Sorting-hat Vorkosigan Saga characters

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 13:25:14 GMT

Recently Liv linked to a discussion about hat-sorting[1] Vorkosigan Saga characters. I was really interested, although also interested to see I often disagreed.

The houses

First, some clarifications on how I see the houses as Rowling seemed to intend them or how they make the most sense, rather than as they come across in the books.

Gryffindor is the "good" house, but if you eschew a moral judgement, you can say they're defined by bravery/impulsiveness and loyalty/dogmatism.

Slytherin is the "evil" house, but if you eschew moral judgement, you could say they're the house of ambition and forming social alliances. I think "in-group-ness" can be very slytherin, but I don't think it has to be racial-based even though that was the primary division represented at the time Harry Potter was at school.

Ravenclaw is easy: good or bad, they're motivated by understanding.

Hufflepuff is often seen as the "other" house, but that's unfair, they seem defined by reliability (seen positively as loyalty or trustworthyness or negatively as ploddingness) and nurturingness. You can have bad-ass hufflepuffs, see below :)

[1] what's the appropriate verb here?

Miles Vorkosigan

Someone said that Miles was Gryffindor and Naismith was Slytherin. I think that's backwards: Naismith is the most charge-in-and-damn-the-consequences part of Miles, if anything, even more devoted to "do the right thing at all costs" than Miles is. Hence Gryffindor.

Whereas Miles is good, but he's ambitious good. He doesn't just want to do something good, he wants to change the world for good. He talks everyone into his way of doing things, and makes friends with everyone[2]. Ambition, networking, and silver-tongue, that is so Slytherin in a good way.

[2] I thought Slughorn was a missed opportunity, because he tries to make friends, but is way too slimy. I think it still counts as Slytherin if you make lots of friends and genuinely like them.

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jack

Sorting-hat Vorkosigan Saga characters