The Hogwarts House System, and its Connexion to the Politics of the Wizarding World

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

I’m not entirely sure that this is the best place to post this essay, but as it concerns issues which we frequently comment about here, I thought I might as well share it with you. As you may be able to guess from the title, it contains my thoughts on the House system and how it connects to the politics of the wizarding world. Enjoy! :)

 

 

Theoretically, at least, the Sorting Hat sorts students based upon their innate personalities; thus, brave students go into Gryffindor, clever ones into Ravenclaw, hard-working ones into Hufflepuff and cunning ones into Slytherin. It seems unlikely, however, that this is the only – or even the main – factor in the Hat’s choice. For a start, we know that certain families tend towards certain Houses (the Weasleys all seem to be Gryffindors, for example, whilst Draco’s ancestors were apparently all in Slytherin). Family members do not all share the same personality, however, and, if personality were the main factor in the Hat’s choice, we would expect virtually every family to have members in each House. Secondly, many people seem to have been sorted into the “wrong” House; Crabbe and Goyle, for example, never display any signs of cunning or ambition, and Albus Dumbledore seems more like a Ravenclaw or Slytherin than a Gryffindor. This would be more explicable if we take the view that the main factor in students’ House choices is, in fact, their own personal preferences. The wizarding world seems fairly corporatist, and family unity is highly prized (hence, for example, the Weasleys’ anger when Percy chooses to side with the Ministry over his father), so it seems quite likely that children would have a strong preference towards being sorted into their parents’ House; this would also explain the fact that students frequently seem not to display their House’s preferred qualities to any great degree.

Wizarding politics seems to be mostly split between those who support the rights of the old Pureblood families, and those who advocate greater inclusion of Muggleborns into wizarding society and politics. This division seems to be reflected in the school House system. Slytherin House’s reputation as the home of the rich and privileged and a bastion of Pureblood supremacy suggests that it is the House of choice for pro-Purebloods; Godric Gryffindor, on the other hand, was described by Rowling as “an enlightened fighter against anti-Muggle discrimination”, suggesting that, from the beginning, his House has been associated with the pro-Muggleborns. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff don’t seem so strongly aligned; possibly they are both halfway houses (no pun intended), containing a mixture of pro-Purebloods and pro-Muggleborns, and aligning themselves with whichever political faction currently has the upper hand.

The fact that Slytherin and Gryffindor apparently clashed over whether or not to include Muggleborns suggests that this issue has been an important one in wizarding politics for many centuries. As society’s attitudes are never static, the balance of power will probably have swung like a pendulum from one side to another, with first the Pureblood Faction, then the Muggleborn, having the upper hand. At the time of the HP novels, it seems that the pro-Muggleborns are in control; not only does Mr. Borgin complain that “wizarding blood is counting for less and less everywhere”, the alignment of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Houses with Gryffindor against Slytherin would make more sense if the political winds were blowing in the former’s favour. It would also explain why Voldemort’s followers mostly seem to be from Slytherin House: rich aristocrats are usually the least likely to try and overthrow the established order, having as they do the most to lose and the least to gain; if, however, they’ve felt their power and influence being eroded over the past decades, and this process seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future, they might be tempted to rise up in rebellion in order to prevent this from happening.

It seems likely that most Dark Wizards come from whichever faction is currently losing. As of the late twentieth century, this means that Voldemort and most of his supporters are from Slytherin; when the Purebloods had the most influence, Gryffindor was probably the “dark” House. Which brings us onto a certain infamous line: in PS, when Harry is worried about being sorted into Hufflepuff, Hagrid consoles him by saying that Hufflepuff is better than Slytherin, adding that “There’s not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin.” At first glance, this seems ridiculous (what, so there were literally no Dark Wizards over the past millennium who were in Gryffindor, Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw?), but it may be that Hagrid’s definition of “goin’ bad” isn’t the same as most people’s. By way of analogy to Muggle dictators, Slytherin Dark Wizards would mostly be like General Franco, trying to return the wizarding world to a mythical golden age before their society was corrupted by foreign elements. Gryffindor ones, on the other hand, would be more like communist revolutionaries, trying to overthrow those in power to create a more egalitarian society. Hagrid’s blood status makes him a natural member of the Gryffindor faction, and it seems quite likely that he would sympathise with the aims, if not the methods, of these Gryffindor Dark Wizards. If this is the case, then it may be that he doesn’t consider any Gryffindor Dark Wizard to be bad – misguided, certainly, but not evil, unlike the Slytherins, who want to keep people like him down and deny them equal rights and opportunities. From his point of view, therefore, “All bad wizards are Slytherins” might be a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

The Gryffindor House-Slytherin House hostility also makes more sense when viewed through this lens. From the Gryffindors’ point of view, the Slytherins certainly are despicable: they’re seen as stupid and ugly (and yet, at the same time, as a dangerous threat, mirroring many real-world examples of prejudice), and virtually anything they do is considered bad by default, even when, in objective terms, they’re often little worse or even better than the Gryffindors (see, for example, practically any chapter in any Harry Potter book). This would be extremely over-the-top if it were a simple example of inter-House rivalry; if seen as a continuation of a centuries-old feud, however, it seems more explicable. (As mentioned above, wizarding society is very corporatist, so it seems quite likely that children would inherit their parents’ political views.) It also explains the hatred of the Malfoys for the Weasleys: as an old Pureblood family, the Weasleys would seem to be natural Optimates (indeed, it may be that they were until a few generations ago, which would explain why they are still Pureblood despite being so pro-Muggle), and thus would be considered class traitors by the Malfoys.

We aren’t really told the Slytherin view in the books, probably because Harry aligns his world-view almost entirely with the Gryffindors. This makes the Slytherins come across as ridiculous caricatures in places; if viewed through the lens of “Harry Potter as political propaganda”, however, their characterisation starts to make more sense.

 

Comments

Re: don't mind me, got a little carried away here...

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/The magical community has all these craptastic jobs for various things - you mean to tell me a social worker that would check up on adopted/orphaned magical kids is out of the question? So obviously they didn't learn anything from Tom Riddles life of dumping a magical kid off on someone else./

Nor did they learn anything from the case of Tom Riddle's mother. Merope may have not been a child, but she was still extremely vulnerable and in need of help. A Ministry official himself saw how bad her circumstances were. But after he does his job of sending her brother and father to Azakaban, that's it. Nobody ever bothers to check up on her again.

And then once she dies giving birth to her son, the same thing happens to him. The Hogwarts staff presumably knows where wizarding children live in order to owl them acceptance letters, but they can't be bothered to use that knowledge in order to check up on the children?

I mean, I know that we had a discussion in an earlier post about the likelihood of magical children being abused in this day and age, but what about in Tom Riddle's day? Sure, he wasn't living in the Middle Ages, but the measures that Muggles took against people who were perceived to be "mad" or "different" in those days were nothing to brag about. Tom had every reason to fear the asylum. I don't know how much they would have been able to get away with, considering that he was a minor, but considering that electroshock therapy treatments were permitted, as well as other unsavory procedures, what exactly would have happened if Tom had been subjected to those?

I mean, good grief, what if Mrs. Cole had been an extremely religious woman who assumed that Tom was being possessed by a demon and hired a priest to forcibly exorcise him? What if the Dursleys had also been extremely religious and wanted to "stamp the magic out" of Harry that way? What would the wizarding world have done about that?

/Magical people don't mind making muggles forget who they are but heaven forbid they check up on a 1 year old child who's parents got murdered./

Maybe that's why wizards tend to have no misgivings about wiping Muggles' memories. They themselves are content to conduct their lives in a state of blissful oblivion and ignorance, maybe they reason that Muggles would feel the same way.

/The Dursley's knew about magic, why wouldn't they knock on the door and explain what happened? They didn't even give the Dursley's a shread, a dip...a grain of respect to know anything but expected them to automatically want to take Harry./

The wizarding world just has a really weird relationship with the relatives of Muggleborn students in general. The Ministry allows them to know about the wizarding world and allows them to enter it, but Hogwarts doesn't bother to keep them well-informed about their children's well-being. We see Hermione's parents go shopping with her in Diagon Alley in the second book, but don't ever find out if Hogwarts informed them about Hermione being Petrified. I assume that Muggle parents are under some kind of agreement with the wizarding world to not let other Muggles know about magic. (Although I don't know how it's enforced. Through threats of Obliviation, maybe?)