The house of ambition?

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Hi, everyone! I do need to chime in on the excellent post on feminsim below--but I just wanted to point out another wildly illogical facet of these books.

I wasn't the first person to notice this, by a long shot. I think Terri said something about it (more than once) and so did Cardigrl, back when she was still on livejournal. But it's worth pointing out again.

Consider that you are a child with--shall we say, unusual talents? Consider that, as scared as you and those around you might be by those talents, you bring them intact to your eleventh birthday. Then you find out you're a wizard.

Rather than rejecting the message, you enter a brand-new world. Can you imagine how that would feel? I know, I know: we were supposed to experience this along with Harry, but he was not actually a Muggleborn, and he did have faint memories (shown in his dreams) of the wizarding world. His home life was also so dreadful (even if played for laughs) that learning that he was special, privileged, talented, and so on had to seem like an escape.

But picture an actual Muggleborn boy or girl entering the wizarding world for the first time. Picture Hermione, for example. Why on earth wasn't she in Slytherin house, if the Slytherins are supposed to be goal-oriented and ambitious? Is there anyone in canon more ambitious than Hermione?

If the wizarding world were logical, far from being the hotbed of purebloods, Slytherin house should have a higher than average percentage of Muggleborns and half-bloods. It should also have a higher than average percentage of working-class kids like young Severus. Instead, Rowling gives us the racist house full of rich people and their retainers. Which makes no kind of sense. In a logical world, as Cardigrl pointed out so many years ago, the racist house full of establishment types would be--

(drumroll)

Gryffindor!

Comments

[torchedsong.livejournal.com]

Ha, well JKR did write on Lockhart's Pottermore article that the one and only spell he had a real ability for was the Memory Charm. Maybe Lockhart really was flinging around convenient Memory Charms left and right, not only to steal other people's achievements and modify them to his own, but to reinvent himself as a witty and original Ravenclaw. :p

Speaking of the article, she does write this about Lockhart and his Ravenclaw status:

Sorted into Ravenclaw house, Lockhart was soon achieving good marks in his schoolwork, but there was always a kink in his nature that made him increasingly unsatisfied. If he was not first and best, he would rather not participate at all. Increasingly, he directed his talents towards short cuts and dodges. He valued learning not for its own sake, but for the attention it brought him. He craved prizes and awards. He lobbied the Headmaster to start a school newsletter, because he liked nothing better than to see his name and photograph in print.

So he didn't care about learning, he wanted the glory and attention he would receive from succeeding in his endeavors. Doesn't sound very Ravenclaw to me, but not every character fits their house perfectly. I suppose I should be astounded JKR didn't use the excuse of Lockhart being a cowardly liar to place him in Slytherin with the rest of the characters she doesn't want us to like....