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Stop the Hogwarts House Hate: Hufflepuffs and Slytherins are Great, Too

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Stop the Hogwarts House Hate: Hufflepuffs and Slytherins are Great, Too

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Stop the Hogwarts House Hate: Hufflepuffs and Slytherins are Great, Too

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Published on April 6, 2018

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When J.K. Rowling first revealed that Harry and Ginny’s son, James Sirius Potter, had been sorted into Gryffindor, she also noted that Teddy Lupin—son of Remus and Tonks, and the Head Boy of Hufflepuff House—was disappointed by the hat’s decision. Teddy’s disappointment was shared by some members of fandom. And while it’s hard to be surprised that a kid named for James Potter and Sirius Black would be a Gryffindor through and through, that frustration plays into a long fought battle among diehard Potter fans about how the Hogwarts Houses should be viewed, and who might be getting the short end of the stick.

While Slytherin and Hufflepuff both have their share of intensely dedicated fans, it’s no secret that among the general Potter-reading population, most would prefer to be a Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw. Why? Do people prefer lions and ravens? Red and blue? Or is it something to do with the attributes awarded to each house, and the values we (and the wizarding world) place on them?

Life’s not easy for the Hufflepuffs out there. In every sketch, humorous fanfic, and rousing talk over butterbeer at the Harry Potter theme park, they are the butt of all the jokes. Sweet and slow like molasses, that’s what people think. Sure friends, but not particularly talented. Or, as one of those hilarious Second City videos has put it—“I can’t digest lactose; I’m a Hufflepuff!

And though the jokes are certainly funny, they’re not at all fair. Rowling has praised her daughter for saying that everyone should want to be a Hufflepuff, and claimed that it was her favorite house too for reasons that the last book makes clear; when the students have a choice about whether or not to fight in the Battle of Hogwarts, the badgers all stay “for a different reason [than the Gryffindors]. They didn’t want to show off, they weren’t being reckless, that’s the essence of Hufflepuff.” So why don’t people get that? Why will Hufflepuff always be a shorthand term to make fun of those deemed dull and useless? Why are Slytherins assumed to be straight-up terrible people?

And what if it’s just a matter of word association?

Let’s talk about the central terminology associated with each Hogwarts House.

  • Gryffindors are brave.
  • Ravenclaws are intelligent.
  • Slytherins are ambitious.
  • Hufflepuffs are loyal.

Now, none of these terms are actually bad things to be, but in everyday society we read between the lines and give them other meanings. Bravery is all about heroics. If you’re brave, you self-sacrifice, you’re there to further the common good by helping those in need. You’re one fearless berserker. Intelligence is always valued, even when people want to tear it down out of spite. Smart people are always essential, they are always valuable. If you’re smart, you are meticulous, the person to call upon in a crisis. You have expertise, and that is required in all areas of life.

But ambition often reads like this: You’re selfish. You’re completely focused on your own evolution, and you don’t care who you have to screw over to get to the top. You are looking out for Number One, and all that matters is your position, your station in life. And loyalty reads like this: You’re a follower. A pushover. You find the strongest voice, you latch onto it, and you are there ’til the bitter end whether or not it’s in your best interest. You are a good person to have at someone’s side, but you have no backbone.

It’s not too hard to figure out which of the four options are going to look most appealing to the general population.

Goooo Gryffindor!

What many fail to realize is that the downsides of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw are just as undesirable. Intelligence is great—of course it is—but if that’s your primary characteristic, you might also be cold and detached. Wit is entertaining, but it is often scathing as well. If you’re too logical, you run the risk of being too cautious in your approach to life. Not every Ravenclaw chose to fight Voldemort and his followers in Deathly Hallows because they weighed the options, considered every avenue carefully, and decided what they thought about the possible outcomes. That doesn’t make them bad people by any means, but it can mean that Ravenclaws are liable to pursue logic to the exclusion of compassion.

And here’s a good object lesson for Gryffindors from personal experience… I’m a Gryffindor. I know, it’s boring. I’d sort of rather be a Ravenclaw, or maybe a Slytherin. But every time I do one of those dumb online tests or think about it really hard, I know where I’d end up at Hogwarts. Why’s that, you ask?

Funny story: I once participated in a theatre workshop where the instructor had given us this really cool exercise—she would give a group of six or seven of us a word, and we had 10 seconds to work out a tableau that imparted that word to the audience. My group was given “Protect.” We only had enough time to decide who in the group would be protected before she called on us to create the tableau. We assembled the picture and froze. “Well,” she said, in a very Professor McGonagall-y sort of way, “isn’t that interesting.”

Using my peripheral vision, I could just make out the scene we had formed. Every other person in the group was working to corral the person who needed protecting away from harm, leading her to some safe haven. But I (alone) had flung myself in front of her, feet planted, arms spread wide to fend off whatever was coming.

You see where I’m going with this, right? Foolhardy. Inclined to grandeur. Big gestures without much forethought. Gryffindors come with their own special set of issues that are every bit as unattractive as Slytherin egocentricity and the Hufflepuffian potential for playing second fiddle to stronger personalities. The problem is, people in the wizarding world clearly have the exact same preconceptions about Hogwarts Houses. New students come in with all sorts of opinions about where they should want to be. Only people from Slytherin families actually want to be in Slytherin. That’s probably mostly true for Hufflepuffs as well, though they would likely be just as pleased to have their kids end up in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. But there’s a pervading sense that Slytherins are bad news and Hufflepuffs are lame, even among other wizards.

If only there had been someone in those books who could have shifted our perceptions and taught us better—wait, there was. In fact, he had a depressingly abrupt death that you might recall from the end of Goblet of Fire….

Cedric and Amos Diggory, Quidditch World Cup
This kid, right here. He’s kind of the best person ever.

Cedric Diggory was supposed to be the lesson in all of this. Instead of inciting irritation and confusion in readers, the reaction to his selection in the Triwizard Tournament should have only ever been, “Of course the Hogwarts Champion is a Hufflepuff.” That was precisely the point. Of course the person who represents everything excellent about Hogwarts—its students, legacy, caliber—would come from Hufflepuff. Some roll their eyes and claim that Diggory was mis-sorted; clearly he’s a Gryffindor. No, he’s not. Being brave and charismatic does not make you a Gryffindor. Gryffindors can also be smart—Hermione is a prime example who was also not mis-sorted—just as Ravenclaws can be cunning, and Slytherins loyal. The houses are not as cut and dry as they seem. Where you are sorted has to do with what is important to you, what parts of your person need to be nurtured as you’re learning and growing.

Cedric Diggory was the Hogwarts Champion and he was pure Hufflepuff, through and through. Just, honest, hardworking and fair. Helpful, capable, and a fierce friend, just as Dumbledore said. It’s not as flashy as Gryffindor swagger, but it’s infinitely more admirable.

On the other hand, Slytherin presents a unique set of issues in perception. That poor house is the worst kind of self-fulfilling prophecy; it’s obviously possible to be ambitious and still be a good person, but you attract a certain type of personality by making it the soul of your snaky crest. What Slytherin seems to need is more students who are constructively ambitious, and the fact that they don’t have them is largely the wizarding world’s fault—in part due to the reputation of the house, but even more because wizarding society is stagnating in the shadows during Harry’s time. If the future generation continues to build and create better relations with the muggle world, it’s possible that new Slytherins will be the architects of that world, so long as they don’t have all that pureblood station propaganda to worry about anymore. Slytherins are not inherently evil at all, but they need more interesting goals to achieve now that the primary one is no longer “Keep Voldemort happy with my family or we’ll all die.”

And why do we continue to think of Gryffindors as the ultimate heroes? They have those knightly complexes, that’s for sure, and we’ve never quite put our admiration for chivalry to rest. The fact that some of those lionhearts may be enacting impressive feats for their own glorification isn’t as important to readers as the fact that they do it. We also have to consider that being so willing to throw yourself into harms way, but being incredibly flawed in how you go about it, is just plain interesting. Gryffindors make good heroes because their hubris gives them imperfections. It’s fun to watch them land hard when they don’t think things through.

What it means is that Hufflepuffs might actually be too good to be interesting protagonists. And Slytherins won’t get invited to the party until they have new points of interest. Instead of the damage of word association propagated by the Sorting Hat and family histories, it would be better to ignore what people say about the founders and the former alumni, and instead focus on what each house has to offer its students. It’s clear that Harry has adopted this policy by his middle age, prompting him to tell his son Albus that being sorted into Slytherin was really entirely okay as long as it made him happy. The houses should be an exercise in celebrating the diversity of the student population, not a dividing line that makes it easier to bully each other.

Harry Potter, Albus Severus, Deathly Hallows epilogue
A future Slytherin getting all those hugs.

The generation that battled Voldemort was markedly imperfect, but with a little work they could achieve a future where everyone is proud to be sorted anywhere in Hogwarts at all. We should think on that future, and stop giving Hufflepuffs and Slytherins such an unduly hard time.

An earlier version of this article was published in July 2013.

Emmet Asher-Perrin is surely a Gryffindor, but she has friends and family from pretty much every house. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.

About the Author

Emmet Asher-Perrin

Author

Emmet Asher-Perrin is the Entertainment Editor of Reactor. Their words can also be perused in tomes like Queers Dig Time Lords, Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction. They cannot ride a bike or bend their wrists. You can find them on Bluesky and other social media platforms where they are mostly quiet because they'd rather talk to you face-to-face.
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7 years ago

Can’t we hate the entire house system for encouraging petty tribalism and the conceit (especially pernicious in juvenile fiction) that who you are in school necessarily informs the rest of your life?

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@drcox
7 years ago

“Intelligence is always valued, even when people want to tear it down out of spite.” Ah, not where I live! And I want to ask people “So you don’t want Lincoln, Barton, Carver, Edison, Salk, King, and LBJ to have used their minds???” I just keep quiet, though. And it’s not just the people who didn’t go to school after high school who are like this–I know a lot of people who went to college/grad school who don’t value intelligence (tho’ I still contend that higher education should be primarily to get one work . . . rant over).

Most of the sharpest people I know are usually not cool and detached at all.

I’m rereading the books (in reverse order, again, which is interesting) and noticing more about Hermione’s emotional intelligence–she explains to Harry and Ron why Cho is so upset (Order of the Phoenix), and explains to Harry why Ron is jealous after Harry is chosen as a Hogwarts champion (Goblet of Fire) . . . those are the only instances I can remember right now.

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7 years ago

I love Hufflepuff and was even a tad bit disappointed when Pottermore sorted me into Ravenclaw (although not surprised). My husband got Huflepuff though.  Interestingly, I don’t view loyalty in the same way the general public (based on your description) does at all – to me it’s all about having a backbone, and staying steadfast and true to yourself, to your ideals, to others, to your commitments, in the face of adversity, ridicule, or just when you’d rather not.

Although I agree sometimes it’s not quite as flashy.

As for Slytherin, I think Rowling is a little to blame on that one as we never really do get many ‘good’ Slytherins (Snape is his own case, of course, and a complex one).  Even Slughorn, who is good, is ambitious mostly in the self serving way of wanting to surround himself with and facilitate connections between powerful people so he could be influential or get favors.  We don’t see a lot of Slytherins with ambitions to innovate, to change things, to reach new heights, to find creative new ways of doing things.   Another possibility is that they are also often described as ‘cunning’ which is another word that tends to have negative connotations (even though the definition is not strictly negative).

 

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7 years ago

I feel like an opportunity was missed with the headline of this article. Replace Stop with Halt and you’ve got even more alliteration.

As to the topic itself, I agree on the premise stated. I feel like a *lot* of YA lit (at least the popular stuff that gets made into movies) feels the need to have some form of segregation of people that is rather broad and somewhat arbitrary. The Districts from Hunger Games at least makes a bit of sense – they are divided by geography – but still. Why couldn’t District 12 be about more than just coal? What about wild game, or another form of agriculture? Many others do this as well – and though I haven’t read the books OR watched any of the movies, isn’t the theme of the Divergent series the fact that there is someone who “breaks” that segregationist society’s “mold” and exhibits traits of more than one faction?

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Austin
7 years ago

I’m still trying to understand how Peter Pettigrew was sorted into Gryffindor…

michaelalwill
michaelalwill
7 years ago

Completely agree with & @EricSharf in regards to how frequently YA fantasy/spec incorporates division, tribalism, and segregation into its narratives and how toxic this is. What’s especially worrisome to me is the seeming (can’t quite afford that Nielsen BookScan subscription yet) trend that adults are reading more YA than Adult Fiction, which in turn has incentivized publishers and literary agents to seek out more and more YA.

This opens up the possibility that those same adults will fail to challenge the young people in their life to punch above their weight and read more complex works that contain more nuance and natural contradiction (and which contribute to greater critical thinking skills, something sorely lacking in many populations currently). It’s a grim cycle.

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7 years ago

Newt Scamander is a Hufflepuff.  Just saying.  I’m betting that the Capaldi Doctor would have ended up in Hufflepuff in his final years because of his emphasis on kindness.  

My brother gave me a Ravenclaw scarf for Christmas this year and was stunned to find out that Pottermore had sorted me as a Hufflepuff.  Kindness and loyalty beats out brains for those of us much older and wiser than our hotshot graduate school days.  In other words, don’t diss a House that may be yours one day.

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7 years ago

I’d always wished that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been Hufflepuffs instead. It would have been so much better to see them succeed where/when everyone assumed they wouldn’t. There would have been a much better underlying message to the stories as well.

 

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Ian
7 years ago

@4/KalvinKingsley & @6/michaelalwill: Is it really fair to lay the blame for this solely on authors and/or publishers? Tribalism is a useful trope for sorting characters and creating tensions that may be necessary to drive a plot. I’m sure most authors recognize it for what it is; JKR certainly admitted that she introduced characters like Tonks, Slughorn, and McLaggen precisely because she felt that the first few books had been oversimplifying things. But don’t readers  also bear the responsibility to recognize tropes for what they are, and filter their interpretations accordingly? If there is a toxicity resulting from people uncritically accepting tropes in fictional works, I propose the problem runs far deeper than the media industries…

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Sophist
7 years ago

I think the problem with Cedric Diggory is that in the books he comes across as a Mary Sue, while in the movies he’s played by an actor who can’t, you know, act. As a result I never had much emotional investment in him, and he’s most of what we see about Hufflepuff.

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Robb
7 years ago

@@@@@#7,

Newt was the person I thought of as well. He’s an exemplary Hufflepuff, and I think he’s going to continue to be a great example of Hufflepuff potential. As for Capaldi’s Twelve, I always saw him as more of a Ravenclaw (actually, in the beginning, he was very Slytherinish), but I can definitely see Hufflepuff there too.

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7 years ago

I don’t know the Rowling books, but I do know that naming a group something that sounds like ‘slithering’ is a cheap trick. 

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7 years ago

@11 When the Capaldi Doctor’s final lines are about kindness and his final visions were of the people he loved and was most loyal to, it’s about impossible to say that he wasn’t a Hufflepuff at his end although it was a long journey to that point.  

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Girl Scouts 537
7 years ago

Thanks for the article! We just did a whole camp on Hogwarts stereotypes! Each girl in our troop is sorted into a Hogwarts House (we do scouting this way). We talked about these stereotypes and created 1 minute trailer videos trying to break them. Please enjoy our creativity and efforts!

Slytherin: https://youtu.be/50mEaIFBIoc

Hufflepuff: https://youtu.be/Yh-Cc5kq16Q

Gryffindor: https://youtu.be/GBZ7pwe1Wlc

Ravenclaw: https://youtu.be/POR8pzYKv5w

 

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7 years ago

I thought that Hufflepuff’s house trait was being the leftovers. Wasn’t there a song about that? They are the generic guys. In Trek they are the ones who beam down in a redshirt with the three guys from the credits to the planet of death of the week. Although, I might be moved to say that Worf from TNG was probably a Hufflepuff, he got his ass kicked to prove the situation was serious a lot too.

 

Not that I am any great fan of the Gryffindors either, mark you, as their house trait is poor decision making skills and lack of impulse control.

The flaws of Slytherin and Ravenclaw have also been well documented here before now.

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Austin
7 years ago

JK Rowling’s full quote about Hufflepuff:

“This may surprise people, but it is the truth…In many, many ways, Hufflepuff is my favourite House. Here’s my reasoning, bear with me. (Again, I don’t want to spoil things too much for people who haven’t read the whole series, so I’m going to say what I’m about to say quite carefully). There comes a point in the final book where each House has the choice whether or not to rise to a certain challenge, and that’s everyone in the House. The Slytherins, for reasons that are understandable, decide they’d rather not play. The Ravenclaws, some decide they will, some decide they won’t. The Hufflepuffs, virtually to a person, stay, as do the Gryffindors. Now, the Gryffindors comprise a lot of foolhardy and show-offy people, that’s just the way it is, I’m a Gryffindor, I’m allowed to say it. You know, there’s bravery, and there’s also showboating, and sometimes the two go together. The Hufflepuffs stayed for a different reason; they weren’t trying to show off, they weren’t being reckless, that’s the essence of Hufflepuff House. Now my oldest child (my daughter, Jessica) said something very profound to me, not very many days ago, actually, she said to me –and she, by the way, was not sorted into Hufflepuff House– but, she said to me, ‘I think we should all want to be Hufflepuffs.’ I can only say to you, that I would not be at all disappointed to be sorted into Hufflepuff House.”

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AriesMalfoy
7 years ago

I’m a boarding student myself, and we do have houses. Though they aren’t really based on characteristics, we’re still separated; we have different living areas, we take separate classes, and we all have to wear our house colour. My house is called the Snow Leopards, based around musical theatre, there are also the Lions (sportsy people) and the tigers (academic people). All of my summer friends are in the Lions, but that doesn’t mean we hate each other. On the contrary, it just brings us closer together when the summer comes. In class we won’t be able to distract each other, and we can focus on our personal goals, and celebrate together when we finally reach them. Therefore, this house believes that the house system is a good thing.

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Ravenclawed
7 years ago

Likewise my schools have been houses, my senior school wasn’t separated by classes, it was only where you slept that was different (and who you collected house points for) and the competitiveness only came out at inter-house sports… but it was friendly still, it didn’t really matter. You had house responsibilities each week on a rotation and that was about it.

As a child I always wanted to be in Griffindor just because the characters were, but now I’m happy I’m in Ravenclaw (and the other half is in Hufflepuff). It’s a better fit, though not like a glove as people have a whole range of attributes and pigeon-holing doesn’t work – you take it with a pinch of salt. I like that Ravenclaw has Luna who thinks differently about things and you might think is more a Griffindor, but I’d still a Ravenclaw. It also has Lockhart for alumni, proving that just because you supposedly have intelligence, it doesn’t mean you can’t use it for selfish or wrong reasons.

I like to think of the Hogwarts houses like Myers Briggs type indicators, interesting insight, but it’s not the be all and end all. Also my other half is in Hufflepuff which is awesome!

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Amani - Slytherin
7 years ago

I think all this house discrimination is just like the muggle world. People act just like this. It’s an amazing metaphor, and I have a feeling that Rowling did this in some way on purpose…

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Amani - Slytherin
7 years ago

I think that all this house discrmination and such is a great metaphor for the muggle world. People do this all the time. And I have a feeling that Rowling did that somehow on purpose…

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ellie
7 years ago

I was sorted into Gryffindor a few years ago, then recently took the quiz again and lo and behold, I’m a Hufflepuff. It helps that my fictional hero, Riza Hawkeye, is, in my humble opinion, totally a Hufflepuff too. (Mustang is 100% Slytherin, though)

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rubikanon
7 years ago

This article makes some good points. My headcanon (shared by some) is that Kingsley Shacklebolt is a Hufflepuff. I’m a Ravenclaw, but pretty sure two of my dearest friends are Hufflepuffs. They’re capable of achieving great things too. The fanfic I wrote has a Hufflepuff villain because, hey, any house’s values can be twisted into something dangerous.

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7 years ago

I disagree Hufflepuffs wouldn’t make good protagonists… The cost of loyalty would make quite an interesting narrative and fantasy needs more diversity. 

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7 years ago

@14. Girl Scouts 537

You are a great troop leader and your girls are awesome!!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

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Twigryph
7 years ago

Always love your articles, Emily. Another winner. 

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chuck
7 years ago

Tribalism is an excellent trope for life. That’s why it exists. 

Take a lesson from the moralists of yesteryear. They tried to stamp out fun sex. Now there’s Tinder, and Pornhub, etc. 

Sorting themselves into groups is what people do, all of them, including you. You’re doing it right now.

Don’t waste your time trying to stop people from doing what comes naturally. You’re annoying people and wasting your life.

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7thWheel
7 years ago

How do you get a Hufflepuff graduate off of your porch? 

You pay them for the pizza! 

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7 years ago

@27,

Considering that the most famous Gryffindor alumnus is a high school dropout, who never finished his OWLs,  that’s rather a nasty slur against Hufflepuffs.

@26,

Yes, tribalism is pandemic.  Historically, so was smallpox. 

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ad
7 years ago

I imagine Anakin Skywalker would have been in Gryffindor. Certainly not Slytherin – he had not great ambitions for himself..

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7 years ago

@29 You jest, surely. Anakin was full of ambition. When we meet him first, he was plotting on how to enter and win a pod race. He’s full of plans and ambitions long before Palpatine started fanning the flames of it into an all consuming inferno, but Palpatine’s plans would not have worked if Anakin had not been prideful and ambitious (and a little bit callous too, even at a young age) right from the getgo.

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7 years ago

If I remember (I haven’t read the books for years), James Potter was, in many ways, a nasty piece of work: arrogant, bullying, judgmental, and Gryffindor.

Harry’s path may have been harder had he been sorted into Slytherin — he may have found fewer natural allies — but I think it may have been easier had he been a Hufflepuff.

I’d also usually bet on a badger vs a snake. 

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7 years ago

Anakin definitely had ambition – he was frustrated that Obi-Wan was holding him back, wanted to free all the slaves, wanted to save people from dying, felt that he should be all powerful, etc.  I can definitely see some Gryffindor in him, but there was definitely also some Slytherin.  Not that either of those are a bad thing or ensured that he would fall, but to say he wasn’t ambitious is really not true.

opentheyear
7 years ago

As someone who’s come to identify as a Hufflepuff (with a minor in Slytherin), I love this article. Thanks for pointing out Cedric, I cite him frequently when talking to people about my house pride– the Goblet of Fire doesn’t play around!

Also I think it’s interesting that Hufflepuff is seen as the “miscellaneous” house when it’s really the inclusive house– the other three founders were like “yeah I only want the smart kids” or “I only want the pureblood kids” and Helga Hufflepuff was like “nah my dudes, I just want to teach kids how to do magic”.  

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Anonymous
7 years ago

This is HANDS DOWN the best system for this: http://sortinghatchats.tumblr.com/post/121904186113/the-basics

The.Schwartz.be.with.you

“@27 Always love your articles, Emily. Another winner. “

I’m down with you!

Emily, you opened my eyes, I want to be a Hufflepuff…

by the way, I agree with someone above about Slytherin sounding like slythering, which has a strong negative association, as well as Hufflepuff, sounds to much like infantil  Teletubbies to me, so it’s really JK’s fault for us loving at first Gryffindor (Gryffin associates with monarch, the high peak), and maybe Ravenclaw (sounds just way cooler than Hufflepuff, and Raven’s do have more associations with witches and wizards)

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No
7 years ago

You say the badgers ALL stay, though I’m pretty sure Zachariah Smith was seen running for the exit before the final battle.

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Goddessfoox
5 years ago

I’m in Hufflepuff and I wanted to change Houses SO BAD because both of my friends were in Ravenclaw. Then, I did some research on Hufflepuff’s history, common room, and famous Hufflepuffs. I learned that being in Hufflepuff is actually not too bad. Our common room security system is amazing! One tap on the wrong barrel and you get drenched in vinegar! I am now grateful for my House and I am happy to be a Hufflepuff!

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5 years ago

Loyalty isn’t always a virtue, or isn’t an uncomplicated virtue.  Like being loyal to someone or to a group that’s doing wrong things.

I always thought of Umbridge as a Huff gone bad, even if she’s officially Slytherin.