Free Hat, Sort Your Friends: Which Hogwarts House for Which OT Poster?

[sophie]

So today I was wandering around the wilds of the internet and stumbled upon sortinghatchats a delightful little tumblr blog that has taken the Sorting Hat and Four Houses from the Harry Potter universe and tried to establish a deeper rationale for the attributes that constitute the tetrachotomy.

So for those who don't know, in the school from the Harry Potter universe, students in their first year are assigned to one of four houses, corresponding to some overriding character trait. To put very simply these are:

Gryffindor: bravery and moral rectitude
Ravenclaw: knowledge
Slytherin: ambition
Hufflepuff: everybody else/hard work/friendliness

However sortinghatchats found those definitions to be...lacking and so, going through the source material and JK Rowling's statements about the characters and the houses proposed an alternative two-layered system for defining house affiliation. Due to lack of foresight these are called your "Primary" and "Secondary" sort. Essentially these answer two defining elements of your personality: the "Primary" looks at why you do what you do - your motivations, value system, most fundamentally how you define your ideology, while the "Secondary" explains how you put it into practice - the mechanical way that you go about solving your problems. For brevity's sake I won't quote the whole thing because it is an absolutely massive wall of text, but I encourage you to go read the link above for specifics on how things shake out, and here to see them apply these criteria to other pop culture figures. I've included the basics in a spoiler as well, but the tl;dr is:

Primary:

Secondary:

Spoiler more thorough explanation :

Primaries are defined by the axes idealist/loyalist (whether you are committed to people or a creed) and constructed/felt (whether the justification for your actions comes from a constructed ideology or from gut reactions). To apply it to the houses:

Gryffindor: ideologically attached to a personal moral compass. You do things because it is the right thing to do. While both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor are both driven by a personal moral system, the difference is that if you had to make a snap decision a Gryffindor Primary would make their choice because it felt right while a Ravenclaw Primary would question if the "gut feeling" is really justified, and would likely act against the gut feeling. Gryffindors are idealist and felt

Ravenclaw: ideologically directed by a personal moral system that is constructed and fairly routinely being challenged and revised. The system doesn't have to be wholly internally developed - in fact more often than not a Ravenclaw's ideological system derives from an extrinsic moral system that they have encountered and attached themselves to: a Ravenclaw cop might be committed to an ideology that posits the law as absolute and wholly just, for instance. Additionally the difference between a Ravenclaw cop in this example and a Gryffindor cop would be that a Gryffindor cop might let a sympathetic criminal go (the crime was justified and it "felt" right to him) while a Ravenclaw cop, based in an external creed, would say "the law's the law" Ravenclaws are idealist and constructed

Hufflepuff: Hufflepuffs are driven by their attachment to people, to whom they are loyal to a fault because "people are people", and they hold a strong attachment to "fairness". Like Gryffindors their rationale is based on feeling rather than an extrinsically constructed credo and so what constitutes "people" and what constitutes "fair" can be mutable concepts. The main points with Hufflepuffs is that they define their community based on groups (as opposed to a Slytherin who does so on an individual basis), and they emphasize helping and focusing on people rather than ideals. Hufflepuffs are Loyalist and Felt

Slytherin: Slytherins, as opposed to Hufflepuffs who seek to define and help "people", define an "us" or "our own" and focus exclusively on protecting and advancing that. They tend to do this on a person-by-person basis, and it is through this that Slytherin get the bad reputation in the books for being ruthless and selfish - these are the sorts of people who are opposed to immigrants because they will make it more difficult for their children to find work - but they are also extremely loyal towards and protective of those whom they trust. Han Solo from Star Wars would be an example: devious and apparently untrustworthy, he nevertheless fights for the duration of a galactic war he is ideologically unconcerned about solely because people he cares for - Leia and Luke - are. Slytherins can also get a bit tricky to peg down because defining your whole world around protecting and advancing yourself and your own leaves a lot of unaddressed ideological holes and these can be filled with all manner of other extrinsic credos or justifications.

Secondary

Secondary is the way in which you go about doing things. The skills you rely on when push comes to shove. The two axes around which Secondary is defined are improvisational/foundational - this is, whether your solution is something you established or constructed beforehand and brought with you, or your solution is improvised on the fly without forethought or preparation - and inspirational/situational - whether or not other people are a deciding factor in solving your problems.

Gryffindor: Inspirational and Improvisational, their problem solving generally involves charging headlong into a problem and overcoming it either through sheer force or inspiring others to help them on the fly

Ravenclaw: foundational and situational. They research, they learn, they build, they plan, and only after planning do they act. They value acquiring knowledge and information for the sake of having the information at hand.

Hufflepuff: foundational and inspirational. They work hard, and whatever endeavor they choose to work at they do so consistently. While they don't rouse devotion like Gryffindor does, they develop tight-knit social circles through consistent interaction. A Hufflepuff secondary might be the concert virtuoso who got there, not by an innate talent, but by practicing scales for 8 hours a day every day for a decade. This doesn't just apply to the mechanical; Hufflepuff also solve problems by building wide and sturdy social structures through ceaseless and endearing loyalty - they will always and have always been there for you, so when they need you you trust innately that their reason is worthwhile.

Slytherin: improvisational and situational. Whereas Gryffindors bash down the front door a Slytherin adjusts, never committing too fully to any one approach until victory is assured. They tend to work alone or in small groups of trustworthy and competent confidantes as more people requires coordination which limits options and maneuverability.

Well that was much longer than I thought it would be. I do have some quibbles with how the system defines some of the divides - in particular the doctrine vs gut dichotomy used to divide Griffyndor and Ravenclaw, and the people/individual identity divide between Hufflepuff and Slytherin, but that's perhaps for another thread.

Anyway, now that we've got that all out of the way, I kick it to you, fair cfcites: which OT posters belong to which houses, both Primary and Secondary? Since this combines the two best most funnest things to do in cfc, viz. getting way too analytic of Children's media and gossiping about other people, this should make for a rollicking good thread, non? Plus it's not another goddamn political thread. Speaking of which, no politics guys; you can point to a poster's politics as indicating what house they belong to, but whether those political opinions are right or wrong is immaterial to this thread and I kindly ask you to take it to any of the 60 other politics threads we have on the first page.

Any further questions about the system you can find on the tumblr page, which I linked above, or I can answer too. For reference, you can only discuss posters who have explicitly opted-in to be talked about, as well as anybody who is a member of the permanent opt-in usergroup, which is here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/group.php?groupid=329. I'll keep a running list of anybody who has opted in in-thread below.

So to kick it off:
Phrossack: Hufflepuff Primary with a Ravenclaw Secondary - You seem to have a strong attachment to the value of people, and have shown a disgust when people make statements that value an ideology or tenet over an individual. The Ravenclaw secondary is a bit easier - you like collecting information. Although sometimes you complain about the utility of the information you are collecting, you still collect it. You also seem to value being able to accomplish your tasks through your own merits.

madviking: Griffyndor/Griffyndor - You tend to be committed towards doing what you feel is right, and what is right often comes from how something feels to you. I'd say you're also a Griff secondary - you tend to be improvisational in my experience and you usually like involving others in that process.

Hygro: Ravenclaw/Slytherin - You have a very matter-of-fact way of looking at the world and everything relates neatly to it. Activity-wise you seem quite mutable, you try lots of different things and when something isn't working out you're happy to switch it up or diversify.

In-thread Opted-in posters:
Owen Glyndwr

 

[gay_Aleks]

I'm going to opt in. Although, it looks kinda like one of those political compasses...

 

[Lohrenswald]

Opting in wohey

 

[Synobun]

Opt-in, sure why not?

 

[Lohrenswald]

Opt-in, sure why not?

you already are in permanent opt-in SLYTHERIN
actually that seems more gryffindore out of these definitions

 

[Synobun]

you already are in permanent opt-in SLYTHERIN
actually that seems more gryffindore out of these definitions

I am, but not once has anyone ever said anything about me on CFC so I figured making a post in here increases my chances slightly.

 

[Daw]

Count me in. Looks like fun

Hey, is it possible to have a sub-primary and a sub-secondary?

 

[useless]

I opt in! Looks cool to me.

 

[Arakhor]

Why not? That said, I just looked at the information provided and rather surprised myself as to which house I'd likely be in.

 

[El_Machinae]

Is the auto opt-in group still available?

 

[warpus]

Sign me up for a tinfoil dragon hat or whatever, opting in

 

[Lohrenswald]

Any further questions about the system you can find on the tumblr page, which I linked above, or I can answer too. For reference, you can only discuss posters who have explicitly opted-in to be talked about, as well as anybody who is a member of the permanent opt-in usergroup, which is here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/group.php?groupid=329. I'll keep a running list of anybody who has opted in in-thread below.

The problem with these threads is that everybody wants to be discussed, and few discuss others. I know I'm contributing to that now

eh so

Daw seems like he might be hufflepuff primary and gryffindore secondary

 

[Angst]

Opting in, of course.

 

[Tahuti]

I opt in.

Cheezy the Wiz: Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff - Strongly believes in a certain strain of thought and seeks ways to make it work to the benefit of the community.

Hygro: Ravenclaw/Slytherin - Can't possibly be otherwise.

Farm boy: Gryffindor/Hufflepuff - Very soft-spoken, with a strong sense of ethics.

 

[Leoreth]

Not sure I'm here often/consistently enough, but what the hell. Opt in.

 

[Aea]

I'll throw myself in the hat.

 

[Joecoolyo]

I came into this thread expecting to Free Hat.

Spoiler :

However, this thread is interesting in itself. I'm opted in as part of the group and if I have time later I'll sort some of you fellas.

 

[Bootstoots]

The opt-in group is still active and works, but I'll opt in here too.

 

[Evie]

I wonder if I post anywhere near enough for anyone to rank me, but opting in.

 

[Zkribbler]

So today I was wandering around the wilds of the internet and stumbled upon sortinghatchats a delightful little tumblr blog that has taken the Sorting Hat and Four Houses from the Harry Potter universe and tried to establish a deeper rationale for the attributes that constitute the tetrachotomy.

I spit on these "deeper rationales." They are not Rawlian in nature. Most likely, they are a Slytherin plot. I'm sure the Quibbler will soon expose all.