“Clearly, there are only four kinds of student: brave but not smart, smart but not evil, evil but not brave, and chubby.”
“Well yes, obviously.”
“And the way to teach these students is to have a talking leather hat decide which one they are and then make them fight each other.”
In hindsight Rowling’s self-loathing and hatred of any idea of self-selected identity is obvious from the text. None of her characters choose for themselves who or what they want to be.
@mhoye I’m in the minority here, but I just don’t buy the “it was always clear from the text” argument.
To your particular point: in “here’s the moral of the book” scene at the end of the first book, Harry expresses to Dumbledore his doubts about whether he was placed in the correct house, and Dumbledore tells him that the hat placed him where it did because he chose it, and that is the strongest and best reason to be placed on a particular path. In other words, the book’s Voice of Moral Authority directly refutes your reading.
I don’t think it was always there. I think she betrayed the moral fiber of her books — wrote down caricatures of the kinds of people she knew she ought to be, then got filthy rich and stopped trying to be that person.
Money and fame do seem to have a serious corrosive effect on any conscience or perspective a human being might have once possessed.
@katrinakatrinka @violetmadder @inthehands
Yes. #Billionaires should be taxed into -extinction.
I am reminded by this thread that #WaltDisney was sort of a horrible person as well.
No point really, just that pop culture likes what it likes, sugar, cocaine, violence, titillation, porn, and entertainment created by monsters sometimes...
@mhoye each student engaged iwith the hat: “It spoke to the wearer inside of the hat with a small, quiet voice, using Legilimency to interpret their thoughts and respond to them. After a time of consideration, the hat announced its choice aloud for all to hear, and the student joined the selected house.” https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Sorting_Hat & references therein
Absurdity is unnecessary. Shape is an obvious example of free-will. JKR’s subsequent words are indefensible. Start there.
The Sorting Hat was a sentient magical hat at Hogwarts that was used to determine which of the four school Houses was the best fit for each new student. These four Houses were Gryffindor, the house of bravery, Hufflepuff, the house of hard work, Ravenclaw, the house of intelligence, and Slytherin, the house of ambition.[2] The Sorting Hat originally belonged to Godric Gryffindor, one of the four founders of Hogwarts.[3] It was normally kept in the Headmaster's office until it was needed for...
@mhoye i have no wish to be fair to her, but: welcome to english schooling up to about 1980. she did not invent this.
in fact, it was arguably worse than that: you were assigned a house completely at random.
mhoye
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