The most dangerous phrase in the language is, “we’ve always done it this way.”
More you might like
“Come on, let’s mix it up!” The heart surgeon says.
“B-but we’ve always done it this way!” The other replies, “this is how you replace a heart valve.”
“That’s the most dangerous phrase in the human language!” The first surgeon replies haughtily as he inputs a fruit loop into the patient’s heart. “This will be his valve. He will be a fruit loop in a world of Cheerios.”
(taken from this post on the experiments of Harry Harlow)
This is serious business, because this is a large part of how sexism, racism, homophobia, rape culture, ethnocentrism, etc. continue to happen.
That bullshit heart surgery example doesn’t even make sense though, does that person think that we’re still doing heart surgery the exact same way we’ve always done heart surgery? As if medicine isn’t constantly changing and updating? Wow it’s almost like people are finding excuses to not have to think critically about the world!
artemis-fido asked:
Had a recent breakthrough re: how sorting hat does things, which is the sorting hat is supposed to know you better than you know yourself (in a way, maybe more able to see past insecurities and the like), so it will listen to your desire to be in a certain house over another as long as it isn't linked to a lack of self-knowledge. Neville wasn't aware of the bravery he possessed, and Gilderoy may have had heart eyes for Gryffindor but lacked nearly every trait. Otherwise: it's your choice.
pottermoreanalysis answered:
I think this is pretty accurate (or at least coincides with my idea of accuracy/head canon.) I think the Sorting Hat can look at you and see both you as you truly are (the traits you have now) and the potential you have to expand on those traits - it can see what you’re capable of becoming and which traits you have the most potential for expanding, perhaps even have an idea of which House would nurture each student best. (I don’t think it can see the future - I don’t subscribe to the whole “the Sorting Hat put the Golden Trio together because it knew the war was coming and they’d need each other!” idea - but I do think that the Hat has a general sense of where a student will thrive the most, especially since it has over 1000 years’ experience in Sorting students and will have seen similar personalities before.
So Neville is definitely Sorted Gryffindor because that’s what he wants at heart but doesn’t have the self-confidence/awareness to see the potential that the Sorting Hat does, where Lockhart isn’t Sorted Gryffindor because the Hat doesn’t believe he has the potential or the capability of developing Gryffindor traits. (The Hat definitely doesn’t Sort students based on where they need development - otherwise, Lockhart would probably have been a Hufflepuff. There’s probably an interesting contrast between Pettigrew and Lockhart to be made there, an implication that Pettigrew did have potential for bravery as well as the admiration of it, but that he didn’t live up to that potential.) And I do think that a person’s choice takes precedence as long as their choice is based on accurate knowledge of themselves and the House (why Neville’s request was disregarded vs. Harry and Hermione both having preference taken into account) and as long as the Hat has a chance to discuss the merits of the other Houses with them and obtain their consent to be Sorted into that House (if Lockhart had adamantly sat on that stool and REFUSED to listen to the House telling him about Ravenclaw and Slytherin, he might’ve sat there for 10 minutes, but ultimately I think the Hat would’ve put him into Gryffindor rather than put him somewhere else against his will. I also don’t think that 11-year-old Lockhart did express a positive preference for Gryffindor - rather, I think he simply valued all of the Gryffindor traits without actually thinking “I WANT TO BE IN GRYFFINDOR” when he was sitting on the stool.)
The Hogwarts houses are set in 2 different groups:
Gryff, Slyth, Raven - at least A FEW key characters are from each of these houses
and
Hufflepuff a.k.a the unimportant side character house.
I’d say it’s more akin to Gryff/Slyth and Claw/Puff - I’m assuming that you consider Luna the key character for Ravenclaw (any others? Because Quirrell and Lockhart aren’t given Houses in-text and Xeno, Flitwick, Cho, and the other Ravenclaw DA members aren’t generally given much in the way of character development/I wouldn’t call them “key.”) Meanwhile, Hufflepuff has Cedric and Tonks (and again, Tonks isn’t given a House in-text, but Tonks is a character I’d classify as important.) Hufflepuff’s students as a whole are also better developed than Ravenclaw’s (I have more of a sense of the personalities of Ernie, Zacharias, Hannah, and Susan than I do of Michael, Anthony, Terry, or even Marietta, not that any of these people are “key.”)
Hufflepuff has a larger number of semi-developed good characters, where Ravenclaw basically has Luna. (Luna and Cho are the two most prominent Claw students - Luna, Cho, Marietta, probably - but Cho is pretty much “love interest grieving for Cedric” and Marietta is pretty much “traitor.”)
Hufflepuff really suffers because of JKR’s emphasis on making them the good House but making the members of Gryffindor House into the good guys of the series. (This has the unfortunate and unintentional tendency to turn Hufflepuff House into background cannon fodder while the Gryff heroes are showcased: the decision to kill Tonks means that the two most prominent Puffs in the series end up dead.)
Meanwhile, the secondary characters who are better-developed/have more focus for Ravenclaw tend to be bad guys (Lockhart, Quirrell - though note again that neither has a House mentioned in-text) - and Slytherin gets a lot of coverage, but tends to have morally grey or outright evil characters (Snape is good but not likable; Slughorn is on the side of good but also not particularly likable; Regulus ended up on the side of good but was a Death Eater; Andromeda Tonks is good and probably likable but not developed; so on and so forth. Slytherin characters get development, but not a particularly good kind of development.)
Really, I’d say there are three different groups:
-Gryffindor, the only House to get a full array of well-developed characters
-Slytherin, which gets developed but as a fairly one-dimensional House (though its individual characters - Snape in particular - include some of the most complex in the series)
-Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, which are relegated to the background; Hufflepuff has a larger number of secondary characters but Ravenclaw’s most prominent secondary character is better-developed and more prominent than any of the Puffs
The Problem of Slytherin
Or, “the negative treatment of Slytherin House in canon."
To me, "the Problem of Slytherin” (which I’ve nicknamed based on the infamous “Problem of Susan” from CS Lewis's Narnia) is one of the major flaws of the series. Not as bad as my issues with DH, certainly, but something that detracts from the series as a whole.
Again, this is a somewhat unpopular opinion: there are plenty of people who feel that the portrayal of Slytherin was fine as-is, many who argue that it was inevitable because of the books’ first-person Gryffindor-centric POV, and some people who believe that an ambition-oriented House is more likely to produce evil people than one that values intelligence/wit, hard work/patience, or bravery/fame, particularly given Salazar Slytherin’s penchant for conflating greatness and blood purity, making a House that seems pre-made for prejudice.*
*I think that Slytherin’s orientation on blood-purity could have been written as something that was a rational response to his historical period, but I don’t think that JKR intends it to be viewed that way. If mass persecutions were occurring and lots of wizards were dying, then you could make a case for hiding/not accepting Muggle-borns - but again, this is something that’s more grounds for an AU fic based on what we know of Rowling’s Wizarding history, in which witch-hunting/problems didn’t get to be significant until three to four centuries after the Founders’ era, and in which the dangers weren't that significant in any case. (Yes, that’s no consolation to Nearly Headless Nick, but we’re led to believe that persecutions weren’t that terrible a danger in the great scheme of things. In canon, Salazar Slytherin is not Wizarding Magneto, who believes that wizards need to create a wholly separate society of their own because the real world has given them concrete evidence they’ll never be accepted otherwise - although, again, I do believe that Salazar Slytherin-as-Wizard-Magneto, a man with some valid points but extreme views and methods, could successfully exist in fanfic.)
But, even given the idea that Slytherin held an indefensible, reactionary opinion for his own time, I believe that the books could have - and should have - written Slytherin differently. Because, as it is, there is a huge problem with the general portrayal of Slytherin characters, and, moreover, with the idea of House Unity and that entire theme, which became so important in OotP.
This is long, so I’m placing it behind a cut.
but ravenclaws yo
- first year muggleborn ravenclaws being completely enamored with wizard technology
- quiet ravenclaws who are really shy and subdued but can get extremely passionate in debates
- loud ravenclaws who aren’t afraid to speak their mind, even if it gets them in trouble
- ravenclaws who are egalitarians because they have an understanding of basic human rights
- ravenclaws putting a stop to bullying by finding patterns and tracking down bullies
- autistic ravenclaws whom people ridicule, but who actually turn out to be exceptionally gifted
- ravenclaws being confused as to why they were sorted into ravenclaw because they aren’t smart/don’t like studying/etc, but eventually realizing that it was because they love learning
- ravenclaws who take the time to explain to somebody why what they said was unethical instead of yelling at them
- ravenclaws taking extremely messy notes in class that only they can comprehend
- ravenclaws having a word of the day
- muggle ravenclaws having long, in-depth discussions about pop culture while the others listen in, even though they are confused
- ravenclaws trying to discover how the sorting hat works
- ravenclaws who hate reading but do it anyway because they love to learn
- ravenclaws who are very defensive over their opinions, but still respect others’
- dyslexic ravenclaws finding a way to make parchment read notes aloud
- muggle ravenclaws bringing in board games and everyone going crazy with scrabble
- ravenclaws who don’t know what they love more: learning or teaching
- ravenclaws who hate the “ravenclaw = smart” stereotype
- ravenclaws who don’t dislike slytherin because they hate stereotypes in general
- ravenclaws creating charms and spells to prevent depression, panic attacks, etc
i just reALLY LOVE MAKING RAVENCLAW HEADCANONS OKAY
Anonymous asked:
I don't understand the continual upset about lack of diversity. The series is about a magical story it was never intended to be about ethnic/gender diversity. Does it really matter? If you want a more diverse character range, imagine it that way :)
harrypotterconfessions answered:
first: Only off anon messages in reply to posts because I cannot keep putting asks on the blog! Best way to respond is to reblog it to reply. I read notes.
basically we are upset at the lack of representation we have in the media and it would be nice to have a little more. I’m assuming you didn’t have to grow up watching shows and movies where none of the heroes or good guys looked like you. Where the people that matched you best were always the side character or the bad guy. It sends a message, you know, to us. When you’re taught through media that fair skin/heterosexuality is beauty and good etc and you’re not those things, how do you think it makes you feel?
To say that harry potter was not intended to be about ethnic/gender diversity is kind of insulting. Because the entire story was about love, acceptance and difference. Voldemort was prejudiced and that was a huuuggee staple of the series, like to it’s core. But instead of putting it in the context of skin colour, culture, sexuality, body type it was about blood status. And Lupin’s lycanthropy, was a direct correlation to the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. So in its way, through the lessons it taught, the series was very much so about diversity and learning to accept it.
so yes it really matters. it matters to the lot of us who are not the ‘default’ status of white/heterosexual/thin/other accepted norms of society and of course we can imagine it anyway we want, but it doesnt change the medias mind or show people that we’re equal. It can be CANON and people still go up in arms about characters not being ‘the norm’. As per, the hunger games racial controversy. Rue was stated in the book to be dark skinned and there was insane amounts of people complaining that she was cast so for the movie because ‘they didn’t see her that way’. They even went so far as to say they didn’t care about her death in the movie as much as the book because of her skin colour, they could see it instead of the ‘pure white girl’ (quoted from those tweets) they imagined in their heads. And when Rowling announced Dumbledore was gay? Same thing, people were outraged. Suddenly, their kids couldn’t read the books because ‘an older gay man teaching a young boy’ was ‘disgusting’ and what kind of role model was that even though they had no idea until she’d said so (which is another ordeal in itself that i wont get into here) or how about percy jackson’s casting of Clarisse? Shes supposed to be a biiig girl, triple extra large shirt size, tall and intimidating and she is so badass and for bigger girls that was such a boost! aaaaaand then they cast Leven Rambin and they’re all disappointed yet again.
anyway, rowling challenged a couple norms, with Hermione being so clever and bossy and Ron being ginger, but with such an impactful story and message and things… it would’ve been nice to see something more, at least in the later books after she could SEE how much it was speaking to people and how far it was reaching. But she didn’t. She was sending this message through her story but didn’t show it to us through characters.
And thats whats sad for the people who read the series searching for someone like them and finding none.
You are good at something, stop lying to yourself. You’re good at breaking down comic book plots, cooking ramen perfectly, making your friends happy, knowing the time without looking at a clock, getting the perfect ending at RPG’s, or figuring out the twist ending to movies. Don’t let society tell you your talents are meaningless because they don’t serve an economical purpose. Your talents reflect your interests and passions, and what’s important to you is important.
Ravenclaws that go through existential crises every other week because of things they’re reading though
- like “WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE HAVE POTIONS HOMEWORK? I’M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHETHER OTHER MEANS OF TORTURE ARE ACTUALLY MORE ETHICAL THAN THE CRUCIATUS AND IF NOT THEN WHY ARE THEY LEGAL”
- or “I AM CALLING OFF QUIDDITCH PRACTICE TODAY BECAUSE I HAVE TO THINK ABOUT WHY QUIDDITCH IS DIVIDED BY HOUSES”
- or “I CAN’T GO TO RUNES BECAUSE I AM TOO UPSET ABOUT WITCH HUNTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES; IMAGINE WHAT THAT WOULD BE LIKE JUST IMAGINE IT”
- or “BUT WHY IS OUR CURRENCY SO ILLOGICAL CAN’T WE FIX IT”
- or “HOW DOES MAGIC GET PASSED DOWN BUT THEN ALSO APPEAR AT RANDOM NOBODY CAN EXPLAIN IT IS IT IN OUR BODIES OR IN OUR MINDS OR WHAT” (just calm down and come to transfiguration okay) “I WILL NOT CALM DOWN AND I WILL NOT COME TO TRANSFIGURATION”
- “IF YOU VANISH A THING AND CONJURE IT AGAIN IS IT THE SAME MATTER” “IS IT THE SAME ESSENCE” (it’s okay. just vanish the pincushion) “IT’S NOT OKAY”