a vitally important question

[gogollescent]

Given the chance, how would you sort the Vorkosigan characters into Hogwarts houses?

Don't look at me like that. This is clearly key information that I am gathering. Is Cordelia the world's most ruthless Hufflepuff, or would she at eleven be hustled off to Ravenclaw, only later in life to develop interpersonal convictions? Does Miles con the hat into putting him into Gryffindor despite the fact that if cut him open you would find a great big S drawn in green on his heart? For that matter, where would Aral have wanted to be put when he was eleven, a pretty formative year for him by any yardstick? Are Illyan and his chip in different houses entirely-- no, don't answer that one--

And so on. 

This inquiry definitely not made for gruesome fusion research purposes of any kind, of course.

Comments

[gogollescent]

Oh god. Imagine Illyan's memory chip acting up every time he spent too much time in Vorkosigan house, as saturated with magic as the place is. Imagine him getting a head injury and having to remind Cordelia not to perform any quick-fix spells, for risk of sending the technology totally haywire. Man and what if some of Barrayar's resistance to modern tech was the result of widespread magical abilities among the inbred upper-caste population? That could be super cool, in an even-more-fucked-up-class-relations sort of way. Hmmm.

[philomytha]

As if life wasn't hard enough for Illyan! Though this might explain ImpSec HQ being quite so granitely forbidding: it's to keep the magic out so that they can run their computers in peace.

But oh yes, of course magical ability is particularly widespread among the purebloods Vor. And there are lots of Issues with who's in control, the magic-wielding Vor or the proles with computers and nerve disruptors...

This is also making me think that maybe Ivan is a Squib ;-).

Gregor has to be a Ravenclaw. 'Let's see what happens' is a very Ravenclaw sort of motto.

[gogollescent]

It could even be that magical ability is what catapulted the Vor to the top during the Time of Isolation-- it's hard to beat Transfiguration as a terraforming tool, I would think. Though given Barrayar's approach to mutation I wonder if Squibs wouldn't quite often be killed off. But I really like the idea of Ivan as a Squib. No doubt the people around him would do a lot of speculating that he's ~suppressed his talents because, that close to the top, it doesn't pay to be a powerful wizard.

Yeah, there's no other house for Gregor. Laisa too: no wonder their children are so frighteningly incisive. Though I suspect he's the first Ravenclaw to pop up in the Vorbarra line for a long time.

[hedda62]

Though I suspect he's the first Ravenclaw to pop up in the Vorbarra line for a long time

I agree with the placement of Gregor; I'm not so sure about the rest of the Vorbarras. Ezar strikes me as quite possibly Gryffindor or Hufflepuff by nature, with a lot of Slytherin tutoring. But I tend to sort Slytherins based on the self-serving goals of their manipulativeness and ambition rather than on the fact of those qualities. I think Ezar sincerely meant to serve the Empire rather than himself (which is, admittedly, an easy thing to say when you're Emperor).

I'd actually rather love to see Serg as a twisted Hufflepuff, too. You know, dedicating himself in a hard-working fashion to depravity. But Slytherin's probably a more accurate choice for him.

I rather suspect Dorca was Slytherin to the bone. Yuri, maybe a Squib! Xav, likely Gryffindor.

[gogollescent]

I think I might be inclined to drop Ezar in Slytherin when I think about, e.g., the whole Escobar scheme; although, I dunno. It was a way of purging the ministries' influence, but there's also that part where-- Aral, I think-- says, "an honorable death was the last thing he could give Serg", which, given the cost of that honorable death, strikes me as very self-and-family-serving. Then again, that's Aral (or possibly Cordelia, it's been a while since I read Sharsd) trying to make Ezar's reasoning more palatable to himself more than anything. I would tend to suspect Ezar of being a case where self-service lined up with serving the Empire, rather than vice versa, but yeah, it's noodly.

Heh, I was thinking Serg might be a Gryffindor, but I can totally see him as a Hufflepuff, admiring Ges and wanting to live up to his high standard of perversion but having to put so much more effort into it. Of course he has the self-interest to make a Slytherin, but then he's missing a lot of that cunning, so…

[hedda62]

There is that "forge ahead and damn the consequences For The Good of Barrayar" aspect to Ezar's horrible war plot that screams Gryffindor to me, but yes, the self-interest part is Slytherin, and whether he cared about Serg's legacy or not, he certainly wasn't self-sacrificing.

And I caught myself thinking that Serg wasn't smart enough to be a Slytherin, but of course that's not really a requirement. However, Gregor certainly didn't get his rational intelligence from that side of the family. (I think Kareen is one of the smarter Gryffindors, or a Slytherin/Gryffindor amalgam, cunning in her self-sacrifice.)

[gogollescent]

Yeah. I am reminded that Dumbledore, after all, was a Gryffindor. No, I think it works, and god knows Ezar has the requisite nerve.

Huh, Kareen is tough. Definitely smart, whatever her house; it sort of makes sense to me that she would end up in Slytherin by default, but exhibit a distinctly Gryffindorish streak later on. Though for her own happiness I sort of wish I could see her in Ravenclaw.