Here we are, the end of 2014, over 17 years since Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was first published and 13 years since Daniel Radcliffe graced the screen with his pre-pubescent charm. If you were like me then on your 11th birthday you waited patiently for your Hogwarts acceptance letter to arrive, went to every midnight book release dressed in your authentic house robes, and probably peed yourself the first time you went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. As kids we of course dreamed of who we would end up being when we got older, but with the help of these all too iconic novels, we also dreamed of who we would be in this amazing alternate world where having a pet owl was normal and riding broomsticks was recreational.
The number one question every Harry Potter loving child dreamed about and wanted answered was this, “what house would I be sorted into”? Your house determined who you would be friends with, what your grades might have been like, and most importantly how cool your wizard alter ego would have been. Let me break this down really quickly:
If you grew up thinking you were a Gryffindor then you probably 1) were a bandwagon thinker 2) didn’t actually read the books or 3) actually really just wanted to be Hermione Granger.
If you grew up thinking you were a Slytherin, then you probably listened to a lot of My Chemical Romance and frequented Hot Topic back in the day. Plus let’s be honest there’s a 50% chance you were a bully or maybe just “misunderstood”.
If you grew up thinking you were a Ravenclaw then you most likely were a little quiet in a dorky kind of way. Perhaps a bit socially awkward but you always had friends; you were just more likely to read a book in your spare time than anything else.
And if you grew up thinking you were a Hufflepuff then…well that’s just it isn’t it…no one really grew up thinking they were a Hufflepuff. Because let’s be honest, what the hell is a Hufflepuff?
Well I am. And you might be too.
It’s ok! It took me a little while to accept as well. Hufflepuff is the most unappreciated house at Hogwarts (I mean think about it, the one cool character that was a Hufflepuff got killed off halfway through the series) and is really not even mentioned as being noteworthy in any kind of way. All the other houses have their own “thing”, but Hufflepuff is just kinda…there. No one wants to be just some after thought that is not known for anything; that is just depressing. As a kid you already had enough identity problems just trying to figure out who you were while dealing with peer pressure and still rocking some coolio braces. It was easier to just put yourself into a category of being the “nerd” or the “jock” and stereotype what you knew to be your normal self. Sadly this means that our dear beloved Hufflepuff became the least favorite house choice just because they do not have an archetype.
So why does Hufflepuff get such a bad rep? Fortunately I’ve figured out what all of this really means in the grand scheme of things. I’m not brave or malicious or particularly scholarly, but I am a culmination of all of these things and more. So I am a Hufflepuff. Finding this out was not surprising despite how long it took me to realize.
I’m just glad it is all sorted.