Self-fulfilling Stereotyping
House Supremists
I was recently reading some essays (editorials; whatever you want to call them) over at MuggleNet and came across this quote by Tammy Nezol that just caused all sorts of gears to start clicking around in my head:
“If the Sorting Hat did make a mistake, perhaps it was with a Slytherin. Perhaps there is someone out there that starts out giving into their father's ideology, but eventually switches sides. On this note, it is interesting that Rowling has a Slytherin named Montague. For those who don't recognize the name, Montague is Romeo's last name from Romeo and Juliet. Their two families, or houses, were divided by an ancient grudge that ended only with the title characters' deaths. “
This got me thinking on a very important problem at our dear Hogwarts School of Withcraft and Wizardry: the problem of Housism –House-Supremacy, if you will. The school is full of a bunch of Housists.
Now that may sound like a load of nonsense to you, and really it should, because it’s making light of a very serious, very real issue. The idea of prejudice runs rampant in the Harry Potter books. I’m sure the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is the older-than-dirt Pure Blood versus Mudblood duel. And although that’s a very important battle in the book --indeed a central part of what fuels the whole war– that’s a topic for a completely different time. Rather, another very important problem, a problem that faces and shapes every single student of Hogwarts since forever is House Supremacy, needs to be brought to light.
Now, we all understand that a little friendly competition is healthy. Of course it is. Everyone enjoys a football game more if both sides of the stadium are painting body parts, yelling encouraging obscenities, and just altogether have more team spirit in those few hours than they probably do every other day of the year combined. It makes things more personal, more exciting. But things can and occasionally do go too far. Eventually, someone’s going to throw a chair and break someone’s nose, and when bodily harm comes into play, it’s time to reign things in.
The majority of the residents at Hogwarts are students –children. There are teachers (a disturbingly small number), ghosts, centaurs, and other beings of varying magical levels. But I think we can all safely agree that children, specifically teenagers, make up the majority of the people at Hogwarts, which is why it’s rather disconcerting that Hogwarts is, when you think about it, a rough, frightening place. I find it ironic that while everyone considers Hogwarts just about the safest place in the world (despite that every single bad thing in the world seems to have lived there at one time or another...), the students continuously jinx, curse, sabotage, trick, tattle, scare, humiliate, verbally abuse, and physically beat each other up. The students are downright nasty to their classmates. There’s a very real hatred arising from what each house prides themselves on. I mean, just look at the essays on houses at MuggleNet: “Are Hufflepuffs Duffers?” “Gryffindor Equals Bravery” “Slytherin: They Got it and They Flaunt it” “Ravenclaw: Ruthless or Relaxed” “Slytherin: Does EVERYONE Turn Out Bad?”
What I’m trying to say is: each house (although I’m mainly speaking to two specific houses that seem to exemplify sibling rivalry gone awry) view themselves as the best, the most important, the most powerful, the most talented, the most intelligent. This isn’t helped by generalizing the students of each house by casting some descriptions over them that supposedly define them and make them belong in that house. The teachers do it. The parents do it. Historians do it. Even the fans do it (or don’t do it, if they’re trying to do that whole “The Slytherin who didn’t fit because she had a heart of gold and Harry fell in love her and they got married and had eight children” but he never lost his boyishly good looks thing). It’s pretty much as follows:
I say “Bravery”
Okay, so it doesn’t make a very good chant. Not exactly something you’re going to hear at a Quidditch match. But it shouldn’t make a good chant, because it’s wrong. Yep, I said it. I just burst the bubble of every single person who has ever said “You’re very loyal and sweet and hard-working, so you belong in Hufflepuff,” but it’s the truth. You cannot lump everyone into one house or another because there is not one single person in the world who has only the character traits of one house. If you show me one, I will retract my statement. But I’m not worried.
See, because here’s the thing: humans are complex. They are. The hardest working, most justice-driven person in the world could also have an obsessive ambition that warps their view of justice and sends them running off to get a membership card to the Death Eaters Club. A cunning, slightly devious person might also be extremely brave and daring. The most loyal person in the world might be a downright chicken when faced with actual danger. And have you ever noticed that brave people are also typically clever and cunning and loyal as well?
So, what trait do you choose? Do you stick the cunning but brave person in Slytherin where they’ll be heavily influenced by students who themselves are heavily influenced by dark-side-sympathizing parents (and whatever else goes on in that Slytherin common room...)? Do you stick a hard-working Death-Eater Club member in with the “sweet little” Hufflepuffs? Of course not. Hence my question: what trait is it that apparently decides their fate? Because it’s obvious that even if someone possesses all the traits of a Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw, and doesn’t have a bad bone in their body, but is stuck in Slytherin, everyone is going to think they’re the devil incarnate simply because they’re in that house. Obviously there is something wrong in their brain or nature.
Fortunately, it’s not up to a stupid human to pick out what house each kid should go to and thus decide their fate (because apparently people pay more attention to the fact that Voldemort came from Slytherin than that Peter Pettigrew very likely came from Gryffindor). Because that would be too much like playing God. So we have a hat do it for us. Ah, much better. Let the hat pick the most important trait.
Now, I love the Sorting Hat as much as the next girl. I was highly amused when, at Christmas a couple years ago, my younger cousin Megan, seven at the time, received nothing but Harry Potter toys, and went around “sorting” everyone into houses. Go figure, she put all the girl cousins in Gryffindor, all the icky boy cousins in Slytherin, and all the adults that she didn’t want in Gryffindor but whose “feelings she didn’t want to hurt” in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. I tap my foot along to the Sorting Hat songs (there are melodies in my head, of course!) I played along when a kid I was baby-sitting wanted me to “be” the Sorting Hat and perch precariously on a stool. I respect the Sorting Hat. Props to you, oh cap of cloth.
But an idea has been brought to my attention and it’s not one easily dispelled: what if the Sorting Hat is wrong? We know for a fact that on many occasions the Sorting Hat takes several minutes to decide what house a student should be assigned to while at other times it’s instantaneous. Apparently Mr. Hat feels that for some students, their placement in a specific house is obvious. But those others? What about them? He ponders a bit, then makes a decision, and sends them on their way, but the fact is that there was a “but” in there. The Sorting Hat wasn’t positive and therefore it’s possible that whichever trait he chose could be the wrong one. Just because there’s a trait there doesn’t mean it’s the defining one.
Harry thinks about this in the books, of course. He berates himself over the fact that the Sorting Hat wanted to put him in Slytherin and wonders if the Hat made the right choice. Did it? Would it have even thought to put him in Gryffindor if he hadn’t been begging for it to? Most fans assume he’s in the house he belongs to because, come on, everyone knows Harry is ‘just like Godric Gryffindor.’ The Sorting Hat says in its song (Book One): There’s nothing hidden in your head/The Sorting Hat can’t see. Really? So he’s going on the assumption that by age eleven you are who you are and that’s that. At age eleven he can read your mind, see what strengths and weaknesses you possess (keep in mind that your strengths often develop from experience and age, and are often not things you are born with) and accurately stick you in a house. But again, if that’s so, why the pause? Some people’s brains are more complex and it takes longer for him to read them? Or is it that the Sorting Hat understands that it’s not so clear cut and that even though he says he’s the only one for the job, he understands even he can’t be perfect. Even he has to be careful.
So...these pauses... Well, Seamus “...sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.” Is that so? Where else was the Sorting Hat thinking of placing him? We know Hermione could have been a Ravenclaw. “The hat took a long time to decide with Neville.” Oh really. What else was he going to be? A Hufflepuff, perhaps, because of his extreme loyalty and desire for justice? Or Slytherin because he’s going to develop some serious angst and seek some serious revenge for his parents’ circumstances? On the other hand, there wasn’t a second before Draco was declared a Slytherin, and not much longer for Ron to be placed in Gryffindor. Does that mean they don’t possess a single other trait than what is stereotyped for their house?
The Sorting Hat could easily be discussed further, but this was just supposed to illustrate that the categorizing of students into houses supposedly “defining” them starts on day one and may not even be appropriate. The most important thing the Sorting Hat ever says is arguably in book five: Though condemned I am to split you/ Still I worry that it’s wrong/ Though I must fulfill my duty/ And must quarter every year/ Still I wonder whether sorting/ May not bring the end I fear.
When Godric, Salazar, Rowena, and Helga founded Hogwarts so long ago, I don’t think they quite realized that by dividing the school into four houses, they were unknowingly splitting the school into four entities, two of which particularly would really grow to hate each other. They didn’t think about it, split the school up, and then their different views on the goal of the school came to light. And then houses started fighting. And then Salazar Slytherin ran away (which in and of itself defies the common Slytherin stereotype of strength and cunningness and trickery... or does it?) Then, several hundreds years later, we find ourselves at a school with extreme house division.
And here’s the thing: when kids are pitted group against group, stereotyped, discriminated against, do you know what they go on to do? They grow up to pit group against group, stereotype, and discriminate. It’s only natural for them to continue what they grew up doing. They listened to their parents’ views, went to a school where everyone had an assigned place to fit in and conform to, and then go on to be wizards where, along with saying they went to Hogwarts, they find it absolutely necessary to mention what house they were in. That would be like people from the United States going to another country and saying, “I’m from Louisiana,” instead of “I’m from the United States.” A bigger picture is being overlooked.
So what if there were no houses? Well, it would make classes harder, seeing as those are assigned by houses. It would have to be alphabetical or random or specialized –perhaps similar to the education process in muggle schools. Rooming would be a little less organized, as well, as that too would either be random or alphabetical, as in boarding schools and college/university dorms. Quidditch matches probably wouldn’t be as lively, and how would they decide the teams anyways? In fact, competition altogether would probably be pretty low. Houses also provide a family for the students. When Harry first arrives, having made friends with Ron and semi-friends with Hermione, he steps into the Gryffindor family and that’s where he really feels like he belongs for the rest of his school career. He loves it there. Similarly, there are many intimate scenes in the books of the Gryffindor students all gathered together in their common room and, since the Houses are relatively small, this sort of intimacy is possible. Were the school just one big house, it would be harder to form the sort of bonds that students are able to strike up. Oh, and don’t forget that your house also tells you who your favorite teacher and class is (will the stereotyping never end?)
Say, then, that there are houses, but they’re assigned absolutely randomly, perhaps using the Sorting Hat only as an object from which to randomly draw names. What now? Would Neville and Draco make good room mates? Would Draco still be buddies with Crabbe and Goyle if they were in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff? Would Hermione and Pansy Parkinson be best friends if both in Slytherin? The problem here is that, to an extent, the houses are made up of students with similar qualities –at least a few– but so much emphasis is placed on what house one is in that any similarities they may have with students in other houses are completely beside the point. Everyone is so obsessed with their house that they become students of Gryffindor or Slytherin instead of students of Hogwarts. Houses are assigned according to character traits that the Sorting Hat finds, but they then become blueprints to define the students and set the expectations. That’s not fair. A Slytherin is perhaps more likely to go bad than a Hufflepuff, but what is the only side of every issue that the Slytherin student hears? Everyone hears the same thing from day one, so all students are kept in a state of perpetual ignorance. In giving the students a place to belong at school, they are also sheltered them from the possibility of accepting other viewpoints, thus dividing the school and wizarding world even further.
In the fifth book, we see students coming together across the houses to unite together in Dumbledore’s Army, but there is still arguing and betrayal. Is everyone right that the houses represent completely different people and compromise is impossible, or does unity have any chance of spanning the houses when the time comes, for all the fighting and assumptions to be set aside long enough to fight a common enemy? Should there even need to be a common enemy for students of a school to accept each other?
Bottom line: there is no right or wrong “solution” to the division. The houses provide benefits for Hogwarts, but they also have their consequences. The transition into the school may be easier, they may provide students with a family away from home, healthy competition may be supported, but at the same time the competition can get out of hand, house supremacy can take first place on the priorities list, and opportunities for friendships and decision-making based on hearing all sides of the story are completely lost. The stereotypes of the houses can limit a student’s ability to define for themselves just who they are in a time when self-acceptance and understanding are extremely important. A first-year Gryffindor is told from day one that he’s brave; a first-year Slytherin is told from day one that he’s wicked. Who’s getting the better deal?
Of course, don’t just take my word for it. My mate the Sorting Hat rather agrees with me: Oh, know the perils, read the signs/The warning history shows/For our Hogwarts is in danger/From external, deadly foes/And we must unite inside her/Or we’ll crumble from within...
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Credits:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, both by J.K. Rowling
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Written maybe two years ago for an editorial position at some HP site I wanted, but I wound up turning the job down anyways.
You say “Gryffindor”
I say “Wit and Learning”
You say “Ravenclaw”
I say “Loyal and Just”
You say “Hufflepuff”
I say “Cunning and probably going to go bad”
You say “Slytherin!”
“The Sorting Hat’s Ideology”, by Tammy Nezol,
http://www.mugglenet.com/editorials/theburrow/tammy04.shtml