ptf]

No: HPFGUIDX 188523


> 
> Pippin:
> Many of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, and possibly some of the Gryffindors, did leave with the Slytherins. We don't know if any of them agreed with Pansy  -- all we know is that no one tried to do as she suggested -- grab Harry. We don't even know that, if it came down to it, Pansy would have handed Harry over. Taking Harry prisoner is not the same as giving him to Voldemort.
> 

Julie:
I'm slipping in late here, but this is one of those scenes I
take with a grain of salt, because it so obviously reflects
JKR's own bias in ranking the Houses in terms of virtue and
character. Thus all (or virtually all) of Gryffindor stands
up for Harry, most of Hufflepuff, some of Ravenclaw, and no
Slytherins. From the best to the worst, all in a tidy order.

I read many of the responses to the question of who best
represents each house, and here is my response. FYI, I am
going with who I think is the greatest credit to each 
house.

Gryffindor: Harry. He has plenty of physical courage (the
kind JKR admires), and can generally be counted on to act 
selflessly. Though he has the Gryffindor impulsiveness, 
acting on his emotion of the moment rather than thinking
things out first, he does avoid the worst traits of typical
Gryffindors, excess arrogance and bullying (James, Sirius). 

Gryffindor who was missorted: Pettigrew. Rash? Hardly.
Courageous? Please. He couldn't even manage one of the
typical negative Gryffindor traits, bullying, because
he didn't have the guts! Instead he was content to 
salivate from the sidelines. 

Non-Gryffindor who should have been Gryffindor: Draco.
Seriously. He misses a bit in physical courage I know,
but he's right there in arrogance, bullying, and rash
behaviour. 

Slytherin: Snape. (I'm thinking "best" representative
of each house, and despite what Dumbledore may have 
meant by his "sorting too early" comment, Snape is it.)
He was clever and ambitious for his own success. When 
someone he loved died, he simply altered his life's
ambition, and he used all his cunning and cleverness
to attain that goal, which was atoning for his part
in Lily's death (though that goal eventually came to 
include saving all those he could from Voldemort). The
sin isn't in cleverness and ambition per se, but in the
nature of that ambition, which is where so many young
Slyterins went astray when they tied themselves to
Voldemort and his goal of exterminating non-Purebloods.

Slytherin who was missorted: Draco. Again, his tendency
toward rash behaviour is the opposite of cunning (which
requires subtlety and patience). 

Non-Slytherin who should have been Slytherin: Hermione.
She is clever, cunning, and quite ambitious. Despite her
love of books, she still sees learning as a means to an
end (typical of Slytherin ambition) rather than as an
end itself (typical of Ravenclaw love of knowledge). 

Hufflepuff: Cedric. He wasn't an impulsive risk-taker, or
overly ambitious or cunning, or a closet intellectual,
but he was the most well-rounded student we saw, endowed
with equal (and more than sufficient) ambition, courage and
smarts. Just the guy your mom wants you to bring home ;-)

Hufflepuff who was missorted: Sorry, don't know enough
of them to say.

Non-Hufflepuff who should have been Hufflepuff: Cho. She
seemed fairly well-rounded, but an intellectual with her
head alternately in books or in the clouds? No. 

Ravenclaw: Luna. Yes, she was flaky. But she was all about
knowledge for its own sake, even if her "knowledge" of 
certain aspects of the Wizarding World were purely in her.
her head. She lived in her own world, not uncommon for 
intellectuals. But she avoided the worst pitfall of many
Ravenclaws, being so enshrined in her Ivory tower that 
she couldn't connect with her own emotions or empathize
with those around her. 

Ravenclaw who was missorted: Cho. See above.

Non-Ravenclaw who should have been a Ravenclaw: Dumbledore.
(I'm going on the assumption Dumbledore was a Gryffindor 
even though I'm not sure the books ever stated such). Except
perhaps in his youth, Dumbledore made every decision based 
on cold logic and strategy. And he was an intellectually
gifted strategist (and maybe part Slytherin) but he had 
little if any empathy for those around him. Not Snape, not
Lupin, not any of his students. Not until Harry, and even
then he admitted that his fondness for Harry was something
he'd never intended, a mistake on his part. For Dumbledore,
the needs of the many outweighed any consideration for the
few or the one. For that one needs to harden the heart.

 
Julie