4:02am October 28, 2013

➸ Nico: transremus: I think the fact that within Hogwarts there’s a lot of...

I think the fact that within Hogwarts there’s a lot of distaste for Slytherin and Hufflepuff shows some interesting insight into the wizarding community. Like, Hufflepuff represents hard work and fairness, right? But there’s the idea that Hufflepuffs are losers, sort of the…

Weird I see myself as a Hufflepuff and I’ve never seen it being about success. It’s about being committed to human decency for its own sake. And hard work, not because of success, but because it’s important in its own right? Like I have those values about being decent, being inclusive, etc. not “to be a better person” but rather “because compassion matters”. And hard work is just something I do, something I’ve always done, something I’ve always been most comfortable doing. And I’ve not really “succeeded in life” by any standard measure, nor “gotten ahead”, etc. And these things are not about trying to make myself a better person, they’re about knowing my effect on others because it matters to other people’s lives, not because of its effects on my life. Like it’s not about being a do-gooder, who does “the right thing” because it makes you feel good about yourself to think you’re the sort f person who does the right thing. It’s about being decent to other people. The focus is not yourself, but others.

And that’s probably where hard work comes into the equation. It’s again that focus on doing things for other people’s sake, not your own. Hard work is often the thing nobody wants to do but everyone knows it’s necessary. And if other houses are focused on being flashy and daring, or being an intellectual for its own sake, or personal success, we’re the ones who are going to be doing all the basic work, behind the scenes and otherwise, because someone’s gotta do it. It’s not always flashy and daring or intellectual or useful for career advancement, but it's necessary. Things would collapse without it. So we do it.

My friend often talks about how it’s actually Gryffindor that’s most similar to Slytherin. She says they both have a “Plutonian sort of energy” (I’m not entirely sure what that means), they just respond to it in two different ways. That’s reflected in how the original Gryffindor and Slytherin were best friends. And the intense rivalry between the two might be because they recognize their sameness.

I think Slytherin and Hufflepuff are looked down upon for different reasons.

While the other Houses focus on people with specific kinds of talents in the world – cunning, intelligence, and daring – Hufflepuff has always been inclusive, it will take anyone, whether they also happen to have those traits or not. I get the feeling that one of the reasons it’s looked down upon for the same reasons that classrooms that are inclusive of disabled people are looked down upon, because they’re associated with the idea of “special ed” and the like, which is the ultimate in awfulness. I totally got that same impression from Hufflepuff, like it’s the house that wouldn’t mind taking people who didn’t have any flashy talents and may even at times be slow learners who really struggled with the basics. And so the whole House is tainted by association, because people really tend to see it that way. Hufflepuff also happens to be the House that has turned out the fewest Dark wizards, but nobody ever actually seems to notice that, they’re too busy as seeing us as mediocre.

(It interests me that both the House that turned out the most Dark wizards and the one that turned out the least, are both looked down upon.)

And the reason people look down on Slytherin is because they only see the extremes.

My friend has a cat who would totally be a Slytherin, she’s almost exactly like my (more Gryffindor) cat but she has this ineffable quality that sets her apart and makes her a really obvious candidate for Slytherin.

So I personally know Slytherin doesn’t mean evil. But a lot of people assume it does. And I think that’s because cunning and ambition, when combined, can result in people who would do anything, even completely evil things, to succeed. But it doesn't have to result in those things.

It’s sort of like, people assume Gryffindor means a sort of flashy boldness. And it can mean that. There are plenty of Gryffindors who totally fit that sort of arrogant flashiness stereotype. But there are also plenty of Gryffindors, Neville especially, who never in a thousand years look like that.

But while the stereotype of Gryffindors can actually work towards their being really popular, the stereotype of Slytherins works against it.

But the stereotypes of Hufflepuff and Slytherin work against them for totally unrelated reasons.

With Hufflepuff they’re stereotyped as being the ‘special ed’ house, just because they’ve always been inclusive of anyone who wanted to learn regardless of their talents and, yes, disabilities on many occasions I’m sure. And they’re looked down upon 'special ed’ is just not considered cool at all. Nobody ever really comes out and says that, but the way people talk about them is the exact same way people talk about special ed students, even if many people they’re saying these things about wouldn't actually be in special ed.

With Slytherin they’re stereotyped as being evil. As having cunning and ambition so powerful that they have no actual moral compass and only care about their ambitions. Which is completely not fair because there are plenty of people in the world who are driven and ambitious but not unethical at all let alone evil. It’s just that Slytherin also lets in people who are ambitious and unethical and they’re assumed to be everyone.

So people’s problem with Slytherin is a moral problem. And people’s problem with Hufflepuff is that they’re not considered cool enough, and this idea is tainted by an unspoken but definitely present ableism (even though the ableism is applied to many people who aren’t even disabled in any way, it’s still the exact same pattern as ableism against people with developmental disabilities, I don’t know how I know that it’s sort of an I know it when I see it thing).

So in the one case people are disliked for their presumed moral qualities, and in another case people are disliked for their presumed (dis)ability level. Totally different dynamics. People don’t hate Hufflepuffs because they value hard work, they hate them because they’re presumed talentless and boring (and kind of disgusting in the way people see disabled people as disgusting).

In neither case are the presumptions 100% accurate. But they’re completely different presumptions that happen for completely unrelated reasons. In both cases there’s a grain of truth in that such people do exist and are more welcomed in their respective houses than in others. But in both cases such people are not the whole house, not even close. Just like not all Ravenclaws are intellectual snobs, and not all Gryffindors are flashy showoffs, but Ravenclaw and Gryffindor welcome such people more than other houses would.

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