With the last segment of “The Deathly Hallows” ending the Harry Potter saga this summer, British author J.K. Rowling is venturing further into her enterprise with the website Pottermore. The website opens for the public in October and provides a unique reading experience for fans of the series.
According to the Pottermore website, features of the website include exclusive content, more information about characters and the ability to follow Harry through the pages of his seven-year foray through the British wizarding world through “moments.” Users can also visit Diagon Alley, where they can be sorted into houses, brew potions, cast spells and help their house compete for the House Cup.
Over the summer, limited access to the beta version of the website was granted to the few and proud who could manage to get used to being five hours ahead of our time zone and find the magic quill in the website. The quill would unlock a math-based Harry Potter riddle that would gain a user access. After seven days of quill finding and number crunching, letters were sent out for users to gain access to the website.
With the buzz Pottermore is stirring up in its pewter, standard size 2 cauldron, the great house debate is starting again. Which house is better?
Alyssa:
Butterbeer, brooms and a nice fireplace in my common room are all I need. If I could stop bleeding tan and cardinal for a few minutes, you would see I bleed scarlet and gold. You see, I am a Gryffindor, through and through.
Yes, since I started reading Harry Potter in fifth grade — second book first because they didn’t have the first at the library — I have always identified with the Gryffindors. I hated the Slytherins ’cause I’m a big stickler for the rules and something about idealizing racial purity didn’t sound so hot for a young African-American girl going to an all-white school.
If there was ever any question, my house is the best and I’m not just saying that because the main protagonist is in my house. We have the most Quidditch-loving, self-entitled, recklessly brave students of all the houses. Not to mention the most gingers out of all the houses, and I love redheads.
We have all the cool characters like Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, the Weasley twins, Oliver Wood, Angelina Johnson (the one black female in the story and her last name is Johnson? That’s a bit racist) and Neville Longbottom.
We’re the most ass-kicking, sports-winning, stair-climbing, Slytherin-bashing, slightly self-righteous house and we won’t ever let you forget about it.
Consider the Hufflepuff, the most underrepresented house in Harry Potter. It’s probably for good reason.
What good characters have come out of Hufflepuff? They had Edward Cullen before he was bedazzled, Tonks who, let’s face it, wasn’t really in a relationship with Lupin (everyone knows Lupin was really with Sirius), the Abbotts who did nothing and Zacharias Smith and Ernie MacMillan who basically did nothing.
Face it: Hufflepuff doesn’t have much going for it. That is possibly because Rowling couldn’t give two flying firebolts about them.
We have never been in their common room, no one from their house has ever been a pivotal character with the exception of Cedric Diggory, who thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to jump from trees as a means of introduction.
I’m not going to go into the fact that they are the house most susceptible to “mean girl syndrome.” They spend most of the second book shooting snarky remarks at Harry, and Cedric’s friends were downright nasty in the fourth movie.
Gryffindor is the house for everyone. We’ve got the nerdy, the boy-crazy, the questionably dumb, the Scottish, the bold and the brave. Yes, we’ll turn a blind eye to the crazies we’ve let in over the years like Pettigrew, Seamus and Hermione, but we’re as melting pot as it gets in Hogwarts.
Did I mention we have all the best chants? Go! Go! Gryffindor!
Leah:
It’s hard out there for a Hufflepuff.
The books always gave the impression that Hufflepuffs were those random students that didn’t fit anywhere else, kind of like the bottom drawer of my desk back home where I throw all kinds of unassorted crap because I’m not really sure where else to put it. Or for the neater readers who can’t relate, the Island of Misfit Toys.
And you know what, I’m not going to argue that or fight it. Alyssa, my Gryffindor counterpart, can say what she likes. It’s all right. She just happens to be wrong.
The Sorting Hat itself explained, “Said Hufflepuff, ‘I’ll teach the lot, and treat them just the same.’” The problem is that most people take that to mean that Hufflepuff is, as Hagrid once told Harry, “A load o’ duffers.”
I find it strange that someone I would personally classify as a dictionary-definition ’Puff would refer to Hufflepuffs as inconsequential, useless people. And since Hagrid is Harry’s first look into this little-explored house, as readers we’re inclined to believe him.
But the Hat also describes Helga’s house as comprised of those who are just, patient and hard workers. I’m not really sure how that translates as lame and boring and useless. Those sound like good, chill people, and I’m glad to count myself among them.
I won’t deny that Helga Hufflepuff took the students who were straggling on the edges of the houses, lacking overt qualities of bravery, cleverness or ambitiousness. But I don’t think it’s shameful to not be boxed into any of those three descriptions.
If I were a founder of Hogwarts, I could totally see myself chewing my lip as the others list qualities they wanted in their students and then saying when it came to my turn, “Well, couldn’t I just teach everybody? I’ll take the ones you guys don’t want. Leave them to me. We’ll hang out in a common room with big comfy chairs and round doors.”
Since Rowling has decided the journey will never end by launching the interactive site Pottermore, I’ve heard a lot of people worrying about what house they’ll be sorted into. Like Harry once thought fiercely, “Not Slytherin, not Slytherin,” everyone seems to be praying, “Not Hufflepuff, not Hufflepuff.”
Don’t sweat it. There’s nothing wrong with not fitting some bland stereotypes and getting put in Hufflepuff, and there’s nothing wrong with representing what Hufflepuff stands for.
Love us or hate us, we’re going to keep going about our business. All I ask is that, unlike Alyssa, you don’t give us the short end of the stick just because Rowling couldn’t be bothered to develop our house and made it sound like Cedric Diggory was the best thing to happen to Hufflepuff since the common room was built by the kitchens.
Hufflepuffs aren’t always nice and they certainly aren’t always pushovers. I would never abuse the power of the press to issue a threat, but I can’t help what you infer.
Weighing the cost of being a student
