I have a theory that the valued quality of each of the four Houses isn’t really about the personality of its students.
The valued quality of each of the four Houses has to do with how they perceive magic.
Stick with me a second: Hogwarts is a school to study magic. Magic as Hogwarts teaches it can be seen as many things: a natural talent, a gift, a weapon, etc.
So how you believe magic should be used will both reflect your personality and change how you handle that power.
“Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart,” Gryffindors perceive magic as a weapon. Gryffindors tend to excel in aggressive forms of magic, like offensive and defensive spells, and they are good at dueling. But a true Gryffindor knows that the power is a responsibility, and so they must always use their powers to stand up for what’s right. They are the sword of the righteous, which makes them as good at Defense Against the Dark Arts as they are at combat magic.
Hufflepuffs believe that magic is a gift and that the best gifts are to be given away. Hufflepuffs, “loyal and just,” would naturally abhor the idea of jealously guarding magic or using it to hurt someone else. So Hufflepuffs share their magic to benefit of Muggles, like the Fat Friar, to protect the overlooked, like Newt Scamander with his creatures, or to oppose those who would use magic to torment and bully, like the Hufflepuffs who stood with the DA and the battle of Hogwarts.
Slytherins are the opposite: they believe their magic is a treasure that they have been entrusted to protect. The Slytherin fascination with purity, with advantage, with cunning and secrecy–all of which were perverted by the Death Eaters–comes from the idea that people with magic in their veins have been given something special that it is their duty to protect at all costs. And perhaps they aren’t entirely wrong: power in the wrong hands can be dangerous. And power interfering at will with Muggle affairs is a gross presumption that could turn the course of history. Though the series shows some of the worst that Slytherin can be, “evil,” is not a natural Slytherin tendency. “Cautious,” is.
Ravenclaws believe that magic is an art form, one that is beautiful and should be appreciated and studied for its own sake. If “wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” then asking what magic is for is useless. It’s more important to immerse oneself in magic for its own sake. Ravenclaws push the boundaries of magic to see if they can, hence Hermione’s spell experiment on the DA coins being dubbed a Ravenclaw quality, but like Luna Lovegood in the pursuit of extraordinary creatures: they can also be content to plumb the depths of what already exists.
So while you can see where personalities will overlap over Houses, perhaps in Sorting we should be asking ourselves less what we think we are and more what we think we believe.
that’s much more interesting and substantive than “brave, smart, evil, miscellaneous”
The next two Avatars, from water and earth, live without ever knowing who they are.
Zuko still spoke out at the meeting, he still refused to fight his father in the Agni Kai.
Zuko was banished, and in his search to find the Avatar, earth bends.
He is the Avatar and doesn’t know what to do about it.
Okay but consider:
Zuko, punching the air: “I MUST FIND THE AVATAR!”
*rock goes flying*
Zuko, waving his arms for emphasis: “IT IS THE ONLY WAY”
*strong wind knocks over grunt in the background*
Zuko, stomping dramatically: “TO RESTORE MY HONOR!”
*deck behind zuko becomes covered in ice*
Iroh, stroking his beard: “…. hmmmmmm…”
And Iroh just decides to mess with him and just goes “Well, I suppose we should start searching” and Zuko doesn’t find out until later in the episode
Nah man, gimme a whole season of Zuko and Iroh’s hijinks as they search for the avatar and it’s Zuko the whole time. A whole season of Iroh waffling between goofy uncle and “here let me teach you about balance-” “I DON”T NEED BALANCE I NEED TO RESTORE MY HONOUR” “okay cool you do you kid i bet the avatar’s behind that rock please move it for me”
zuko saying he needs to find the avatar, when actually, he just needs to find himself is his original story arc
Look, I know we all take He Cheng’s comment to just mean physical strength, but let’s not forget how much strength it takes to remain calm and collected and to make the right choices when someone you care about is injured.
Apparently now is the time for uncomfortable truths because I’ve just had it.
How many posts have I seen that talk about fanfiction ‘setting the bar higher’ or about how ‘unoriginal’ published fiction is? How many posts have I seen where someone’s saying “I wish someone would write about X thing that subverts some popular trope!’?
And nearly daily, I see fandom deride us like we’re somehow other. And look, I get it. In large part, I think a lot of the pushback is the inaccessibility of publishing in large houses, and the way that those large houses churn out the same tropes over and over again, while enforcing and maintaining the societal status quo. But hey, those are large presses. Those are The Big Four. There are so many smaller, younger, moreinclusive presses running around now, not even to mention self-publishing.
If I read a book that I absolutely love and I immediately develop a writer-crush on that author, 9 times out of 10 I say to myself “I wanna be friends” and then we become friends. It’s great. Authors have no chill about each other, none at all, I love it.
So when I finally caved and came to tumblr and started getting involved in fandom, it was like a bucket of cold water to the face when I found out, over and over, that fanfic writers and readers wanted nothing to do with me and my original fiction. I mention that I’ve finally been writing again, someone asks what pairing, I say it’s orig fic and the immediate disinterest is nearly palpable. There’s the continuous parade of posts talking about how no one ever writes about this, you never see books about that, I wish there was a book like this, with this, not with that, and every time I see those posts I become an incredible combination of sad and indignant.
Because these books do exist, these authors and publishing houses do exist. These editors and artists, they exist. I know because I’ve worked with them, I’ve emailed and tweeted them, I’ve published with them. These posts and this attitude are willfully ignoring and erasing the industry that’s closest to your own works. Do you think mainstream publishing and The Big Four, do you think they’d accept ABO? Do you think they’d accept triads with an ace member? Do you think they’d accept trans love stories? Sweeping epic fantasy where the main character being gay isn’t the driving force behind the plot? Or sweet and fluffy contemporary romance? No, they wouldn’t, because on the whole mainstream publishing, when it deigns to include us, is pretty much only interested in killing us.
Fandom needs to understand that there are queer spaces in publishing too, and we are not the enemy. It really sucks to try to fit in with the people you think will understand you best and have it made clear, time and time again, that you’re still too other for them.
And it is because of these explicitly queer spaces in publishing that the big New York houses are beginning to adjust and allow for more diversity in all aspects. We can make a difference, but we do it by reading and supporting what’s there, not denying it unless it comes from a pre-existing property.
yknow the more jk rowlings world falls apart in america (race relations, international history, population, etc) the more i like to think that america just straight up doesnt have the statute of secrecy. european countries are falling over themselves hiding magic but come to georgia and theres a drunk redneck wizard wingardium leviosa-ing the shit out of a tractor to the delight of his drunk redneck muggle buddies in a walmart parking lot.
wizard on muggle violence is prevented by virtue of there being like a 50/50 chance that muggle is packing heat. muggle on wizard violence is prevented by knowing that wizard can give you boils spelling LIL BITCH on your forehead if you try to start something.
america is the weird redheaded stepchild of the magic world.
im not gonna stop reblogging this until this is the next Hot Fanon
english muggles come back to england and suspicious wizards meet them at the airport.
‘did you witness any strange or inexplicable acts while you were in america?’ they demand.
the english muggles just laugh in their dumb fucking faces. mate, it’s america.
what’s the difference between a werewolf and an animagus?
english wizard: *two hour lecture on legal history*
american wizard: six beers
@jumpingjacktrash congrats ive read hundreds of comments on this dumpster fire of a headcanon and yours is the best
thank you my patronus is a monster truck
I have reblogged this I don’t even fucking know how many times but I still completely lose it every time I see the words “My Patronus is a monster truck” because that is the most AMERICAN thing I’ve ever seen in 29 years of being ‘merican.
Variant: What with the International Statute of Secrecy being an international law, the American magical community suffered quite a bit at the hands of forcible attempts to make everyone conform to it, until anti-seclusionist magical forces got their hands on the sort of magics being used to hide the wizarding world from nonmagical society, and hid themselves and their communities from the magical government and its institutions.
That’s why Ilvermorny is “the only American wizarding school.” That’s why the American magical population feels like something the size of the British one pasted on something a couple orders of magnitude bigger. That’s why Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is so white. That’s why nonmagical people have a persistent quiet willingness to believe in magic just enough to allow for the possibility of its existence, and fill their stories with it, and readily interact with the idea of it. It’s an elaborate homegrown smokescreen to hide hundreds of integrated magical communities from the magical community that demands magical communities keep themselves secret.
The forces behind the International Statute of Secrecy made themselves such an absolute nuisance that some 95% of the magical population of America stole their hide-from-the-muggles spells and locked them out of knowledge of their existence.
The International Wizarding Community: “You are now forbidden to let any nonmagical people know you exist.”
Six Gazillion American Wizarding Communities: *Jedi mind trick hand motions* “Fuck you, we don’t exist. Nothing to see here.”
The International Wizarding Community: “Looks like the problem’s been solved, I guess. Pip pip cheerio.”
Six Gazillion American Wizarding Communities And Their Muggle Friends: “OK I’mma cast Engorgio on my tires and invent Monster Trucking, hold my beer.”
just moving along like everyone else 