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

[melannen]

I would say Cordelia is definitely a Slytherin - she's ruthless, she knows what she wants and does what she needs to get it, and doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about it afterward.

I've always put Aral down as Hufflepuff, though; one gets the impression that he would have been perfectly happy just living a quiet life of hard but useful work with the people he loves around him, if it weren't that he's always getting forced into doing great things.

Alys is Ravenclaw, obviously. She even usually wears Ravenclaw colors. (Illyan probably is too.) Ivan and his father were both Gryffindors, though.

Lord Miles Vorkosigan is Slytherin; Admiral Naismith is probably Ravenclaw, actually; but Miles being Miles is fairly Gryffindor.

I can't figure out Gregor, though. Maybe Ravenclaw? It would be interesting to put Gregor in a situation, growing up, where who-he-was-inside was more important than being the Emperor. (On the other hand, the vast majority of Vorbarras have always been Slytherin, so I suspect he would have been put in Slytherin regardless of what the Sorting Hat said, because that's the Imperial house; Cordelia's control over his education can only go so far.)

[gogollescent]

Alys a Ravenclaw, huh? I can sort of see that, from her work as a social spymaster, but at the same time I'm inclined to think she's more of a dynastic Slytherin. She's certainly worked for power and control her whole life. I agree that Illyan's probably a Ravenclaw, although there's a Hufflepuff streak in there somewhere, cf. his relationships with Aral and Alys. Aral Vorkosigan's Badger? Well, possibly not.

You're probably right about Gregor being shunted into Slytherin regardless of preference, though one likes to think the hat is more objective than that. Or maybe Gregor would quietly argue with it until it put him in Hufflepuff, and Cordelia and Aral would breathe a sigh of relief, and Gregor would note it and add it to a private mental file of all the other times that Cordelia and Aral have watched his emerging character for signs of something he barely understands. Poor kid.

Man, Cordelia is turning out to be way more difficult to sort than I thought she would be when I first started out; even as I was thinking about how fun she is as a Slytherin, I started wanting to put her in Gryffindor instead, and highlight her resemblance to Miles in general derring-do. Hm.

[melannen]

I'm not sure Gregor would ever get to *wear* the Hat, is the thing - too much of a political risk, there. (I guess it would depend on how exactly one made the fusion work.)

[gogollescent]

Haha, true-- or he'd be packed off to Durmstrang, which would in any case be a better place to learn all the skills that the supreme ruler of a fantasy-Russian-Empire should have. Like how to wear a really prepossessing fur cape.

[melannen]

Oh, well, if we're adding in the other schools *g*


...Barrayar needs more fur capes. IIRC, there's only one in canon, and that one's Elli's.

[gogollescent]

It ought to import 'em. Boleros and riding boots are all very well, but there's nothing like sentient fur capes for establishing a national fashion sense. At least until the sentient fur cape singularity...

[rymenhild]

Oh, no, Alys is Gryffindor to the bone. It's just that her bravery and heroism are usually displayed in the women's spheres, so the men don't necessarily notice.

[gogollescent]

She is rather chivalrous, isn't she? But I don't think her courage and perseverance define her: instead, they serve her goals and enhance her efficiency.

[melannen]

Hmm, I don't know. I think I would buy an interpretation of Alys as Gryffindor (certainly in a lot of fic where we get to see more of her, she's portrayed that way) and it's not that she's not brave (or manipulative, or hardworking) but her specific canon talents are all about knowing things - she knows fashion, she knows protocol, she knows social history and tradition and law, she knows aesthetics, she knows everyone who's relevant to Barrayaran power and all of their interconnecting relationships, she knows exactly how far she can push things and she knows how to build effective strategies for quiet long-term change - and she's happy doing all those things while being underestimated in the background in a blue-and-silver dress! The things she knows are women's sphere things, too, but it takes just as much intelligence and learning to know them and apply them.

(ETA: Ekaterin, on the other hand, is Gryffindor to the bone. She's all bravery.)

+1000

[gogollescent]

...re: Ekaterin. She's about the only major character whose placement I have no doubts about, if it comes to that.