#hpanswers

Mainly, I wanted to talk about Gryffindor’s strong moral code. I love love love this about the series because people sorted into different houses are going to be loyal to different things, sometimes just as loyal as Hufflepuffs are to their friends. I thought we’d start with Hufflepuff because that’s the easy one, Hufflepuffs are great friends because they value friendships and promises over everything else. That’s like half of the reason they were sorted. Hufflepuff can sometimes seem like a ragtag bunch (nowhere does it actually say Hufflepuffs are nice, remember Zacharias Smith?) but their loyalty to their house, each other, and their hard work ethic pulls them ahead and makes them a strong house even if they don’t necessarily have a common goal.

Now, perhaps the least loyal to their house is Ravenclaw. A lot of the time people compare Ravenclaws to Slytherins because they’re both so individualistic, but Ravenclaws ultimately will sacrifice themselves if it means there is a better world resulting in it. This is where the distinction between Gryffindor and Ravenclaws come in, they have a very different definition of a better world, and to Ravenclaws that always means more or new knowledge. Ravenclaws don’t actively seek to become martyrs however, to a Ravenclaw they probably don’t want to die because that means all their knowledge is gone so there is some self-preservation which is why people sometimes compare them to Slytherins.

Now, I love Slytherins because they have this weird dynamic where they are sometimes the most loyal, but only if it benefits themselves. Like in the Pottermore letter, Slytherins are a brotherhood, which means everyone has the same loyalties: self first, then house. However, because everyone is aware of this weird arrangement, it can make them even more powerful and self aware as a house. For Slytherins to be successful, they need first to be strategic, placing each individual in a position where they can succeed the most because to Slytherins every competition is really an individual sport and if you do well, nothing else matters.

Okay, the whole reason I made this post-GRYFFINDORS! I love writing Gryffindors, because they have such a solid moral code or set of rules that dictates everything they do in life. To Harry, defending his friends and keeping people safe was the overall objective (anyone else call a Pukwudgie?) but to Neville he had a very different idea of what was ‘right’ and stood up to his friends to protect what he believed in. And this is where Gryffindors differ from Slytherins. I don’t think Gryffindors realise as fully that they all are living by different moral codes, because to them the glory of being ‘right’ is so bright that they sometimes don’t realise that they all define that differently. Maybe this is why there is so much bickering done by Gryffindors, but writing or living one feels like a formula, every choice dictated subconsciously by what is ‘right’ and when there moral code changes that means something huge has affected them because that is super rare.

Alright, I know it’s been awhile (2 months! sorry!) but with the news of Cursed Child coming out, I thought we could totally ignore that can of snakes, and focus instead of Ilvermorny. Now, the test came out awhile ago but it’s taken until today for me to come to terms with my sorting. Yes, maybe you can tell by the title, I was sorted into Pukwudgie.

Not that I have anything against Pukwudgie, but they seem like the kind loyal Hufflepuffs, and I am a Slytherin. In fact, I’ve always gotten the lowest percentage for Hufflepuff. So getting Pukwudgie three times was a surprise (I wanted to see all the different test answers). Now, people told me that if I really wanted Thunderbird I could just take the test again and chose different answers, but this felt different than Hogwarts. In Hogwarts you can talk to the sorting hat and reason with it, in Ilvermorny there is no discussion-you take what you get, no questions asked.

But I wanted to know why. Besides the name, the part that was the most off-putting to me was the heart. Slytherins make decisions based off of their head or perhaps their gut (soul I think represents this instinct) or maybe even body if you’re Crabbe or Goyle. But the only Slytherin I could think of that made decisions based off of his heart was Severus Snape, and maybe Draco when he was trying to stay with his family and all that trauma. However, I did not want to be a love sick Snape or a moody Malfoy. Both Slytherins were incapable of making logical decisions while they were stuck in this rut. Heart and Cleverness simply did not seem to go together.

Stuck in a moody cycle (so maybe I do rely too heavily on my heart) I looked at the other part of the description. And this, witches and wizards, is when it all clicked. Pukwudgie Slytherins are not lovesick moody fools, they are fixers. Yes, I know the description says healers, but what is a self-centered, ambitious clever healer? A fixer. I realized that as a Pukwudgie I didn’t heal people or animals, I healed situations. I fixed things for others and for myself. Only after reaching this conclusion did I feel proud to call myself a Slytherin Pukwudgie.

Well, there’s Quodpot, but that’s across the pond. Quidditch does seem to be the only major magical British sporting event. There’s a great card game called Exploding Snap, and Laurentia Fletwock was a wizard of the month who breeded and raced flying horses which implies that flying horse races is a sport in Wizarding Britain. Most wizards learn how to swim when they are younger (Fleur, Krum, and Cedric all swam during the tournament), and Kennilworthy Whisp was very fond of backgammon, which implies there are at least some wizards and witches who play that. Snitch Snatcher! is a board game that models Quidditch, presumably for children too young to play, or wizards who can’t play quidditch, or possibly just an easier cheaper option.

I know we all want him to be secretly alive somewhere. (That was one of the saddest parts of the series!) Well, what is the veil, it’s an empty archway, and it draws people to it. The veil is a curtain between life and “trapped forever in the world of death”. Sirius’s body is never found, and a funeral is never held. But is the “world of death”, as the wiki so poetically puts it, really death? I have to go with yes. But not because of the veil itself, but another magical object, the resurrection stone! It specifically “only brings back loved ones from Death” and since Sirius was brought back (kind of?) when Harry used the stone, it means he truly was in Death’s grasp, and therefore, dead.