OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

Felicia wrote:

(I am always puzzled why Neville - a gifted herbology student - was placed in Gryffindor. I know his Mum and Dad were attached but.....)

I don't really see what the fact that he's good at herbology has to do with it. There is no evidence to suggest that ones area of academic expertise has anything to do with ones House affiliation.

The current Herbology Professor is indeed the head of House Hufflepuff. That doesn't mean that the Herbology Professor has always been a member of that House, nor that the Head of House Hufflepuff has always been an herbology specialist, nor that there is any particular connection at all between herbology and Hufflepuff.

Certainly the Hufflepuff students in Harry's year are not taking the top marks in herbology. Hermione is.

There is a tendency, I think, for us to read the current alignment between Hogwarts' Heads of Houses and the subjects that they teach as indicative of some vast overarching schematic. It is tempting to do this in part, I think, because one or two of them really do make a great deal of intuitive sense. Slytherins are sneaky and Machievellian and dubious; so are poisons and sera; therefore Slytherin=Potions. Hufflepuffs are hard-working and diligent; they are the magical equivalent of the tillers of the soil; they are the "salt of the earth;" therefore Hufflepuff=Herbology. And so on.

It doesn't really hold up too well in the long run, though, does it? Surely clever erudite Ravenclaw doesn't really match up all that well to Charms, which involves a marked physical component (wand motion) and is also the art used for duelling. I would think that it would be better aligned to Arithmancy, or perhaps even to History of Magic. And does Transfiguration really have anything at all to do with the Gryffindor values of courage and valour? Wouldn't Transfiguration actually align far better to House Slytherin, whose members believe in changing the rules of engagement to serve their own ends, and whose mascot is the snake, symbol of transformation?

No. I don't think that even the current associations between the Houses themselves and the academic subjects taught by their Heads really hold up very well at all, once you start looking too closely at them.

The Sorting has nothing to do with academic expertise. It has everything to do with values. But the question of why Neville wasn't sorted Hufflepuff seems to come up quite often on this list, and it's always been bit of a pet peeve of mine, so I hope that Felicia will forgive me if I use her original comment (which I do realize was parenthetical in the first place) as a kind of launching point to dive into that issue.

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Why do people always think that Neville belongs in Hufflepuff? I truly have never understood this at all. I can understand why his placement in Gryffindor might give some people pause, but why on earth Hufflepuff?

These are the traits that the Sorting Hat itself has identified as associated with House Hufflepuff in its songs at the beginning of PS/SS and GoF:

-- just
-- loyal
-- patient
-- true
-- unafraid of toil
-- hard workers

In addition, we're told that the members of House Hufflepuff rarely achieve glory, and that they are widely considered to be rather a bunch of "duffers."

Okay. Overall, the primary trait of the House seems to me to be diligence. Diligence is the only trait repeated in both of the Hat's songs. Furthermore, we have been told by Dumbledore that the Sorting is based on the Founders' own preferences in students, and the Sorting Hat's song in GoF, which explicitly states that it is describing the Founders' values, lists Hufflepuff's preferred type only as "hard workers."

So. Is Neville a hard worker? Is he diligent? Is he "unafraid of toil?" Is this a trait that he seems to place a high value on, or to aspire to, or to try to emulate, or to cherish in others?

I see absolutely no evidence of this. Neville does not seem to be particularly hard working. When Harry runs into him near the One-Eyed Witch while all of the other members of their class are off in Hosgsmeade, he has not only not yet finished his vampire essay; he all but asks Harry to let him copy off of his. In _GoF,_ we learn that Hermione has been giving him a great deal of help with his schoolwork. We know that he is a poor student and that he often needs to struggle with the material, but we don't actually see him spending a whole lot of time studying, do we? We often see Hermione deeply engrossed in her classwork while the other students are engaged in recreational activities in the Gryffindor common room. We are never told of Neville doing the same. If Neville really is diligent and hard working, then the text has never bothered to show it to us. If diligence and perseverance are things that he particularly values in other people, then the text has never bothered to show us that, either.

I'm not saying that Neville is lazy, mind you, but diligence really doesn't seem to me to be either one of his notable traits or something that he values all that highly.

So on to the secondary characteristics of the House, then.

"Just."

Is being just, or "fair," a particularly important value to Neville?

I see no evidence for this one way or the other. He doesn't strike me as UNfair, by any means, but justice certainly doesn't seem to me to be one of his most highly cherished values. When targetted in the hallways by Draco Malfoy in the first book, for example, he chooses to suffer in silence rather than to object to this unchivalrous and rule-breaking behavior. He doesn't object when McGonagall accuses him of leaving his cheat-sheet of Gryffindor common room passwords lying around either, even though as it later turns out this was an unjust accusation. We never see him going out of his way to defend Harry any of the many times that Harry stands falsely accused of something, or to insist upon a due consideration of both sides of the argument when someone makes a sweeping generalization or an unfair statement. So there is no evidence that justice is something that Neville particularly values either.

"Patient."

Yes. That Neville is. He is exceptionally patient. He curls up to sleep on the floor of the corridor outside of the common room while waiting for someone to come along to let him in, rather than going out to seek help. He puts up with all manner of abuse from others with a certain degree of aplomb -- or at the very least, of resignation. Patience I will certainly grant him.

"Loyal."

Well. Now, that's an interesting question, isn't it? Is Neville loyal?

He does tell Draco Malfoy that Harry fainted when confronted with the dementors at the beginning of _PoA,_ but we are given absolutely no clue as to how this exchange of information came about. It could have been an unthinking slip—Neville is forgetful—or it could have been something far less benign. Neville's true motivations are still very much a black box in canon. It is, however, not all that encouraging on the loyalty front, and neither is the fact that he does not speak a word during the confrontation on the train at the beginning of _GoF._ He is just in the middle of talking to Ron about the QWC—Ron has just tipped the Krum figurine into his hand—when Draco and his cronies show up. That's the last we hear from Neville. It's not even altogether clear whether he is present for the entirety of the conversation, or whether he slips silently away somewhere in the middle of the scene. One thing he certainly does not do, though, is to leap faithfully to Ron's defense when Draco starts mocking him. That just doesn't happen.

Nor is Neville particularly loyal to his family. He tells the other students stories of his upbringing that place Bent Uncle Algie in a very poor light. He speaks "gloomily" about his Gran's insistence that he should be upholding the family honor, as if he himself doesn't think it a particularly worthwhile or purposeful goal. He does visit his parents over his holidays, true, but we don't even know if he would be doing that if he weren't taken there by his Gran.

Again, I'm not saying that Neville is disloyal, but I really don't think that he exhibits extraordinary loyalty either. I wouldn't identify it as one of his striking characteristics, nor do I see evidence that it's a trait that he values all that highly.

"True."

Is "true" a synonym for "loyal," or does it mean "truthful?" I suspect the former, but since we've already covered loyalty, let's look at Neville's honesty, shall we? Is Neville honest?

Hard to say. He's willing to 'fess up to McGonagall for losing his password list. He's willing to admit to the other Gryffindor students that he's allowed himself to get bullied in the hallways -- always a humiliating admission. He doesn't blurt out stuff about his parents to anyone, true, but then, no one's ever actually asked him about his parents, now, have they?

At the same time, though, Neville certainly is secretive, isn't he? He doesn't tell Hermione what's really bothering him after Crouch/Moody's DADA class. He doesn't tell anyone about his parents. He has to be pressed before he'll admit to being bullied, or to losing his passwords (he did not, you will note, mention it to anyone when they first went missing). And, as I argued in message #36772, I think there is evidence to suggest that Neville has been deliberately leading others astray when it comes to the true extent of his magical capabilities.

None of which precisely makes him dishonest, but it doesn't make him forthright, either, which is the type of honesty implied by the word "true."

So why Hufflepuff? Why does everyone think that Neville ought to have been sorted into Hufflepuff, of all houses?

If I were Helga Hufflepuff, I wouldn't have touched Neville with a ten-foot pole. She wanted stable, hard-working, straightforward, salt of the earth type students, didn't she? I don't think that she was terribly keen on the idea of trying to teach neurotic little weirdos with serious magical learning disabilities and far more emotional baggage than can fit into the overhead compartment. That just doesn't seem likely to me.

In fact, if I were Helga, I think that I would have tried to foist Neville off on somebody else. Anybody else. Probably Godric. 'Cause you know, the thing about those warrior types with the great big swords is that they can never resist a challenge. They just love lost causes. And they're suckers for orphans and widows, too. And puppy dogs. And the lame and the halt. They're just big old softies, is what they are. Sentimental. And verrrrrry easy to manipulate.

Which is pretty much exactly what I think happened inside that Sorting Hat.

—Elkins