Did anyone else watch the London Premiere yesterday? Talk about heartbreaking! David Barron, David Heyman, David Yates, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and, of course, J.K. Rowling gave wonderful speeches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKXuOj9d5o8

Aw... and Emma Watson shedding a tear.

It'll be interesting to see how the three main actors go from here. They have certainly improved on their acting ability since the first movie!

I watched some of the premiere. It was really sad, but I have to say, Jo Rowling and Emma Watson looked like a queen and a princess up there standing together. It seemed like a truly fairy-tale ending to an outstanding story. And I'm not talking just about the story in the books, I'm talking about the story of the books. It all seemed very fitting and complete suddenly.

I'm going to a Harry Potter party the 15th, and as a volunteer, I'm required to dress up...I still don't know if I'm going as Bellatrix or Luna.

And out of curiousity, does anyone know if JK Rowling intends to continue writing now that Harry Potter is all done with? Obviously, she won't do any more about him, but will she start another series? Invent another breathtaking world? I wonder...

She says she is still writing. Whether anything she writes goes to publication is a mystery (then again, who would say no to J.K. Rowling?!).

I was thinking about that a few months ago. She's only about 40...can you imagine what other types of stunning stories and worlds she could have in her head? She has decades left to make more series!

Hopefully.

Has she ever actually written another series?

So I just saw the movie, and I was surprised at how emotional I was about it, especially certain scenes. I'll probably have more to say if I see it again, but I really liked it.

My sister saw it yesterday. And was said in the snape part and at the end laughed so much about what harry said. I can't wait to see it tomorrow

I've always been a fan of the Harry Potter series but there is one thing throughout series which has always bugged me. It's a major part of the last book and seeing how the final film is premiering this week the topic seems relevant. This post will contain spoilers and if you don't know the ending of the series than don't read this And so the rant begins and trust me, it a long one.

Four Houses Unalike in Dignity

The Hogwarts student body is divided up into four houses based on student personality. Each house has qualities which are positive and negative. Naturally there is a rivalry between the houses but unfortunately it goes deeper than that. Based on the way JK portrays the student body, a character's house also determines their moral alignment. Here's how the houses line up on the morality scale in my view.

Gryffindor- Good
Ravenclaw- neutral
Hufflepuff- completely worthless
Slytherin- pure evil.

I think this system, whether intentionally created or not, works to the series detriment. The Harry Potter world comes of as very black and white which creates a lot of missed opportunities for completing characters, one the the series greatest strengths. Additionally, children are pigeonholed into what is essentially a stereotype. I feel all of the houses could have been portrayed better and not just in the moral sense. Some house are of little relevance or don't show their respective qualities. In this essay I'll explain my problems with each house.

Gryffindor

Now most people who are reading this will probably respond to the effect of "Of course Gryffindor are the good guys, it's the house of the main characters." There is nothing wrong with Gryffindor being the heroes. My problem is how they overshadow all of the houses. The leadership of the DA is dominated by Gryffindor (5 Gryff, 1 Raven), the Order of the Pheonix is made up mostly Gryffindor, and almost every character who is close to Harry is connected to Gryffindor. Would it would it really hurt Harry to have close friends outside his house besides Luna. Furthermore, it seems like Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are just Gryffindor's lackeys. They almost always side with Gryffindor in the Quidditch and House Cups. Honestly, I have to respect Slytherin because they refuse to fall under Gryffindor's shadow.

Ravenclaw

This house is a bit luckier than the other non Gryffindor houses. Luna and Cho play major roles in the story. There are a few things I take issue with. Ravenclaw's key quality is intelligence, but I don't remeber any Ravenclaw character who was exceptionally smart. The closest thing we get to a Ravenclaw is Hermione. Now one could makes some arguments for Luna and Cho. Luna is the closest thing we get to an artsy/creative character which could be classified as smarts of a different form. Cho was also supposed to be very attractive which is a Ravenclaw quality. Still, I think JK could have a better job showing Ravenclaws well... being Ravenclaws.

Hufflepuff

In the first book, Hagrid describes Hufflepuff as a lot o duffers and based on what we're given in the story he would be right. Since when has this house done anything of relevance aside from Cedric getting killed. All of the Hufflepuff students are shoved into the background which is a shame because they had lots of potential. Ernie Macmillan believed Voldemort returned when Harry said so. They might not have gotten along at first but I believe he should have been the Hufflepuff representative in the DA's leadership circle because he was very loyal to the cause.

Slytherin

Here is one of my biggest problems with the series. Slytherin has absolutely no redeeming value, Every student we see is a sociopathic bully or complete snob. Before people start telling me there are good Slytherins here me out. The only Slytherins who can be considered heroes are Slughorn and Andromeda Tonks. I see Snape as more of an anti-hero because his only motivation to betray Voldy was to save Lilly. Then again it's been awhile since I read Deathly Hallows so please correct me if I'm wrong. However, the important thing is that there are no good Slytherin STUDENTS. It's really annoyed me that there was no Slytherin member of the DA and how they walked out before the final battle. But the absolute worst is Dumbledore's line If that doesn't scream "Slytherin is evil" I don't know what does. JK should have made a better attempt at creating good Slytherin characters. Cunning and ambition are great things when they are pointed in the right direction. Also, a Slytherin in the DA's leadership circle could give the other characters development as the learn to trust the outsider.

Conclusion

In Harry's fifth year the Sorting Hat sings about house unity. The school cannot be divided or it will be destroyed. Unfortunately, JK failed to convince me that the school came together. Gryffindor hogs all of the glory while Slytherin is full of cowards an sadists. Meanwhile, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are desperately trying to figure out why they're here if they have nothing to do. Don't get me wrong, I love these books but I honestly believe JK missed the mark in this area. If you disagree feel free to respond and I will be happy to discuss thing with you

I don't know what to say. I love the HP series too but I have nothing to refute your claims. Personally I was more inclined to see the overabundance of adjectives throughout the series and notice that Books 4-7, while more complex and interesting, weren't as thoroughly edited as Books 1-3. Anyway, the only reason I can see J.K. Rowling going for more of a black and white approach to good and evil (in the houses), is because the series started off as a children's series and they generally prefer to see good and evil in black and white. It's easier for them to identify with the good guys and despise the bad guys if there are few or no shades of grey. No, it doesn't make for as interesting reading but it was probably just following the formula of other British boarding school Boys Own adventures.

On a quick Box Office note, Deathly Hallows Part 2 has already made $25 million in the States on presold tickets alone. It has a chance of beating the current record of $30 million, set by Twilight: Eclipse.

SleepingDragon...

This was something that bothered me subconsciously through out the series but I chose to just ignore it and enjoy the story. As Warrior said, this was most likely just to make the story more straightforward (it's easier to root against Slytherin if there's no one in Slytherin that the reader wants to sympathize with). However, that doesn't change the fact that you are correct in that there are many problems with the way the houses are set up.

First, let's rundown each house like you did in much more detail.

Gryffindor officially values courage, bravery, loyalty, nerve and chivalry. These are all qualities your stereotypical superhero would tend to have. Harry goes to Hogwarts at a time when these skills are desperately needed to fight the Dark Lord. In a time of peace, Gryffindor wouldn't be thrust into the spotlight. So the glorification of the Gryffindor house is probably just due to historical circumstance. The problem isn't so much with what the Gryffindor house values, but that any student who had the qualities of both Gryffindor and another house always seemed to go to Gryffindor. Hermione had the characteristics of both a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor, and Neville had the characteristics of both a Hufflepuff and a Gryffindor, but both of these and many others were sorted into Gryffindor.

As a final note for Gryffindor, I would like to counterargue your statement that Gryffindor is the morally good house. Gryffindor is the "ends justify the means" house. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, break the rules and do questionable acts numerous times. Sometimes there aren't even good intentions behind the acts. In book 1, Harry breaks a serious rule when flying around on his broomstick, and instead of being punished, he is rewarded with being able to join the Quidditch team. He had no way of knowing he would be rewarded, but it just happened to work out for him in the end.

Ravenclaw officially values intelligence, creativity, learning, and wit. Nothing particularly wrong with that. Of course, the main problem for Ravenclaw is that Hermione, the most stereotypical Ravenclaw in the series, is thrust into Gryffindor because she is brave. If Hermione had been in Ravenclaw, the house would be looked on in a much brighter light.

A problem I have with Ravenclaw is that their house does not have a password, but instead a riddle. The surface reason for this of course is that Ravenclaw values intelligence, but in reality this implies that Ravenclaws think that everybody else is too stupid to answer their riddles. (Additionally, riddles usually have answers designed to be figured out through cleverness, not brute intelligence.)

Hufflepuff officially values values hard work, tolerance, loyalty, and fair play. They could be assigned the label of most moral. However, the one problem with Hufflepuff's values is that one can have them all while being unintelligent or untalented. If I remember right the Hufflepuff founder just said she'd teach whoever was left after the others had been sorted. So Hufflepuff does indeed get stuck with the "inferior" students.

Slytherin is strange. It officially values values ambition, cunning, leadership, resourcefulness, and pure wizard blood. Salazar Slytherin, the founder of the house, is described as essentially being evil through out the books. Slytherin's only negative value is that of pure wizard blood, meaning Slytherin is prejudiced. However, we are told that "all of the bad witches and wizards" came from Slytherin, so obviously something is up with the house. Wouldn't that raise a few eyebrows early on? Why would the other Hogwarts founders allow for an "evil" house anyway?

However, some arguments can be made that Slytherin is not evil. First off, although we are told "all the bad witches and wizards" come from Slytherin, we are never told that Slytherin consists of nothing but bad wizards and witches. Slytherins seem to glorify power (likely stemmed from their value of leadership), and power can cause people to become corrupt. But there is nothing inherently wrong with desiring power. Also, there is actually at least one evil character who does not come from Slytherin, but Gryffindor: Peter Pettigrew. The most redeeming line for Slytherin in the entire series, I think, is when the sorting hat tells Harry that he would have done well in Slytherin. Although Harry is at first horrified at this because he thinks this is a hint that he might be evil, when one looks at it, he really does have the characteristics of a Slytherin...he's ambitious, cunning, resourceful, and definitely displays leadership.

Again, some more good points. I always wondered why Dumbeldore, one so wise and astute, was so blind as to even have a Slytherin house (or accept troublesome students in the first place) but that's just looking at it with an adult eye.

Maybe it's nothing more than what happens in real life. Think about highschool Sports teams - were they even in terms of natural (or learnt) skills and abilities? Absolutely not. One team would seem to always get the most athletic students and the other teams would be left wanting. I know my team wasn't made up of athletic students but we did our best and always won the team spirit (for enthusiasm, not the elemental kind) award. I think a similar line of thinking applies when it comes to the stark black and white/good and evil houses found at Hogwarts.

I would not automatically say that Gryffindor is all the good guys. There were some evil Gryffindors, like Peter Pettigrew, and some who, while not evil per se, were odious and unappealing, like Cormac McLaggen, who represented the negative aspects of Gryffindor "bravery"-recklessness, arrogance, foolish rush-into-the-situation attitude. And even James, while officially a good guy, had less than admirable moments for his treatment of Snape.

"There wasn't a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't from Slytherin". This is the view of Ron, who, of course, was a Gryffindor, and received the biased version from his family, and his own personal experiences with Slytherins like Malfoy. However, while most Death Eaters, including Voldemort were from Slytherin, and the sentiments echoed by Ron and Hagrid, there are some exceptions. Slughorn, for example, was often in business for himself, but he still drew a clear line between right and wrong, and would have no part of Voldemort's movement. Then there was Snape, "the bravest man [Harry] ever knew." In the conflict with the Gryffindor, James, he was the victim. It was the classic high school scene of the nerd being bullied by the arrogant jock who ends up taking his girl. And in this case, unlike most movies, the jock ends up winning. Snape was still sour grapes about it, but took it upon himself to act as a double agent for the Order and let his love for Lily overtake his hate for James in protecting Harry.

I wouldn't say Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw are useless; we just don't see too much of them aside from a few characters like Cedric and Cho. But from what we did see, large numbers joined Dumbledore's Army (though it wasn't clear how many of their alumni were in the Order aside from Tonks), and almost the full ranks of both Houses returned for the Battle of Hogwarts. Again, both Houses had good characters (Cedric, Cho, Luna) and bad ones (Zacharias Smith, Marietta Edgecombe), but ultimately, they went with the right side.

I wouldn't say one house is "good" while another is "evil". All the houses have good and evil people/students in them. Since the series is from Harry Potter's viewpoint, we don't see characters for how they are, we see them how Harry sees them. For instance, if it was from Professor McGonagall's POV, the reader wouldn't think Snape as such an "evil" character. A bit creepy perhaps, but there wouldn't be Harry Potter's prejudice.

"Ambition" and "cunning" are not evil but it they can be used for evil. Just can wit (Ravenclaw), loyalty/honesty (Hufflepuff), and bravery (Gryffindor). To say one house is just good or evil is unfair.

As for the Slytherins not joining Harry in the Battle of Hogwarts, we must remember that a good few, maybe even the majority, of children in Slytherin house when Harry went to Hogwarts were children of Death Eaters. That makes that time in Slytherin history unique.

*Would like to read some of the posts before this and comment on these, but doesn't have time, so just shares her news*

We (my brother, my mom (johobbit), and I) are meeting Valiant_Lucy and her brother tomorrow to see the last Harry Potter movie together! I'm so excited!! I had read the entire book last summer with my mom, but we just recently read the second half of the book again (starting from the part where Deathly Hallows Part 1 left off) to refresh our minds for this final movie. We just finished the last chapter today. What a great book!! It seems to get better each time I read it! I'm so glad we were able to read this second half again before the movie. I understood it quite a bit better this time and picked up again on details that I had forgotten since the last time I read it. I like being prepared for a movie in this way, ie, having recently read the book on which a movie is based, before seeing the film. I'm really looking forward to seeing so many specific parts on screen. I can't even begin to name all of them! I can't wait for tomorrow!!!

Lovely! I hope you have a nice time.

Slytherin

Here is one of my biggest problems with the series. Slytherin has absolutely no redeeming value, Every student we see is a sociopathic bully or complete snob. Before people start telling me there are good Slytherins here me out. The only Slytherins who can be considered heroes are Slughorn and Andromeda Tonks. I see Snape as more of an anti-hero because his only motivation to betray Voldy was to save Lilly. Then again it's been awhile since I read Deathly Hallows so please correct me if I'm wrong. However, the important thing is that there are no good Slytherin STUDENTS. It's really annoyed me that there was no Slytherin member of the DA and how they walked out before the final battle. But the absolute worst is Dumbledore's line
HIDE SPOILER
"Sometimes I think we sort too early."
If that doesn't scream "Slytherin is evil" I don't know what does. JK should have made a better attempt at creating good Slytherin characters. Cunning and ambition are great things when they are pointed in the right direction. Also, a Slytherin in the DA's leadership circle could give the other characters development as the learn to trust the outsider.

Yes, Slytherin does have some redeeming values. Slytherins are committed to their own aims, dedicated and resourceful in protecting their own causes and families. They are all for self-preservation to be sure, but also are loyal and protective of those people and things they care most about, and for maintenance of the status quo. Slytherin students have mostly grown up in families where they have been aware of the dangers of mixing with people unlike themselves. They hold fast to old traditions and are aware of the consequences if they go against their families and society. I don't agree that all Slytherins are evil, regardless of what either Hagrid or Ron might say. For example, Draco might have been a prat, but although he was afraid for his parents, he still could not bring himself to kill Dumbledore.

Slytherins tend to prize leadership and influence within the system as their right, and so they are most unlikely to join rebellious, forbidden study clubs, such as the DA, preferring to co-operate with authority as it is seen. You don't see Slytherins getting howlers for breaking rules, being disruptive in class or being out of bounds, do you? And the only reason that they keep losing to Gryffindor is because they are so united in animosity against Gryffindor that they see no reason to play fair.

For when the rest of the school seems at odds with them the Slytherins will stick together within their own group, even when we learn from Blaise Zabini that not all Slytherins are the children of Death Eaters, or when we learn that even Slytherins who did join the Death Eaters, like Regulus Black or Snape, can still have a conscience. The problem with Slytherin House when we see it in the books, is that the Death Eater ideas had poisoned the student body and that Voldemort's bullying emphasis on pure blood threatens to split the school apart as it did a millenium beforehand.

Hufflepuff: I think Hufflepuff is famed for its team spirit. Ernie Macmillan isn't the sort of person to start a rebellion unless he is in a team. Did anyone notice that in seven books that Harry's Gryffindor team only defeated Hufflepuff once, in the first book? Apart from the cancelled Hufflepuff/Gryffindor match in Bk 2, and the Triwizard Tournament, Gryffindor never bested Hufflepuff again, and certainly not with someone like Cormac McLaggan on the team who kept trying to tell everyone else what to do.