On The sorting-hat-chats Hogwarts Houses Theory and Moral Themes In Narratives

 

Recently, I decided to revisit some of my old Internet-surfing days and browse through the various online fan communities floating around on the web. While doing so, I found a curious theory of human categorization devised by members of the Harry Potter fandom. Hosted by the user “sorting-hat-chats” on the blogging platforms Tumblr and Wordpress, the system takes the four Hogwarts houses and uses them to roughly categorize the moral motivations and methods of humanity. being interested in topics related to psychology, feeling a pleasant nostalgia towards the concept of a fandom taking canonical information and using it for new purposes, and interested in the system’s potential as a character and plot theme development tool, I have decided to describe the system and discuss my thoughts on it below. 

 

            In this fan-created system, the term “Primary” is used to refer to a character’s moral values and motivational drive; the four Primaries are dichotomously arranged along two axes, with Gryffindor and Ravenclaw being Idealist Primaries and Hufflepuff and Slytherin being Loyalist Primaries respectively. As Idealist Primaries, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw are both motivated by a set of abstract moral “truths” or principles; however, they differ in how they source and decide on those principles. Gryffindor Primaries trust their moral intuition and innate sense of right and wrong, believing that the morally correct choice is one that aligns with one’s instinctive reactions to moral situations; by contrast, Ravenclaw Primaries question their moral impulses and instead rely upon rationally constructed systems (e.g. religion, logical reasoning) by which to base moral decisions off of. On the other axis, Loyalist Primaries are driven by their moral responsibilities towards the concrete wellbeing of other people; they differ in how they decide which people they should prioritize morally in terms of responsibility. Hufflepuff Primaries feel morally responsible for all people; they see everyone as having a universally equal moral value, and prioritize loyalty to communities and social groups over loyalty to specific individuals. (Note that Hufflepuff Primaries can still have motivations that are considered immoral or evil and harm innocent people. They would simply need to dehumanize their victims - in other words, stop seeing them as people and therefore strip them of their value.)  On the other side of the Loyalist dichotomy is the Slytherin Primary; people with this Primary only feel morally responsible for the individuals that they personally care about, and see these people as being more morally valuable than others.  All four Primaries can be “Burned,” meaning that one has decided that their moral motivations, while morally correct, are not feasible or practical to uphold in reality. Individuals with Burned Primaries are often jaded and cynical, seeing themselves and the world as morally bad as they are not allowed to act on what they believe is right. One can also have a “Model” in addition to the Primary, feeling motivated by some of that Primary’s beliefs and ideals without truly believing that they are intrinsically morally correct.

 

            The second component of this theory, the “Secondary,” refers to the preferred methods one uses to achieve their goals. Each Secondary takes the behavioral traits Rowling assigned to each original Hogwarts house and expands on them; for example, Ravenclaw Secondaries prefer to collect knowledge and skills in various topics and areas in order to prepare themselves for potential situations they may encounter, and Hufflepuff Secondaries prefer to work steadily and consistently towards their goals as well as build a good reputation so that others may easily come to their aid when needed.  Like the aforementioned Primaries, Secondaries can also Burn, and one can model another Secondary that is not their own.

           

            Now that I have described sorting-hat-chats’ theory and its major components above, I can now discuss my thoughts on the theory, in particular its potential as a useful tool for plot theme and character development. After learning about this theory, I have observed the majority of narratives in popular culture seem to be driven by either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor Primary ideals; this makes sense from a socio-cultural perspective, as the Hufflepuff Primary moral code prioritizes the community above individual ties and therefore is more likely to support the common goals of society, while the Gryffindor Primary, when its internal moral standards are aligned with the ethos of one’s society, can promote zealotry and unwavering support of societal moral standards while discouraging excessive questioning and therefore potential rebellion against those ideals. My most recent writing project is a deconstruction of the popular Chosen One narrative and seeks to explore how the Hufflepuff/Gryffindor morality described above, when taken to extremes, is ultimately harmful to society. I now realize that I have unintentionally created an ensemble of Chosen One protagonists that are all either Ravenclaw Primaries that question societal moral standards, Slytherin Primaries, Burned Hufflepuff Primaries, or Gryffindor Primaries whose internal moral compasses do not align with that of society’s in one way or another. By having these characters go against the very system they were chosen to serve, I am able to create interesting conflict within the plot and ultimately convey my story’s theme in a thought-provoking and effective way; sorting-hat-chats’ theory helped me to evaluate these characters and sort through their moral motivations, ensuring that they supported the themes that I wanted to establish. As morality is fundamental to human connections and society, we must be careful about the way that we portray moral themes in the stories that we tell; the Harry Potter fandom’s re-interpretation of Rowling’s original Hogwarts houses creates a potentially useful benchmark by which to evaluate the moral ethea of our characters and ultimately of our narratives.

- Jade Li

Technology vs Books in Early Children's Education

It seems like technology has started replacing physical copies of text all over the place. People now take online notes, have electronic health records, and read on Kindles instead of books. One area where technology will have a hard time replacing books, though, is in children's education.

Sure, there are a couple Youtube channels (Cocomelon is a notable example) that offer well-animated videos with nursery rhymes. Some of their videos even have important themes like sharing, honesty, and patience. However, many of these quality channels have a very limited range of topics that they produce videos for, leaving a large gap that is often filled by lower-quality channels.

Because there are no videos, about, say, cars from the good channels, other channels of poorer quality are churning out content to meet that demand and attract a larger number of viewers. The videos are full of flashing neon colors, and tend to focus on one specific thing. A couple also try to include descriptions like color or shapes, but they are wildly inaccurate. Not only would they teach young children that green was yellow, they taught it in different languages! These videos are available in several countries, many of them non-English-speaking, as creators try to appeal to a broader audience. As a result, they include gibberish and sound effects instead of speech. What little intelligible language that is spoken in these shoddily-produced videos is usually not English, making it paradoxically useless to the majority of its demographic. 

All of this creates a problem: there is a limited amount of quality content in a limited number of topics and genres, and the content that tries to replace or supplement it is inaccurate, addictive, and absurd. So how do we solve that problem?

Books. I have a younger brother, so I've been reading a couple of his books. From Maisy to Animals 123, children's books have that range in topic and consistency of quality that the online alternatives have yet to catch up with. I can't deny that technology is a massive step in the right direction for many fields and subjects, but we still need to wait a while before it can offer the same benefits children's books can.

-Zhaoxin

Asuperu Kanojo: a inside to mental disorders

 

The cover of volume 1

   Asuperu Kanojo, or Asperger’s Girl, is a Japanese graphic novel written by Hagimoto Souha and drawn by Morita Renji. The book follows the main character Yokoi Taku, who recently moved to Tokyo and now makes a living by delivering newspapers and drawing comics. Because of Yakoi’s unusual plot and unhappy endings due to him most likely having ASD (never explicitly stated in the story, but heavily implied), his comics are completely ignored by everyone. However one day, a girl named Saitou Megumi suddenly appears in front of his apartment saying she’s a huge fan of his original works, it turns out she suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome and was abused and bullied when she was a child. After realizing Saitou came from extremely far away and has no intentions, or money to go back, Yakoi decides to let her live with him and thus beginning their journey of learning to rely on each other and treating their mental disorders. I know this is an extremely confusing and complicated introduction so please just read the actual manga. Currently the manga is finished with 12 volumes and 123 chapters in Japanese and Chinese, however the English translation is only up to chapter 41.

    Asperger’s Syndrome, also called AD, is a developmental disorder that affects the ability to socialize and communicate, it is quite rare but can last for years or even be lifelong. It used to be considered as a separate condition, but today it is part of the autism spectrum disorder (ASD), though lots of people still use the term Asperger’s. Asperger’s is called a “high-functioning” type of ASD, meaning it is less severe than other kinds of autism spectrum disorder.

no context panel

    I came from China, and generally, it and other Asian countries place less importance on mental disorders compared to the west, to the point where I didn’t know anything about it until I arrived in the US. Thus, my knowledge of mental health as a whole is…not a lot and extremely basic, so I'm not sure how correct the story depicts it, but the reviews from others say it's pretty accurate. This story taught me a lot about mental health, like with Yokoi I learned about how he thinks and even though his childhood wasn’t bad, he still feels empty inside. Then Saitou’s sudden panic attacks, quick changes in emotions and behaviors toward strangers and herself. She is also most likely suffering from multiple disorders, including PTSD and depression from her abusive father and school bullies. I’ve learned a lot of these things from places like health class, but it was simply just facts and words that I memorized. In this book, you get to follow 2 characters and watch them grow and experience things from their perspective, allowing you to understand things much more than just studying. Overall, I think Asuperu Kanojo is a really good read, though there are a few… interesting and maybe questionable side plots, the mental health is definitely the main draw of this manga and I definitely recommend reading it.

The cover of volume 5