Which house combo is the most represented in media and which one is the least represented ? (Iām betting on Badger Lion for the first.)
Full disclaimer, these are all just my theories because I do not have access to every sorting ever. And obviously there are exceptions to all of what Iām about to say. This ended up becoming a small analysis on all the sortings.Ā Ā
Youāre definitely right on the Badger Lion. They donāt call it the protagonist sorting for nothing. When a character just wants to help people because theyāre people and they immediately jump into helping them itās easy to get a story going and just in general they make for nice characters.Ā
I would also put alongside it, Lion Badger, True Lion, and True Badger. A good amount of protagonists are somewhere on the Lion and Badger spectrum because theyāre, frankly, easy to write. A character who does things immediately because they know they are right?? Shounen protagonists. A rival who jumps into the fight and is in it for the glory? Yes thatās a Shounen rival. A person who does things because they are right and joins with people and cares for them? A modern spin on a classic archetypical hero. A person who does things because people are people and they want to make people feel better through kindness and teamwork? Have you watched Steven Universe and Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts?
I submit to you that the Badger secondary hero is becoming a lot more common in the modern era because thereās been a shift into shows where family and love and recovery are the main focus. While you can get that across with a Lion secondary protagonist, itās easier when you have someone who isnāt actively trying to fight people and is instead trying to rehabilitate them. Kipo Oak from the above show is very much a True Badger and Iām fairly certain that Steven is a True Badger.
Another common sorting for opposite reasons is the Snake Bird. A villain who does things only for themselves and possibly those they are very close to by being studious and planners. They basically make for easy villains. True Snakes also get this treatment as well. True Snakes are more likely to be anti-heroes simply because if you need a trickster character whoās not really on any side youāre usually gonna have them be liars and thieves and shapeshifters-all very Snake qualities.Ā
Snake Lions are kind of a wildcard. They can be played as protagonists or as villains or as secondary characters. If theyāre a protagonist theyāll definitely be a fan favorite-if theyāre a villain/antagonist theyāll probably be a fan favorite. If you have a character who pretty much just follows their friends around and also will jump in to fight-chances are theyāre a Snake Lion. They are not the most common only because Society has a tendency to think of protecting your loved ones over all else as selfish. Oh, and Snake Lions have a tendency to die a lot.Ā
Lion Birds are also wildcards. They are the vigilante/fed sorting, but where they stand in media is gonna depend on how they are viewed. Sometimes you end up with propaganda bots, sometimes theyāre hardcore activists, sometimes theyāre blinded child soldier creators, sometimes theyāre somewhere in the middle. Because Lion Birds can be so many things they usually arenāt the center focus if theyāre even in the story. Batman and Mulan the main character Lion Birds Iām familiar with, are weird outliers. Batman because heās a detective first which most comic books donāt do nowadays, and Mulan because she doesnāt feel like Bird secondary, but then again Mulan never was my favorite growing up. I might be missing something. You also have Sarah Williams from Labyrinth as a main character.Ā
You also have Snake Badgers which I have basically no experience with. If I were hard pressed I would say Snake Badgers are love interests. Theyāre usually doing things for their close friends and their lover and using the people they know and working hard to get their rewards. If they arenāt a lover then they are usually the main characters superĀ āplatonicā best friend. Again Tiana is a weird outlier of a main character who is a Snake Badger (I would also count Cinderella as a Snake Badger).
Iāve touched on Lion Snakes before, but there arenāt a lot of them, and even fewer of them are unburnt in some way or not modeling anything else. Lion Snakes are usually antiheroes, or morally complex heroes. There are cases where you have a Lion Snake who just uses the Snake skillset but I wouldnāt say itās super common. Rarely are Lion Snakes the main character, theyāre usually secondary, a deuteragonist, or a member of an ensemble main squad.Ā
We havenāt talked about Bird primaries yet which is why we gotta touch on something. Bird primaries are the least common primary sorting. Bird primaries are the most complex and thus harder for authors to write. Plus sometimes you look at a Bird primary and you think youāve found one when itās really just a Burnt Lion!
The most common of the Bird primaries is probably the Bird Lion. Bird Lions make for good protagonists who are confused about their place in the world-running from idea to idea, and also morally complex characters who are figuring out truth and what their place in it is. They also work as a wildcard, but thanks to that Lion secondary which most associate with good they usually arenāt villains, or if they are theyāre working for another villain.Ā
Bird Snakes are weird and possibly the most morally complex?Ā @wisteria-lodge (oh hey itās about time I @ you) classified them as the Maverick/Artist sorting which makes sense. Theyāre usually Birds who have their truth and now theyāve just got a project theyāre working on with their improvisational secondary. They usually show up as secondary characters or villains, although that villain status is subject to change depending on what they want to do and how they want to do it.Ā
True Birds youād think would be more common, but once you get out of kids shows with a stereotypical nerd character Double Birds becoming harder to locate. I personally love True Birds, but apparently others donāt. These characters might actually be the most wild card of the bunch, ranging from characters like Victor Frankenstein to Entrapta to Hannibal.Ā
But poor Bird Badgers might just have it the worst of the Bird primaries. There are very few examples of Bird Badgers and even though they are great examples nobody really likes to write them. Theyāre never the main character though. Thatās just a fact.Ā
Once you get outta the Lion and Badger secondaries there arenāt a lot of Badger primary characters. Badger Snakes are weird because they care about people (what they have judged as people) and will do whatever they can for them, but people have this idea that caring about people and being manipulative or lying or stealing is a conflict of interests. Woody from Toy Story and the Arthur Conan Doyle version of Sherlock are examples of main character Badger Snakes, although I would call them outliers. Usually theyāre in ensemble casts or side characters.Ā
And then you have Badger Birds, which are like, nowhere. And of the characters Iāve seen that are Badger Birds, the ones I do know have no connecting thread between them. I donāt know why characters who do things for people because theyāre people and use their plans and strategies to do it are uncommon. I guess maybe itās because the idea behind a character who does things just because theyāre people is thought to be not smart because theyāre too kind for braincells? Doesnāt make sense to me, but thatās the only thing I can think of. Dean Winchester is a very weird outlier for this category. For some reason mixing Badgers and Birds isnāt very common.
If you hard pressed me to make a list of all these sortings in order of their relevance in media this is what you would.Ā
1. Badger Lion - (The Protagonist) Examples: All Might/Yagi Toshinori (My Hero Academia), Adora (She-Ra), Amalthea (The Last Unicorn)
2. True Lion - (The Badass) Examples: Princess Leia Organa (Star Wars), Bakugou Katsuki (My Hero Academia), Ron Weasley (Harry Potter)
3. Lion Badger - (The Powerful) Examples: Captain America (Marvel), Neville Longbottom (Harry Potter), Moana (Moana)
4. Snake Bird - (The Mastermind) Examples: Jareth (Labyrinth), Crowley (Good Omens), King Haggard (The Last Unicorn)
5. True Snake - (The Trickster) Examples: Loki (Mavel), Klaus Hargreaves (The Umbrella Academy), Eleanor Shellstrop (The Good Place)
6. True Badger - (The Peacemaker) Examples: Steven Universe (Steven Universe), Kipo Oak (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts), Chihiro Ogino (Spirited Away) (I place this one below Double Snake and Snake Bird as theyāve begun to rise into relevance recently-also once again there are several dark versions of this sorting) (After this the numbers get more muddled)
7. Snake Lion - (The Rebel) Examples: Darth Vader (Star Wars), Tony Stark (Marvel), Todoroki Shouto (My Hero Academia)
8. Lion Bird - (The Thoughtful) Examples: Batman (DC), Sarah Williams (Labyrinth), Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
9. Snake Badger - (The Love Interest) Examples: Prince Lir (The Last Unicorn), Tiana (The Princess and the Frog), Jaskier (The Witcher)
10. Lion Snake - (The Independent) Examples: Hawks (My Hero Academia), Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean), Toph (Avatar the Last Airbender)
11. Bird Lion - (The Truth-Seeker) Examples: Harry Potter (Harry Potter), Harley Quinn (DC), Luke Skywalker (Star Wars)
12. True Bird - (The Knowledge-Seeker) Examples: Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein), Entrapta (She-Ra), Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place)
13. Badger Snake - (The Take-Charge) Examples: Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter), Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)
14. Bird Snake - (The Artiste) Examples: Schmendrick (The Last Unicorn), The Joker (DC-Nolanverse), Ciri (The Witcher)
15. Bird Badger - (The Survivor) Examples: Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter), Diego Hargreaves (The Umbrella Academy), Daphne Blake (Scooby Doo)
16. Badger Bird - (The Martyr) Examples: Michael (The Good Place), Poison Ivy (DC), Dean Winchester (Supernatural)
This is me inviting my fellow sorters to talk on this post and give their thoughts on this. Iām very susceptible to error so if you think I messed something up please tell me. Or just give your regular thoughts on it because I love reading them. Also Wisteria I kinda stole your system.