#sorting defense

Slytherin is one of the most Slytherin Slytherins to ever Slytherin. (Although she is not in the purist box, but more on that later.) Unlike Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, we never questioned her house. She was Slytherin from the get go. And if anyone tries to say that Slytherin is evil because she’s in Slytherin or because she’s an INTJ or for any reason, Hufflepuff will punch their teeth in. Slytherin is not evil.

However, Slytherin is remarkably loyal. One of the traits of Slytherin is loyalty, although it isn’t one of the prime listed. Slytherin’s can be loyal to groups or individuals or ideals and will be protective of those people to a fault. But it can take a lot to gain that loyalty and fairly easy to lose the loyalty. There have actually been a few acquaintances of ours along the way who have gained Slytherin’s loyalty and been able to lose it remarkably fast by making a few key mistakes. Slytherin is loyal, doing things for her friends and standing up for them and caring for them when they have difficulty doing those things for themselves. She is indifferent to most people, but fiercely loyal to the select few. Someone who didn’t care about their friends wouldn’t make a hufflepom for their Hufflepuff roomie just because. Case closed.

Now, one of the biggest traits that Slytherins are given, which is what often puts them in the “evil” category, is manipulation. Slytherin has stated that “It doesn’t count as bad manipulation if I tell you I’m manipulating you.” The Slytherin has been known to use what she knows about her friends to get them to do what she wants. …That sounds bad… Let me rephrase with an example. For a long period of time, the Hufflepuff was basically hiding from her friends and stayed out of the room for long stretches of time, only being in the room with Slytherin pretty much when they were sleeping. Slytherin used what she knew about Hufflepuff to poke at her to get her to open up and talk about what was wrong so that the Slytherin could help.  That sounds better. She’s cunning… but in a good way.

Slytherin does not do anything without a pro/con list being made in her head. She is constantly planning and plotting on how to best do things. When it comes to buying things, she makes sure it is worth it for her before doing so. She is resourceful, knowing exactly what she has at her disposal and knowing exactly how to use it. Every semester, something with her schedule has been wonky, but by using the resources she can, the schedule works out to the best possible option.

Finally, as far as house traits are concerned, there is the key element of ambition. This isn’t just to talk about the grand things that we all believe Slytherin will be able to pull off someday because, while we understand she hates hearing this because reasons, we do believe she will do great things. But there is also ambition and dedication in the little frivolous things. The Hufflepuff and Slytherin have many pipedreams of what they will do someday, like what kind of pets they will get and where they will leave. The Hufflepuff loves to daydream, but never actually believes many of her daydreams will come true. However, these daydreams with the Slytherin are daydreams that Hufflepuff actually can see happening, simply because Slytherin will make sure they happen.

About Us:

Introduction

Sorting Defenses:

Ravenclaw

Gryffindor

Slytherin

Hufflepuff

Sorting Wheel Explanations: Coming Soon...

Background

Overview

Random Details

Sortings

So, the Hufflepuff was put in charge of writing her own defense because of reasons. Because of this, she is having difficulty finding the balance between feeling like she is bragging and knowing that she is being self-deprecating. This line is a very fine line so please bear with Hufflepuff as she attempts to find the line.

The traits listed for Hufflepuff are hard work, dedication, patience, loyalty, and fair play. She meets all of these traits, though she will admit that she very much displays many Slytherin characteristics. The first two times she took the Pottermore sorting quiz, she received Slytherin. Her friends adamantly informed her that was wrong. She had to be Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff did not feel Hufflepuff enough. However, she will gladly be Hufflepuff, as her other option is Slytherin and besides Slytherin, most other Slytherins scare her a little.

Loyalty is one of Hufflepuff’s biggest traits that she shows to be a Hufflepuff. Sometimes, her loyalty to her friends and family terrifies her. She’s a clingy little punk. But as long as they let her be clingy, she’s gonna be clingy. But besides being clingy, her loyalty to her friends expands further. The Hufflepuff rarely gets angry. Or at least tries to rarely get angry but probably fails more than she would care to admit. However, when she does get upset, it is normally on behalf of a friend. She has a great amount of patience when it comes to how she is being treated, but the minute a friend is hurt, she wants to be by their side, giving them a hug, and punching in the face of whoever hurt her friend.

Next, the Hufflepuff tries her hardest to be fair. As an education major, she is a big believer in the idea that what is equal is not always fair. When she writes letters to her friends, sometimes she has something she needs to tell one friend about, but will end up sending letters of varying lengths to all of her friends because she finds that fair. She knows her friends are receiving different lengths of letters, but they are still all receiving letters, which makes it fair. In addition, she sometimes has difficulty at night because she has to decide which stuffed animal will sleep closest to her and doesn’t want to hurt any of the other stuffed animals’ feelings. So she tries to keep them on a rotation. She fails a lot because she has a sucky memory, but she tries. It pains her when she realizes that there is a hierarchy when it comes to her friends, and she tries to keep them all on the most level playing field possible. But she also knows that won’t necessarily ever be accurate or fair as those she lives with or talks to most will naturally be closer to her and should be closer to her than those who do not.

The Hufflepuff is dedicated. When she makes a plan for something, she follows through. Even before she and Slytherin were incredibly close friends, she wanted to do something for Slytherin’s birthday. So, she got in contact with Slytherin’s mom, and managed to fly out and surprise Slytherin for her birthday. Still one of the best, yet craziest 24 hours of Hufflepuff’s life. She also decided to watch as much of Supernatural as she could over a Christmas break so that Slytherin would be able to have someone to talk to about Supernatural. That, in short, is the story of how Hufflepuff managed to watch 249 episodes of Supernatural in under 40 days while still keeping a decent social life with her parents. Clearly, when Hufflepuff is committed to something, she follows through, especially when it is for someone she cares about.

Hufflepuff is also hard working. She is trying her hardest not to sound braggish here, but she is graduating a semester early because she worked hard and completed all of the math courses she needed to take for her math education major in 5 semesters. And Gryffindor points out that she took many advanced level math classes as a freshman and got all A’s in them. *Hufflepuff hides after having to type that sentence*

The Gryffindor was a little hard for us to place at first, but once we got her house correct, there was no second guessing. (Except maybe some second guessing from Gryffindor… Gryffindors, man…) When we first met her freshman year, we assumed she was a Ravenclaw. She was an honor’s student who worked far more on her studies and homework than the rest of us. She is incredibly smart and seemed rather shy, rather than bold and impulsive. She appeared more Ravenclaw than Gryffindor, so it just kinda seemed fitting. Sorting quizzes even put her in Ravenclaw, so we thought we were right. Spoiler alert: we were very wrong.

Then the entirety of freshman year happened. We fought trolls together and became great friends. And Gryffindor was always leading the way. She ran into situations without fully thinking things through. She made the phone calls for us, figuring out the plan that we were going to implement and playing the front and center role, charging ahead. An impulsive nature began to display itself. She was the loudly yapping chihuahua that charged in front of the rest of us. There was really no stopping her. Even if we tried. And sometimes the Slytherin and Hufflepuff tried. More recently, the Gryffindor decided to buy an small air hockey game simply because she could.

Besides being brave and impulsive, she has the best manners out of the four of us, but that may just be her southern nature coming through. She is incredibly chivalrous, attempting to help when and where she can. The Gryffindor volunteers to help when she knows her friends are being wronged or getting the short end of the stick in any given situation. Sometimes that just means being dragged along to some meeting and doing nothing. Other times that means she is contacting various adults for us. Either way, she does more than is expected of her and goes above and beyond to help. She sometimes doesn’t think through her helpful actions which can get her into trouble, but that just makes her all the more Gryffindor. She is really just doing her best, and we appreciate that about her. Recently she has been asking the Hufflepuff a lot how Gryffindor can show she cares. The Hufflepuff is a bit confused by the action.

Gryffindor is also remarkably inpatient, something that the Slytherin and Hufflepuff mock her for constantly. She doesn’t like to wait to act, whether it is while driving or while trying to amend a disagreement. Gryffindor wants things to be resolved and wants them to be resolved now. She doesn’t want it to sit and wait. This all contributes to the fact that she doesn’t think things through quite as much as she probably should. She comes up with a solution and wants to implement it right then and then.  

The confidence that Gryffindor displays is intense. The others have decided that the amount of confidence Gryffindor has about a topic is inversely proportional to how much Gryffindor knows about the topic. Gryffindor managed to crack her windshield because she got overly confident about being able to change her windshield wipers on her own without help. How? We are still asking that question. Gryffindor holds to a “fake it till you make it” policy. Faking it? Check. Making it? She’ll get there.

The Ravenclaw was a hard sort. She had always dreamed of being Ravenclaw, yet thought that because of life events, she was Gryffindor. She had always had a lot of bravery to stand up to the majority voice. Various life circumstances have put her in places where she has had to be braver than the rest of the troll hunters and stand up for what she believes in.

However, despite her brave tendencies, the sorting of Gryffindor just never felt right. She debated Hufflepuff as well, due to the fact she is remarkably friendly and can make friends wherever she goes, which made the actual Hufflepuff feel a little awkward. No one really thought that house placement was quite right and we even felt for a while that maybe she was a weird combo of both. Really, Ravenclaw just thought that Ravenclaw house was too good for her. She didn’t feel smart enough or clever enough. She felt like she was brave and nice, hence Gryffindor and Hufflepuff.

But houses other than Gryffindor can be brave and houses other than Hufflepuff can be nice. Take Luna Lovegood for example. If anyone tries to argue that Luna Lovegood is not brave or not nice, they would not have a leg to stand on. And that is what our dear Ravenclaw is like. She is a very Luna Lovegood-esque Ravenclaw.

First, let us mention Ravenclaw’s wit. THE PUNS!!!! Dear goodness the puns. The biggest reason none of Ravenclaw’s puns have made it on the tumblr yet is because we are too busy groaning at the end of it to remember to put it up. (Sorry Ravenclaw. We think you’re funny… most of the time…) But the Ravenclaw’s best form of humor is puns. Her mind is quick to create puns, (In Ravenclaw’s words: “pun app ALWAYS open in background of brain computer) whereas humor like sarcasm doesn’t translate quite as well when the Ravenclaw attempts to use it.

Next, Ravenclaw values rich intellectual discussion over complex issues. We use the word discussion here because the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff feel that there is a key difference between discussion and debate. The Slytherin is always up for a debate and a chance to attempt to change someone’s mind. The Ravenclaw… not so much. Here might be a decent place to state that because reasons, Ravenclaw’s world view and the world views of Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff are vastly different. She’s different from the rest of us but we love her just the same. Because of these differing world views, she enjoys posing her side of a belief in a discussion and hearing the other side. It’s not a debate. Nobody’s mind is being changed. But it is simply an intellectual discussion and she loves that. And the discussions regularly end with the Ravenclaw acknowledging that while she doesn’t agree, she can respect the other side and see how it comes down to a difference in opinions. Ravenclaw very much respects and values the intelligence of others, even if she may not agree with them.

As was mentioned in the “About us” post, Ravenclaw is remarkably creative. She is a photography major and has an eye for pretty things and an ear for lovely music that the rest of us could only dream of. It should be added here that when we worked on putting these posts together, the Ravenclaw changed the font in her section of the Google doc because she wanted something more pleasing. Even with the natural talent, she also strives to get better. Ravenclaw seeks out help from wherever she can get it and is highly critical of herself, knowing when she can do better (even if what she has done is already freaking fantastic, which it normally is.) She moans about how she is a terrible student, not getting things in on time. But being a good student does not equal being a Ravenclaw and the reason for slacking on deadlines is because she wants it to be perfect, not just good enough for a grade. She is “problematically” dedicated to her work when it is something she cares about. As she puts it, boring things are boring and do not matter which is bad because finances and housework are boring things. When she is committed to completing something, she gets so engrossed in it that she loses track of time.

Hamilton is definitely a hatstall for me, too. However, I do think a lot of it can come down to the actor in question. Lin, with his two modes being loud and louder, came off a lot more as a Gryffindor, but then when you have Javier, who can be a little quieter, he does seem more like a Slytherin.

Gryffindor and Slytherin are mirror houses. They do the same things, just for different reasons. So all of those things you point to as being proof of him being Slytherin, I categorized as proof of him being a Gryffindor. I mean, the Reynolds Pamphlet I cited as a Gryffindor move when defending Angelica as a Ravenclaw. I mean, that wasn’t really in danger of being revealed, but he still felt the need to get out in front of it and severely damage his reputation- and yes, it definitely hurt his legacy, I mean literally all I learned about Hamilton in history class was that he was part of the first US sex scandal- in the process, which really just to me doesn’t seem like the way a Slytherin would go about it.

TL;DR

Interesting point of view.

I’ll admit her as a hatstall between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw (and I will get to that in a moment) but I will never sort her into Hufflepuff.

Angelica does love her sister- this much is extremely clear. However, most of our Hufflepuffs are loyal to multiple people or ideas (George Washington was loyal to the entire republic, Miss Honey is loyal to all her students, Ogie is loyal to his entire family, Wendla is loyal to all her friends, ect.) but Angelica is only loyal to Eliza. She says “I love my sister more than anything in this life”. Singular. She’s not even including Peggy in that statement. 

Hufflepuffs are the house best known for loyalty, but in no way are they the only house who can love their friends and family. In the books, some of the strongest love we see is between members of other houses, such as between Harry and Ron (Gryffindors) or Narcissa and Draco (Slytherins). There are other characters on this blog who clearly love someone more than themselves but are still in houses other than Hufflepuff (Davey clearly adores Les more than anything but he’s a Gryffindor, Belle sacrificed her freedom for her father but she’s a Ravenclaw, Robert Kincaid considered Francesca the most important thing in his life but he’s a Gryffindor, Melchior finds so much love and support in Moritz and Wendla but he’s a Ravenclaw, Katherine risks everything for the newsies, but she’s still a Ravenclaw, ect.) because Hufflepuff doesn’t have a monopoly on love and loyalty.

Keep in mind, when sorting someone on this blog, we don’t just look at what traits they fit. We also try to take into account what that person would want, and where they would thrive. Hufflepuffs are wonderful people, and bring out the best in each other, but they don’t get things done at the rate Angelica would want to move at. Ravenclaws think faster, Ravenclaws debate more, and that’s really where she would be the most at home.

I could see her as a Gryffindor as well and I’ll concede that, but I don’t think she’d be happy there either. They’re too reckless and impulsive- something that Angelica clearly doesn’t have time for (”You know why Jefferson can do what he wants? He doesn’t dignify schoolyard taunts with a response!”) and it’s just not something that she has the patience for.

She expresses traits of all of the houses, but I feel the traits that she expresses enough to define where she would work best and get the most done are her Ravenclaw traits. She would be happier in the company of our other Ravenclaws on this blog, such as Belle, Dawn, and Nina than of the Hufflepuffs, like Ogie, Cathy, and Wendla.