“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 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
Amy Meyers🏴🇨🇦🇺🇸🐸