CHAPTER DISCUSSION: PS/SS 7, The Sorting Hat

[Susan A]

No: HPFGUIDX 188179

Potioncat:
> I have a question. McGonagall tells the first years, "Each house 
> has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches 
> and wizards."
> 
> Did her speech convince you after what you had already read? Did
> you think one house was better? What do you think now? Do you think 
> McGonagall was sincere?


SSSusan:
Interesting question.  I suppose I felt that McGonagall was doing her best to be diplomatic. ;) 

Seriously, there *were* four founders, with four Houses remaining to the day, and I think we are meant to think that all four were outstanding in some particular way.  We might have to look back FARTHER or DEEPER to find the nobility of Slytherin, given how JKR has drawn the House in the 20th century, but I didn't have any problem believing that witches and wizards with great skill and ability, who made tremendous contributions to the Wizarding World, had been produced by each House.

I think JKR had always had the intention of having her readers identify primarily with (and therefore root for) Gryffindor and to have particular emotional or intellectual responses to those sweet duffers of Hufflepuff and the intellectuals of Ravenclaw, and to be suspicious of Slytherins.  Still, I don't think that I doubted that McGonagall was being truthful, at least historically.

Siriusly Snapey Susan