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TigerShadow wrote:I bought Ginny's wand at Universal. One of the best choices I ever made.

Ah! I still want to go to Universal. That's awesome You had a chance to go.

Belle wrote: While I was studying in Oxford, England, I bought Luna's wand from an amazing book store!

Fancy!
I have a homemade wand, made of a carved wooden piece and painted in white. It's basically Voldemort's, and I still love it. *hides*

My dad's the best; he forewent a backpacking trip—even though he loves backpacking—so he and I could go to Universal for a weekend. Harry Potter's kind of always been our "thing". I can also get discounted Universal tickets because I go to college nearby.

I just started the first book.

GOOD. Join us. Jooooiiiiiiinn uuuuuussssss~

I looked at sortinghatchats and I am a Gryffindor primary and a Ravenclaw secondary.

Question: can you choose your house or not? I am finding conflicting messages from my friends, but everything I've read from years 1-7 and the Cursed Child say "yes, you can choose your house."

Scientific Guy wrote:Question: can you choose your house or not? I am finding conflicting messages from my friends, but everything I've read from years 1-7 and the Cursed Child say "yes, you can choose your house."

The Sorting Hat chooses your house, but you can ask him to be put in a certain house, like Harry did.

Belle wrote:

Scientific Guy wrote:Question: can you choose your house or not? I am finding conflicting messages from my friends, but everything I've read from years 1-7 and the Cursed Child say "yes, you can choose your house."

The Sorting Hat chooses your house, but you can ask him to be put in a certain house, like Harry did.

So if you ask him will he always say "yes"? I don't remember any time when the hat rejected that request.

I just started well I am almost done with the first book of harry potter. What house i'am I I wonder....

Scientific Guy wrote:

Belle wrote:

Scientific Guy wrote:Question: can you choose your house or not? I am finding conflicting messages from my friends, but everything I've read from years 1-7 and the Cursed Child say "yes, you can choose your house."

The Sorting Hat chooses your house, but you can ask him to be put in a certain house, like Harry did.

So if you ask him will he always say "yes"? I don't remember any time when the hat rejected that request.

Albus in the Cursed Child could be a counterargument, but then again in the first alternate reality he was able to force the hat to put him in Gryffindor.

I don't know, to be honest. I haven't read the Cursed Child, so I can't talk about that.

There also isn't much about the Sorting Hat in the books. He sings his song, does his job, and then boom. Most people seem to be happy with their house sorting anyways. I don't think it's really as "mysterious" and such, it just sees where you belong, and normally that's where you want to be too.

Cursed Child sounded like ridiculous, over-the-top fanfiction, so I didn't read it and personally don't consider it canon, Word of Rowling or not.

However! As far as the books are concerned, you can only choose your House if there's a legitimate conflict between which House you should be in; this is what's known as a "Hatstall" (found in the Sorting Hat notes from Pottermore, which I do consider canon because most of it is based on notes that Rowling wrote as she was writing the books; according to the site, McGonagall and Flitwick were both Hatstalls for Gryffindor and Ravenclaw). Remember, Harry never asked specifically to be put in Gryffindor; he asked for not Slytherin. Whatever the Hat chose from there was entirely a toss-up between three other Houses, and it immediately Sorted him into Gryffindor. But the Hat's word is final; according to Pottermore, Neville spent about five minutes arguing with the Hat that he should be in Hufflepuff, but the Hat was resolute and finally put him in Gryffindor. Meanwhile, characters like Malfoy were Sorted the minute the Hat touched their heads; they didn't have time to make any choices, whether they would have done so or not.

And Sorting isn't a cut-and-dry thing based on just your personality, either. People tend to simplify the Houses into "brave, nice, smart, and evil" categories, which is where all the whining about "why wasn't Hermione a Ravenclaaaaawwww" comes from. But Sorting doesn't just reflect basic aspects of your personality; it also reflects what you value and how you react to the world. To take the Hermione example: she doesn't just read a lot and get good grades; she's highly competitive, wants to be the best, vaunts her opinion over everyone else's, and shouts down people who disagree. She's bossy, fiery, and passionate, she seeks justice for the oppressed (sometimes deciding what they need instead of listening to them), and yes, she's incredibly brave. Hermione is absolutely a Gryffindor; it's just that her academic prowess and know-it-all behavior tend to override all of those other traits in people's minds because they insist on categorizing her into this flat "smart girl" archetype.

I'm firmly of the opinion that most of the warped perspective on the Houses comes from the fact that the books are so heavily Gryffindor propaganda. Slytherin is about Cunning not evil. Probably why HPMOR is my favorite of the books.

Eh, I never cared for MOR; it always seemed like some edgelord trying to act like they knew better than Rowling but ended up writing about completely different characters so they might as well have written an OC anyway. And the books pretty clearly show the flaws of the Gryffindors. When the founder of your House puts a murder snake in the school because he's just that racist; not a single Slytherin besides Slughorn and Andromeda Tonks says "hey, maybe being okay with racism and genocide isn't cool"; and while you run into some truly bad Gryffindors and even the good ones are flawed, they've largely been the ones spearheading the fight against the Wizard KKK, I think that may be a sign that there's less propaganda and more Slytherin Is Actually House Racist.

Don't get me wrong, I think Rowling missed an opportunity to portray some good Slytherins, but since she's the writer of the books, we kind of have to take what she says in the books as canon. And canonically, many Gryffindors did actively fight against evil oppressors, many Slytherins did benefit from systems that were engineered to favor them and were okay with race-based and class-based bullying, and not a single Slytherin protests that this isn't what their House should be about. I think it would be an interesting post-canon story to see a future Slytherin grow up and take ownership of the heinous things that were done in the name of Slytherin by Slytherins and call those who benefitted from those deeds to strive to be better and redeem the House, but as it stands in canon, I can't really see Slytherin as victims and Gryffindors as oppressors or overrated or something.

(Then again, I am a Gryffindor, so I'm probably a smidge biased, but I'm also the kind of person who thinks they're the Worst Ever if they can't save everyone, so take that as you will.)

Oh I definitely agree MOR is heavily flawed. What I really love about it is how it explores the potential of the magic system. Rowling built a fantastical world but never really went in to the potential of what you could do with it. I'd be fascinated to see what she could have done if it had started as a more serious series, rather than as it did with it's Roald Dahl like beginnings.

All that said I grew up in a Harry Potter is evil house and didn't read it until my late teens and I marathoned the books in a week. So my perspective on it's kinda weird. But Rowling's writing is utterly engrossing.

On the whole Gryffindor/Slytherin thing and canon I've always just assumed that's it's unreliable narrator/Dahl extremism. That and the "good guys" leaving Harry with his relatives without a shred of protection for his mental well being got me on their bad side immediately. As written yes Malfoy is no victim. But I'd argue he should be. He's just got so much more potential than the boy who lived. He grows up with a Father more abusive than the Dursleys and at the end of the day he's just trying to survive. There's so many ways he could have been utilized as a compelling character.

But as you said house bias. And it really just shows how passionate Rowling has made the fanbase.

So... I read The Cursed Child. Literally felt like a fan fiction. A poorly written one, where the author had only watched the movies and not even read the books. Except she wrote them... sooooooooo....

2/10. Don't recommend.

Bethany Shepard wrote:A poorly written one, where the author had only watched the movies and not even read the books. Except she wrote them... sooooooooo....

The way I look at it is that Rowling didn't really do anything besides assist, and the other two writers did pretty much everything. This wasn't a problem with the 1-7 books because she was able to write completely independently.

Scientific Guy wrote:The way I look at it is that Rowling didn't really do anything besides assist, and the other two writers did pretty much everything. This wasn't a problem with the 1-7 books because she was able to write completely independently.

Yeah, that's what I've deduced as well. Nothing about it even seemed her style.

I liked the entire series though I think my favorite might have Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire because I enjoyed the wizard tournament.
I took the Pottomore Quiz and a different Sorting Hat quiz and I got Ravenclaw on both of them.