I was beyond excited to get Sorted. You. Have. No. Idea. And I had a lot of faith in Jo's Sorting test. I know it would be fun and clever, and it was...to an extent. I always said I would be happy getting Sorted into any house unless it was Ravenclaw. So technically, I should be happy. I should be. Why am I not? Why am I actually sort of totally and completely ticked off?
Well, here's the thing. I think it's totally rigged.
If you aren't on Pottermore yet, or if you just haven't noticed, the number of members in each house are curiously close. Currently as I look at the page, the numbers of students are as follows:
Gryffindor: 90,885
Ravenclaw: 91,272
Hufflepuff: 91,378
Slytherin: 90,391
I refuse to believe that it just played out this way. There's just no way. It's understandable that they would want to keep the numbers even though - solely for the House Points feature. If the number of students in each house were hugely uneven, then the houses with fewer students wouldn't stand a chance at winning the House Cup. But of course this isn't enough to assuage me. I'M A SLYTHERIN. I'm not super-friendly enough for Hufflepuff by any means. I'm not super loyal. I'm ambitious, pretty selfish, and super strange. (And also probably very hard on myself. As a second choice, I'd probably be a Gryffindor.) A better test would have divulged this.
Somewhat moving on... (I don't know when/how I'll get over this...) All of this !!!brand new information on Hufflepuff house!!! is total crap. The description of the common room was really interesting and well-written, but the whole description of the traits of Hufflepuffs in the Welcome Message was just confusing. Basically, Hufflepuffs are: trustworthy, loyal, and protective of friends and family. Quote: "Nobody intimidates us." "We've produced the fewest Dark wizards of any house in the school." These traits totally reek of inconsistency with the Hufflepuff characters we have met in the books. Let's break it down:
Cedric Diggory, probably (sadly) the most prominent Hufflepuff, was a dick. But maybe that's just my opinion. I'm aware that he helped Harry out a few times, but in a rather shady fashion, if you ask me. He was arrogant to almost James Potter status. I truly saw Cedric Diggory as more of a Gryffindor than a Hufflepuff. (He was insanely brave to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. AND he did well in it.) As for the other Hufflepuff kids we met, they were so very undeveloped that it wouldn't even be fair to judge if they actually belonged there or not. On the upside though, if every Hufflepuff were like their Head of House, Professor Sprout, I'd be a very happy Puff.
So this is why I really regret to say that the entire House concept is very, very flawed. You simply can't partition people off like this based on four or five broad personality traits. And not allowing them to interact with other types of personalities is probably unhealthy. It unfortunately kind of reminds me of sororities or fraternities - only hanging around one type of person under the flawed idea that it will help you grow and form relationships. Well, the entire idea of Greek life is a whole 'nother topic entirely, but you can see what I mean. It's not healthy, it's over-competitive and honestly straight up pointless. The students of Hogwarts are separated nearly 24/7. They can only eat with their house, they can only dorm with their house, they can only take classes with their house and maybe one other house at a time. It's no wonder that Harry never made friends with any Hufflepuffs; he didn't see them nearly enough to probably even pick one out of a crowd. (Not minding the inconsistency in the fact that the Welcome Message also states that Puffs get along best with Gryffindors.)
So I'll take this whole Sorting deal as a grain of salt. It's a bitter outcome, but there's far more flaws in Pottermore than just this. It's just becoming even clearer that we Harry Potter fans... we're just never, ever, ever satisfied.
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