[ SECRET POST #2242 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2242 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 022 secrets from Secret Submission Post #320.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[author_by_night]

I also think there was supposed to be more complexity to the Sorting than JKR ever outwardly relayed. She was subtle. For instance, people always said that Percy leaving his family was more of a Slytherin thing than a Gryffindor thing, but technically he was just going to extremes to support the cause he decided to fight for. Not saying it was a wise choice, hurting your family's pretty cold, but a lot of causes "brave" people have fought for in history haven't exactly been just.

[intrigueing]

Yeah, there was nothing Slytherin-y about Percy leaving his family. Sure he was ambitious and all, but it wasn't his ambition that drove him to do it.

And then there's McLaggen, who takes "daring, nerve and chivalry" to all their douchiest possible interpretations.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're inventing complexity where there isn't any? Like, I think you're creating justifications for a system that just ultimately isn't that deep or that well thought through and that doesn't work. And they're good and valid justifications, and you can make a system that does work if you rely on them, but I don't know that this is a case of JKR being subtle; more a case of her world-building not really having depth. Which is fairly endemic to the series

and let me be clear: I don't think this is a fault of the work - the world does what it needs to do. It's a marvelously interesting world with a great aesthetic and atmosphere. It's a great setting. It doesn't need to hold up rigorously or have astounding depth, and it mostly doesn't. And the Sorting Hat and the Houses is one of those cases: it provides a great atmosphere, a link to the past that JKR is invoking, and a ready-made dynamic structure for relationships and plot, so the fact that it doesn't really hang together on close examination doesn't matter much.

[(Anonymous)]

Except for how the system pretty much DOES hang together for the purposes of the book? How does it "not hang together"? It serves its purpose perfectly well, especially as it's supposed to be arbitrary and unfair and not supposed to be a normative argument about the characters. The whole system is very explicitly called out as being flawed and problematic and just getting in the way of unity by the frickin' Sorting Hat itself. In front of a huge crowd of student. In song.

[(Anonymous)]

The Sorting Hat says that the houses take the divisions too seriously, iirc, and that unity is also important. But it doesn't take the sorting system itself to task.

The reason the houses do not hang together is because the character of each house is not described in a realistic or comprehensive way, and because the book is eternally unclear on what being in a house implies, particularly in relation to moral choice. To put it in more banal terms, the problem is in part (as OP points out) that the definitions of the houses, esp Slytherin (and particularly if you analyze the actions of the Slytherins rather than bromides about how they're ambitious but not necessarily evil [Slughorn excepted ofc]) and Hufflepuff, are never very coherent. So it's difficult to say what the actual character of each house is, based solely on evidence from the books. The definitions given of houses are ambiguous, but the books rely (in a lot of ways) on them NOT being ambiguous - particularly when the books use house as a proxy for morality. Which they totally do, although never in a clear-cut and unambiguous way, adding another layer of confusion to the question.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

LOL omg what is this comment please don't tell me you actually believe this...?

[(Anonymous)]

Wow. Someone needs a dose of MST3K mantra. IT'S JUST A BOOK. PLEASE RELAX. IT'S NOT A CRIME FOR FANS TO HAVE FUN SCRUTINIZING IT FOR THEIR OWN PERSONAL ENJOYMENT. THERE'S REALLY NOTHING AT STAKE HERE.

*pets*

[(Anonymous)]

lol so why are you yelling at me for scrutinizing it for my own enjoyment

[(Anonymous)]

I don't understand how you can "invent complexity where there isn't any". It's not as though JKR had to be consciously aware of every possible meaning of every word she wrote in order for her text to be up for interpretation.

Reading deeper layers and complexity into what the original author thought was a fairly simple straightforward story has been a staple of fiction since the printing press was invented. It's responsible for entire new genres.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the reader interpreting things. I do think it's important to maintain a distinction between what really is in the text, and what isn't. And I think that a lot of the ideas that fans come up with to justify incongruous features of the text - as interesting as they are, and as much as they can be influential - simply aren't in the text; they're creative inventions, or creative misinterpretations. Which isn't a bad thing, again, it just is what it is.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, yes, but how do you KNOW which is which? Do you have a special link to JKR's brain? Do you have some kind of special proof that your interpretation is somehow more accurate than anyone else's?

If not, I don't really get what's so "important" about "maintaining distinctions". It's not a sacrosanct political document upon which vital legislation depends on the minute details of its interpretation.

If people's interpretations are ridiculous, people will point and laugh. If their interpretations are good, people will be pleased and it will enhance their enjoyment of the book. And if it's not precisely what JKR was thinking, how is that relevant or important or game-changing in any way? Either way, it's just a nice little fantasy book.