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).