The Sorting Hat - Knowledge imparted from the Founders

[SweetMelissa]

This post is a two-parter, and both parts are really just quick little thoughts that I had today.

The first is, what kind of charm do you think allows the Sorting Hat to do its work? I'm reminded of Mr. Weasley saying, "Never trust something that can think if you can't see where it keeps its brain."

The second, when the hat dispenses its advice, is it talking as the Founders? For insance, when it tells Harry he should be in Slytherin, is that Salazaar Slytherin himself trying to "recruit" Harry?

I know neither of these questions are something we can actually answer, but I'm having fun speculating. mrgreen  

[Aci Dixinic]

Quote:

ES: Has the sorting hat ever been wrong?

JKR: No.

ES: Really?

JKR: Mm-mm. Do you have a theory?

ES: I have heard a lot of theories.

JKR: [laugh] I bet you have. No. [laugh] Sorry.

MA: That's interesting, because that would suggest that the voice comes more from a person's own head than the hat itself -

JKR: [makes mysterious noise]

MA: And that maybe when it talks on its own it comes from -

JKR: The founders themselves.

MA: Yeah. Interesting. How much of a role are the founders going to play in book seven?

JKR: Some, as you probably have guessed from the end of six. There's so much that I want to ask you, but you're supposed to interview me, so come on. [Laughter.]

MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron interview Joanne Kathleen Rowling, emphasis my own.  

[SweetMelissa]

Acidic Cynic

Quote:

ES: Has the sorting hat ever been wrong?

JKR: No.

ES: Really?

JKR: Mm-mm. Do you have a theory?

ES: I have heard a lot of theories.

JKR: [laugh] I bet you have. No. [laugh] Sorry.

MA: That's interesting, because that would suggest that the voice comes more from a person's own head than the hat itself -

JKR: [makes mysterious noise]

MA: And that maybe when it talks on its own it comes from -

JKR: The founders themselves.

MA: Yeah. Interesting. How much of a role are the founders going to play in book seven?

JKR: Some, as you probably have guessed from the end of six. There's so much that I want to ask you, but you're supposed to interview me, so come on. [Laughter.]

MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron interview Joanne Kathleen Rowling, emphasis my own.

Right, right. I read the interview. That doesn't really address the question I raised, though, nor does the answer Rowling gave in the interview match her own writings. Harry wasn't telling himself that Slytherin would help him to greatness when he sat under the hat his first year. Sure, it was Harry who decided he wanted to be in Gryffindor, but the rhetoric about Slytherin certainly did not come from Harry's mind, as at that point he had an extremely negative image of the house.  

[Basil Musible]

SweetMelissa

Right, right. I read the interview. That doesn't really address the question I raised, though, nor does the answer Rowling gave in the interview match her own writings. Harry wasn't telling himself that Slytherin would help him to greatness when he sat under the hat his first year. Sure, it was Harry who decided he wanted to be in Gryffindor, but the rhetoric about Slytherin certainly did not come from Harry's mind, as at that point he had an extremely negative image of the house.

I don't think it has to do with the house itself but the ideals it holds.

OotP page 185 UK edition

Slytherin took only pure-blood wizards Of great cunning.

Slytherin values cunning, blood can't be as big an issue now because like Sirius said there are very few pure-blooded families left. Harry isn't against being getting what he wants using cunning. For example he uses his father's cloak a lot and is often sneaking around like in PoA when he is looking for Peter. I think she means that you don't really pick the house but what it stands for.  

[Aci Dixinic]

SweetMelissa

Harry wasn't telling himself that Slytherin would help him to greatness when he sat under the hat his first year. Sure, it was Harry who decided he wanted to be in Gryffindor, but the rhetoric about Slytherin certainly did not come from Harry's mind, as at that point he had an extremely negative image of the house.

I get the impression that the Sorting Hat has developed it's own...personality. And opinions maybe. Like all that about the Houses standing together. Probably based on what the founders put into it, and all the minds it has read. They might have programmed it to warn the school when they gave it a voice, but I doubt it.

Speaking of what the founders put into it, that spell or whatever that they used? I think it is the same one used on the Marauder's Map. Maybe the Marauder's studied the Hat and found out the spell. Because we know that the Map somehow absorbed something of their personalities and/or opinions from the way it insulted Snape when he tried to read it. Like the Hat seems to have absorbed the founder's personalities.

Someone should write a fanfic about it. The Marauders and their 'projects'. Protecting Moony. Figuring out how to shape-change. Studying the Hat. Scouting the castle. Enchanting the Map.  

[SweetMelissa]

Acidic Cynic

Speaking of what the founders put into it, that spell or whatever that they used? I think it is the same one used on the Marauder's Map. Maybe the Marauder's studied the Hat and found out the spell. Because we know that the Map somehow absorbed something of their personalities and/or opinions from the way it insulted Snape when he tried to read it. Like the Hat seems to have absorbed the founder's personalities.

I wonder how similar charms like on the map and the hat are to Horcruxes. It would really be more like putting a piece of your mind in an object than a piece of your soul, but I'm sure it's still very complicated magic.  

[Aci Dixinic]

SweetMelissa

Acidic Cynic

Speaking of what the founders put into it, that spell or whatever that they used? I think it is the same one used on the Marauder's Map. Maybe the Marauder's studied the Hat and found out the spell. Because we know that the Map somehow absorbed something of their personalities and/or opinions from the way it insulted Snape when he tried to read it. Like the Hat seems to have absorbed the founder's personalities.

I wonder how similar charms like on the map and the hat are to Horcruxes. It would really be more like putting a piece of your mind in an object than a piece of your soul, but I'm sure it's still very complicated magic.

Possibly the main difference lies in the fact that Horcruxes are pieces of a soul, torn apart by the act of murder and sealed off by an incantation. The way I see the Hat and the Map is that they are duplicates, of mind, personality, whatever. Copied, not taken. Neither the Marauders nor the Founders seem to have been lessened by the making of the Hat and Map, whereas we know it as canon that Voldemort became a little less human with each Horcrux he created.

And we know the Marauders were capable of serious magic before the Map, because of their Animagi transformations.  

[i_heart_ron]

Acidic Cynic

SweetMelissa

I wonder how similar charms like on the map and the hat are to Horcruxes. It would really be more like putting a piece of your mind in an object than a piece of your soul, but I'm sure it's still very complicated magic.

Possibly the main difference lies in the fact that Horcruxes are pieces of a soul, torn apart by the act of murder and sealed off by an incantation. The way I see the Hat and the Map is that they are duplicates, of mind, personality, whatever. Copied, not taken.

interesting...before we knew anything about Horcruxes, I posited that the Marauders very likely used a weaker form of whatever magic Riddle used to place his personality in the Diary to imbue their personalities into the map....I hadn't thought about that in months; or made the connection to the Hat.  

[Aci Dixinic]

i_heart_ron

Acidic Cynic

SweetMelissa

I wonder how similar charms like on the map and the hat are to Horcruxes. It would really be more like putting a piece of your mind in an object than a piece of your soul, but I'm sure it's still very complicated magic.

Possibly the main difference lies in the fact that Horcruxes are pieces of a soul, torn apart by the act of murder and sealed off by an incantation. The way I see the Hat and the Map is that they are duplicates, of mind, personality, whatever. Copied, not taken.

interesting...before we knew anything about Horcruxes, I posited that the Marauders very likely used a weaker form of whatever magic Riddle used to place his personality in the Diary to imbue their personalities into the map....I hadn't thought about that in months; or made the connection to the Hat.

It isn't necessarily a weaker form, more like a variant, although they might not really be related at all. Just have a bit of a resemblance in that they place something of themselves in inanimate objects. (Or animals, as in Naginis supposed case)  

[Aci Dixinic]

And I_heart_ron, you should have told us you were a Seer.  

[i_heart_ron]

Acidic Cynic

And I_heart_ron, you should have told us you were a Seer.

I hope that's a compliment!!  

[Aci Dixinic]

ninja
Of course.
ninja  

[JewelWoods]

hm...hat...intresting...Very intresting..i shall have to look into this matter further...  

[S i m m u l a r]

That is a good question, I bet JKR never thought about that!  

[KarenA3391]

Basil_Hallward

Slytherin values cunning, blood can't be as big an issue now because like Sirius said there are very few pure-blooded families left. Harry isn't against being getting what he wants using cunning. For example he uses his father's cloak a lot and is often sneaking around like in PoA when he is looking for Peter. I think she means that you don't really pick the house but what it stands for.

I just wanted to point out that Harry does NOT go looking for Peter in the third book. That is only in the movies. In the books, the only time they hear about Peter being on the map is when Lupin says it in the Shrieking Shack, speaking of how he knew Harry, Ron and Hermione were going to go to Hagrid's before Buckbeak's execution to comfort him. He then goes on to say that he saw 3 go into the house, but they left a party of 4 (where the trio starts arguing against this). By the way, Lupin had the map, yes, after snape confiscated it from Harry, but not because Harry was out at night looking for Pettigrew, but because it was in Harry's pockets when Snape asked him to turn them out, after the incident with Malfoy in Hogsmeade (with the throwing of the mud razz great moment)