Shann (ex_kraken684) wrote in thesortinghat, @ 2007-08-24 15:28:00 |
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Current mood: | amused |
Current music: | "Good Times Bad Times" - Charlie (Angelique) |
sorting application.
If you had been born in the British Isles, and thus eligible to be invited to Hogwarts, would you have been likely to have been muggleborn, halfblood (one magical parent and one muggle parent) or from a pureblood family? Think about your heritage and the kinds of people your parents are, and their families.
Half-blood, I suspect; as it is, I'm already a mutt - Irish on one side, French-Portuguese on the other. I also can't quite see my father (hardnosed, skeptical, cop) as a wizard, though I think my mother would make an excellent if slightly Luna-esque witch (open-minded, fond of exotic things, artist). For myself, at any rate, given a personality-based choice, I'd stick with half-blood again. I have a tendency to be neither one thing nor the other; one foot on land, one in the sea, to one thing constant never, as Shakespeare said (other people refer to this as "commitment-phobia", but I like the way Shakespeare said it better).
What house would you have wanted to be in as an eleven year old? Take into consideration the values of your family, and how you answered the last question, along with your basic nature. How would their world view in how they raised you affect your interpretation of the houses?
As an eleven-year-old? I can't remember what I ate for breakfast, much less what I was thinking at the age of eleven, but probably at the time I would have wanted to be in Ravenclaw while cherishing a secret hope that I'd land in Gryffindor. My family always put a heavy value on education and learning, but back then I always did want to be heroic and beloved, while acting like I didn't care, naturally. (I did grow out of that after a while, thank goodness.)
What animal, if any, would you have taken with you? Would you have followed the rules, or taken another small pet with you (such as a snake or rat)?
I would have taken a cat, I think. Not that I particularly like cats - I can take or leave them - but as a rule they seem to combine the maximum amount of snuggliness with the minimum of intricate care. I don't think I'd really care for an owl (pet birds, in my mind, are irrevocably linked with dirty cages), and toads and things really aren't to my taste; and bringing another pet just for the sake of being contrary seems bloody stupid to me. If I was going to get in trouble for rule-breaking, I'd want it be for something more grandiose than that.
During the school year, when students can choose to go home during the holidays, would you? What would be your reasons for going home or staying?
I'd probably go home. Aside from seeing my family, I'd want a change of scene - not least from living in close contact with large numbers of other people in a relatively public place. (It'd be nice to have a bathroom that I didn't have to share with strangers, for example.) On the other hand, it'd be tempting to stick around and have the whole building to myself to explore. Probably I'd stay a few times, for the novelty of it, but go home for the most part.
Where would you be at during the Quidditch matches? Would you be on the team, if so, what position? Would you be cheering in the stands for your house? Just there with your friends having fun? Or relaxing in the common rooms enjoying the quiet?
Quidditch is about the most boring thing I can think of at Hogwarts, and I have zero use for it, so I wouldn't be involved at all. I'd probably take the time to use the library or the common room (insert your own usually-crowded space here), or just wander around the school and savor having everything more or less to myself for a while. Maybe go pawing through other people's stuff and see if they're up to anything interesting, I don't know.
What kind of reputation would you have at Hogwarts? Would people know you as being completely obsessed with studying, like Hermione, or as pranksters like the Weasley Twins? Is it likely you'd be in a clique like Pansy Parkinson? Or just one of the nameless masses just going through school? Try and be completely honest about how you really are or were, even if it might seem to give you a negative impression, or like you're "pushing".
In the first few years I might have been bossy and academia-obsessed and insufferable like Hermione, though if I followed the same pattern I did here in the real world, I would have grown out of that by third year. I'm not a deeply sociable person - not a terrible misanthrope or anything (much), just not really much of one for clubs and cliques and groups and teams, so I don't know if any of the suggestions given would have applied to me. If I had to compare myself to somebody, it'd probably be Luna, though that's not quite right; not actively mocked or ostracized, shall we say, just outside of the regular groups. Generally I have a very few close friends, a few more acquaintances, and everybody else can take care of themselves, really.
How well would you do at all of the required courses through years 1-5? Which electives would you have chosen, whether you were interested in them or because you were good at it (because you can be interested in animals without being capable in handling and dealing with them)? Which courses would you have chosen to take the N.E.W.T.s for (which classes you still had for 6th and 7th year), and why would you take them? For pure enjoyment value, or because it was required in a future job? How well, academically, would you have done at Hogwarts? If at your current age you would all ready have graduated, think of what you were like during the ages you would've been at school, and if you're school age, try and assume the likely hood of the future.
* Ancient Runes - I quite like linguistics and also codebreaking, so I think I would have taken this. There's also just plain something that I like about translating, though I couldn't really put my finger on what (and I'm hardly fluent enough in anything to justify saying that, but...) Runes also strikes me as the wizarding world's equivalent of Latin, in that it's a dead language but it used to be the lingua franca among wizards, so learning how to read them could be quite handy. I'd probably find it interesting enough to follow it through into NEWT-level, too.
* Arithmancy - Not really a lot of interest in it, to be honest. It's not that I'm bad at math, it's that I'm bad at theoretical math - once I get past the practical uses like figuring out how much to tip or if I've been shortchanged, I tend to lose interest pretty quickly. It seems awfully pedantic anyway, and I've never had much respect for pure academia.
* Astronomy - Quite aside from the fact that it's probably a pretty difficult pursuit for somebody with poor vision, it just doesn't interest me much. Not to mention that I can't quite figure out what to do with it - I mean, presumably you're learning about planetary positions and whatnot, but the only "magical" application that leaps to mind for that is casting horoscopes and the like, which seems more like Intro to Divination than a class in its own right.
* Care of Magical Creatures - I think I'd have taken and liked this, because I do like animals and being outdoors, up to a point. What I don't think I would have liked was Hagrid as a teacher. Probably rude to say, but sadly true. I probably would take this for NEWTs, given a change of teachers, though.
* Charms/Defense Against the Dark Arts: I think I'd have liked and done fairly well at these, if for no other reason than that they're practical spells and they have a tangible result, not just a theory. Charms, in particular, seems to be a pretty versatile subject (actually, it really strikes me as being a grab-bag of all the spells that didn't fit under any other heading). I'd want to take both right up into NEWTs, since they're the two classes that interest me the most.
* Divination: I think I'd have taken this on a whim, and then been severely disappointed, since Trelawney is a good deal more frou-frou than I care to deal with. Though in all honesty, while I doubtless would have toyed with the idea of dropping it, I probably would have stuck around because, well, it's not exactly a lot of work going on in there. Not sure if I'd have stuck around for NEWT-level classes, though.
* Flying - Zero interest in the subject, zero interest in doing it. I'd have dropped this as soon as possible and probably skipped as much as I could without actually failing in the meantime.
* Herbology - I'd be lucky to pass this, quite honestly, since I have an unfortunate tendency to kill any houseplant unlucky enough to come into my hands.
* History of Magic - I'd probably do well, since I love history as a subject, and I know for a fact I'd be capable of reading it on my own while the professor was droning away. Considering the class itself, though, I doubt I'd stick around for NEWTs.
* Muggle Studies - Well, just not particularly interested in this, I'm afraid. If I was half-blood, as I've assumed, I most likely wouldn't need an introduction to Muggles; and wizards seem to have a tendency to get things wrong about Muggles, so they don't exactly seem like a great source of information.
* Potions - You know, I think I'd do rather well. This, like Charms and DADA, has a tangible result, with the added benefit that it's completely hands-on. (There actually doesn't seem to be a lot of magic involved in actual potion-making; presumably the magic part is knowing the properties of each ingredient and how they'll react together.) I'd take this for a NEWT subject if I could.
* Transfiguration - Well, I'm not really sure. You can't Transfigure food, money, and the like, apparently; and it seems rather cruel to change living objects into inanimate ones (and vice versa). I think I'd do a lot of wondering about "well, yes, but what's the point?" I think I'd do well, but I doubt I'd stick with it into NEWTs unless I had to.
Goodness, that was long.
After graduating Hogwarts, what's the most likely thing for you to do? Go on a Grand Tour and visit continental Europe, or to one of the other continents? Live among the muggles? Find a job and settle down? Start a family?
Certainly not settle down and raise a family. What I'd like to do would be to travel the world, though I'd probably have to do it by degrees, at least at first. I'd look for a job, of course, because you kind of have to, but it'd be to pay the bills, not because I was ready for a steady career and a ten-year plan at seventeen.
What are three wizarding jobs that appeal to you, or you think you would be good at? If you have a special interest in something particularly muggle, try and come up with the magical counterpart.
Hmm . . . the usual things that people list for this sort of question (Auror, Healer) don't really appeal to me. If I had to pick one thing that sounded really interesting, it'd be the Department of Mysteries. I'd love to work there, partly just to know what all of the stuff in there does and why it's there and what it means, and partly because it has the ring of kind of a secret society, and I do love those. (And also, having your job title be "Unspeakable" is, well, cool.) Another choice involves my none-too-secret love of dragons, so I might be interested in working with or researching them, even if it did involve moving to Romania. (Well, I'd have to think about that.) Being a curse-breaker for Gringott's also sounds rather exciting, with the apparent bonus of lots of travel, and possibly also getting to be the wizarding equivalent of Indiana Jones - curse-breaking, in my head, is like archaeology with a bit of a kick to it.
Imagine if you had been the same age as the Marauders during the first rise of Voldemort, what sort of position would you likely to have fallen in? Would you have been one of the ones like James and Lily, recruited into the Order of the Phoenix? Would your interest in the Dark Arts have let you be seduced into the Death Eaters, even if you weren't necessarily an evil-intentioned person like Snape? Would you have been oblivious to it completely until the body count started rising? Try and imagine and explain what you think your life would be like.
Well, first of all - and I know this will sound like pushing, but - the Order of the Phoenix and its ilk always tend to strike me as insufferable do-gooders, and I just don't have the ideals or the faith to fight for that sort of thing. I also seriously doubt I would have joined the Death Eaters, because "chaotic evil" jokes aside, that's a bloody stupid thing to do if you have any self-preservation instinct at all. I think I'd probably keep aloof as much as possible from the whole affair; I'm not saying I wouldn't fight if I had to, but I hardly think choosing to antagonize either of two groups of fanatics is all that clever. I'd maintain a low profile and keep an eye on which way the wind was blowing, so to speak.
Lastly, is there anything else about you you think we should know?
Oh, I think I'll spare you - you're probably quite tired of me by now.
I have done my best; I leave the rest up to you. 83