Not To Hash Anyone's Squee....

[redbrunja]

I realize hypothesising what Hogwarts House a Hunger Games character would be in is just a fun fandom exercise but I feel like the debate about which House Katniss belongs to just goes to show what an awesome and complex character Katniss Everdeen is the inherent artificiality of that kind of personality-based division of individuals. Like, I think it tends to lead to a shallowness of characters because it leads readers and writers to think of people as tropes instead of individuals. Rowling didn't manage to pull it off and in situations like Divergent it just comes across and ridiculously arbitrary and nonsensical.

In other news, over at het_reccers the current challenge is 'first times.' Which I find... a promising challenge.

Comments

[zombie_boogie.livejournal.com]

Whenever there's a new round of Let's Sort Other Characters into the HP Houses, I just think it serves to illustrate how inflexible the house designations are. It really does apply to other personality sorting things, but the HP House designations are so prevalent in the pop culture consciousness that I always think of them first. The four house system really does not fit most people, even if people have a dominant house, and it certainly doesn't take into account how people can change over time. It's very much artificial and limiting.

(I tend to like Katniss as a Slytherin, if only because I cherish Slytherin protagonists something fierce, but like most well-rounded characters she has traits the span houses).

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

The four house system really does not fit most people, even if people have a dominant house, and it certainly doesn't take into account how people can change over time. It's very much artificial and limiting.


*nods* Or the way that people can be react to certain situations in one way but to other situations with a completely different dynamic.

And if you like Slytherin protagonists, you have GOT to read The Wizard Hunters by Martha Wells. What prompted me to read it was that I heard the author talking about how after she wrote it, she had a very hard time selling to a publisher, because her heroine didn't fit into any of the typical fantasy archtypes - she wasn't a warrior women who was hard on the outside and soft inside, or a mage, she was an 'unpowered' woman who figures out what she wants and then makes other people have to deal with it. Basically, read this book. It's the first of an awesome trilogy that has a TON of excellent things about it, including a well-drawn matriarchal society, a pairing where the lady is much more cold-blooded and ruthless than the dude, magic, alien invasions, and different worlds.)