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

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Part of the POINT of the Hogwarts sorting, though, was that it was dumb. Even that hat admits it! The only thing I didn't like about the epilogue (because I am exactly that sappy) was that they STILL SORTED, because up to that point, it felt like the story was shifting away from such arbitrary...ness.

The sorting in Divergent is just bizarre, enough said.

[whisperingwasp.livejournal.com]

Word. I think even Dumbledore thought that the hat placed too many limitations or expectations on his students because it judged them based on a small set of characteristics instead of looking at them as complex human beings. It's no wonder many of the students in Slytherin usually grew up to be morally grey or completely evil because everyone said that's how they were going to turn out.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

I view the sorting as largely arbitrary, done mostly to divide the kids up into somewhat more manageable groups and attempt to organize the natural tendency for teens to clique apart. She'd probably end up in Slytherin due to the 'Any means to achieve their ends' bit.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I think things like Myers-Briggs categories can sometimes be useful in helping people understand each other, but there are way more possibilities there. The fewer options there are, the less it can possibly describe anyone. Only four options? Seriously?

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

Yes. I've always loved categories for analyzing people like astrology, Myers-Briggs, numerology (all based on quizzes in pop books and websites, of course), and all the Quizilla quizzes about what type of fruit and fairy or whatever you are. They only work as a starting point for introspection though, not as a way to determine what you actually are once and for all, or once and for now even.

[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]

Part of the POINT of the Hogwarts sorting, though, was that it was dumb. Even that hat admits it!

*nods* I feel like lip service was paid to that but the narrative itself supports the idea, if that makes sense.


The sorting in Divergent is just bizarre, enough said.

So bizarre.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The Houses were a bad idea, and Hogwarts really set Slytherin to be a great recruiting ground for Death Eaters.

[whisperingwasp.livejournal.com]

No doubt. It reminds me of how racism contributes to terrorism in western society, racist folk condemn and demonise muslims/mexicans/minorities of all sorts and they're surprised when a small minority of them grow up to make negative contributions to society. I love Rowling's books but I really do wish that she had acknowledged how unfairly treated the slytherins were.

[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.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And I hate how there always seems one group of people where it seems to boil down to 'these people are just worthless.'