The Sorting Hat is a legendary artifact that every new member experiences when joining Hogwarts. The Sorting Hat has been passed down from founders who created each house. Along with the hat is the personalities each founder possessed in order to help the hat determine which people possess the qualities each house contains. The Sorting Hat has the magical ability to place a student in one of the four houses it feels would result in bringing out the best qualities in a person, whether it’s a persons need or desire for cognition, agreeableness, bravery or self-righteousness.
The Sorting Hat bases its decision on a person’s personality and qualities it sees or feels would best fit in at a certain house whether its Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin. The Sorting Hat ultimately makes the decision for which you will be placed based on your personality. Although it is seen and understood as choosing the house based on your personality, many believe personality or fate are not the leading roles to the selection, but self-selection and a person’s free will and desire to be in one specific house over the others play a large role in which house a person will ultimately end up in.
In the Harry Potters series, when Harry first enters Hogwarts and it’s his turn to be placed under the Sorting Hat, unlike others that had gone before him, the hat takes a longer time to make the decision to where Harry Potter would best fit. In the article, A Story of the Exceptional: Fate and Free Will in the Harry Potter Series (2010), explains that it is unclear rather or not students whose sorting takes a longer time have the better chance of ending up in the house of their desires, rather than the ones who get their house chosen for them immediately.
Placing the thought that some people have easily noticeable personality’s or that the hat puts an emphasis on where that person would like to be placed to the individuals who don’t have as strong of personality traits, or more than one personality trait over the others (p. 188). Having time spent more on a person gives them the privilege to let the sorting hat know his or her preference and the ability to believe that you got to make the decision rather than letting fate take its role and picking the house that best suits you as a person.
Just as the quizzes given to the public, such as the one J. K. Rowling made on Pottermore, on which house they belong in, I believe a person ends up in the e that is his or her strongest preference. Even though it ask many questions to understand ones personality off of instance, the answers you give are going to be rendered to the expected answer that preferred house would give. It will truly never be off of no preference.
The underlying question is, is the house you are selected into where you truly belong or what you have been conditioned to believe and think that’s where you belong, and if it is based on one’s personality, is the sorting done too early based on the growth of a person’s personality and behavior? Although personality can alter over time, many theorist believe that the most basic characteristics are established by the age of five or six, with acceptance to other developments in an individual’s adolescence but major changes in an individual’s personality and life are not expected.
Many other theorist also believe an individual’s personality is solely influenced by ones parents and environment surrounding them, challenging their own self-concept (Beers, 2014, p. 1). Many students at Hogwarts are taught to think and believe certain houses are better than others, and that is where they belong whether it coincides with their personalities or not, even before attending the school. For example, the Weasley children are taught to understand that Gryffindor, where both their parents Molly and Arthur Weasley were placed, is the house they belong in, as is Draco Malfoy with Slytherin.
He has been taught to think that he belongs in Slytherin where both his parents were selected into. Rather than making their own opinions on each house, they have already been made and distorted by people outside of themselves. Developing a battle between determinism and free choice, a question of personality on whether to follow the path given to you or to make your own path ultimately determining where an individual will end up. Although an individual’s personality and view on life is learned from their peers or parents during childhood, it can be altered by change in one’s outlook or even environment (Beers, 2014, p. ). An individual’s personality never being fully developed, gives concern to whether or not the sorting of the houses is placed too soon on the students.
If an individual’s personality isn’t fully developed or could change, they shouldn’t be paced into a house where they will be known for one certain trait. If selected later, some individuals would have the opportunity to obtain qualities other houses have and to make their own choices and personality traits rather than the ones they have been influenced by from their parents (Mills, 2010, p. 94). Although some argue that the sorting is done too early, others believe it isn’t. Being sorted immediately when entering Hogwarts gives the chance for the hat to see inside your true personality, without the impressions of other students and houses you seek to be like. It can see your true self. Understanding both sides of the situation, I believe the sorting into houses is done too early.
An individual isn’t fully developed into the person they are going to be for the rest of their lives, and labeling them to one hou m the opportunity to grow as a person. He or she is only going to be as good as their house allows them to be. As stated earlier the house you prefer is the one you most likely will be placed in, my preferred house to the house that was chosen for me were the same. Although I took the quiz and answered many questions on the spot, the house that I preferred the most took over making me believe that the house an individual prefers over the others, is the house he or she is going to get.
Along with the other test I took including the TIPI test, the need for cognition scale, need to belong scale, and the dirty dozen triad, my scores were divided. Not knowing the results each of the test had, my traits toward each house were divided. I tested as both a Gryffindor and a Slytherin. Not having a preference on which house I wanted to be in, gave me the opportunity to be a part of more than just one. Even though my preferred house was a Gryffindor, and that’s what I got, I believe that is where I truly belong compared to the other houses.
Even though your mind alters the answers to the way you think a person from your eferred house would answer a question, the results you get are based on the true personality traits you obtain. Although | believe the Sorting Hat makes its own opinions of the person on where they should go, if a person is strong willed and confident in the place they would rather go, it is going to give him or her that preferred house. The hat and the quizzes you take are only as strong as the person wearing or taking it.
