In honor of Pottermore relaunching this week, the internet has lost its mind. We at HerCampus MCLA are with the rest of the population on this matter. All over social media people are freaking out as their favorite adolescent teen trio comes back in to their lives in a new and improved format. The one question on everyone’s mind is this: what house am I in? I’m not exempt from this question. In fact, like almost everyone else that I know, I immediately grabbed my nearest device, logged in, and took the quiz. What happened next was unexpected.
Like most Potterhead’s, I’ve taken my fair share of sorting house quizzes. I’ve taken quizzes that were hundreds of questions long, or ten questions long. I’ve taken quizzes that were image or word based. I’ve taken the first “official” Pottermore sorting hat quiz, and I’ve always gotten the same results: Ravenclaw. Ravenclaw was safe and comforting, a personality archetype that I’ve always felt confident aligning myself with.
Today something strange happened. I was sorted into Slytherin.
Full disclosure: my first reaction was terror. To me, Slytherin has always been associated with being flat-out evil. Lord Voldemort, anyone? Slytherins are supposed to be ambitious, cunning, and determined. Throughout the series we see these qualities. However, we also see qualities that are tied nearly exclusively to the house like racism, cowardice, selfishness and a general sense of entitled elitism. Slytherin house also feels male-driven, with characters like Severus Snape, Tom Riddle and Draco Malfoy representing the face behind the snake.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized why I was scared. There are only two female characters that are strongly tied to the Slytherin house throughout the series. They are Dolores Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange. To be fair, there are multiple female students who are associated with the house as well, but none of them received the same attention, page-time, or character development that Umbridge and Bellatrix did. These female characters were heavily associated with one very specific character trait: cruelty. Not just cruelty, either. Cruelty for the sake of cruelty. Cruelty for pleasure. Other male characters who display this trait, also display some semblance of remorse, or guilt. Not the female characters.
This is understandably enough to make any girl scared, especially one who has always been associated with Ravenclaw—a house that is equally intelligent, but comes without many of the negative connotations of the Slytherin house. After my initial panic, though, I took a second to step back and think.
What’s wrong with being cunning? Or ambitious? Shrewd and determined? Women who hold these qualities in our society are squashed – and squashed quickly. Words like “bossy” and “bitch” are used to try and hold us back from stepping up into our power. There isn’t anything wrong with being resourceful. There isn’t anything wrong with knowing what you want. Being a Slytherin is a call to action. Some of the qualities that I am most proud about possessing are portrayed in the Slytherin house. There is nothing wrong with being proud about what you’ve worked for.
Whatever house you are – whether it be Slytherin or Gryffindor, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff – there is nothing wrong with who you are. These houses and their qualities don’t define you. At the end of the day Harry Potter is a universe you go to escape, and play, and to have fun. Embodying the positive aspects of your house and accepting the negative ones is all well and good, but what really matters is who you say that you are, not who Pottermore, or anyone else, does.