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

[kiezh]

Late to the party...

I don't really understand sorting Cordelia anywhere but Ravenclaw. Think about her backstory - high-achieving misfit geek, manipulated out of her first chance at captaincy by her ex (which does not argue for ambition or ability to scheme on her part), "let's see what happens." She didn't come equipped with those formidable social and political skills, she built them based on her observations throughout her life, which is very Ravenclaw. Her first instinct in any situation isn't to act, it's to analyze. Then she'll act, decisively, if she decides it's best. But she'll always think first. (And during. And after.)

Gregor is also a Ravenclaw, and is more like Cordelia than Miles is, in some ways. The books mention several times how Gregor uses Cordelia's phrases, analyzes her in turn, and has the same kind of unsettlingly thoughtful gaze.

Miles is such a Gryffindor. What he wants most to give everyone in the universe is rescue. Seriously.

Aral... I like the idea above that Aral is a Gryffindor who has been forced to act against his instincts his whole life long, which is the cause of a lot of his pain and self-destructive habits. And Piotr, who is definitely a Slytherin, doesn't understand why his son can't shape up and show some cunning and ambition.

I don't get why a lot of people in fandom want to make everyone they like a Slytherin; that kind of defeats the whole idea of sorting. (Which is not that great an idea to begin with, in HP canon.) Many interesting characters are not particularly ambitious, or are cunning in the service of other priorities!

I don't think many of the main characters in the Vorkosigan saga are Slytherins. Piotr, yes. Ezar, I can see. Mark, definitely yes. (Of the family-protecting Mine Or Not Mine type, who care very intensely about a small list of people.) Maybe Elli's a Slytherin, actually. (Elena's a Gryffindor, and I think her father may have been one too, albeit terribly damaged.) I could buy Lady Alys... she did, after all, marry the best catch of her generation, which is what an ambitious young lady in her position might want. (Padma was the son of a princess, wealthy, handsome, kind, etc. Aral and Serg were higher ranked but, for different reasons, not good prospects.) And then she ended up as the Imperial Hostess and the queen of high society for decades. Not to mention a spy. Yes, I'd say Alys is Slytherin.

I think there are a ton of brave Ravenclaws and thoughtful Gryffindors floating around, partly because Bujold is at her best when she's writing ethical intellectuals. I'm not sure who's a Hufflepuff. Kou and Drou? Ooh, Kareen the younger, definitely. And that's why she balances Mark. Ivan I can't place. I want to say Hufflepuff for loyalty, but hard work? Nah. Maybe Gryffindor. (Which puts Alys in the same position as Piotr, a ruthlessly ambitious parent who doesn't understand why their child doesn't want what they want.)

Okay, stopping there. It is a really interesting exercise, even if I think the Sorting in the HP universe was incredibly toxic. It makes you think about what people's core characteristics are.

[gogollescent]

I guess the difficulty I have is that what you describe aligns pretty closely with, e.g., Hermione's arc and characterization, too; so it's evidently possible for one to be a misfit geek and analytical while not having those be one's defining attributes (by the weird and oversimplistic yardstick of a magic hat, I mean). Though it's probably fair to say that Hermione is in Gryffindor as much because it was easier for the author to set up in-House friendships as because she belonged there, much as with the personalities of the various Marauders a generation earlier. I think part of the thing with Aral and Cordelia and such is also that, because we do see them as adults first and only get a minimal sense of their difficult adolescences, it's tempting to look at their learned skills and habits over their root natures. Though even as an eleven year old I would argue that Cordelia was probably not a little Hufflepuffish; brilliant and inquisitive, sure, but also very much dedicated, and loyal to a fault. Her social skills are learned, but what Aral terms her ability to carry around civilization with her-- that instinctual sense of duty-- is not.

I feel like Miles wants to be the rescuer as much as he wants to give everyone a rescue, which is why, while I agree that he probably ends up a Gryffindor, I don't think it's all that clear-cut. Even as an adult, post-Admiral Naismith and settled into his role as Lord Vorkosigan, his first response to hearing that someone else has saved to day is to think "Well, I could have done so just as well!" He then goes back and acknowledges that the thought is unworthy, because he is an adult and he's grown a lot from his seventeen-year-old-heroing, but it's because he's grown away from that knight errant strain that he can moderate his own competitiveness and desire for glory. Though now he's starting to sound like James Potter, so I may have talked myself into a corner here.

As for why people in fandom are Slytherin-happy, speaking for myself, I think part of it is the fact that Sorting is such a terrible idea, and ends up with things like a quarter of the population being deemed ubiquitously untrustworthy: the contrary streak in me makes me automatically want to see if I can't apply the description of Slytherin to heroic types. But yeah, as an actual thing to do to real people, and children at that-- completely toxic.

(I really like the Alys-Piotr parallel. I can only imagine what she would have done to the Cetagandans.)