In her article “Safe as Houses: Sorting and School Houses at Hogwarts,” Lavoie talks mostly about the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin. She discusses why Slytherin is allowed to continue even though they are known to product dark wizards and why they are described the way they are in the books. Though just like in the novels the other two houses, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff go mostly unnoticed. Though it is widely known that the Houses provide a family for those within it they don’t foster much of a community atmosphere outside of the houses. Lavoie furthers this argument by stating that the welcome back feast “reinforces two types of loyalties – that which each individual owes to the school, and that which is owing to one’s house. The Sorting Hat thus brings the students together and simultaneously sets them apart” (35). At an extremely young age the children who go to Hogwarts are sorting into their houses. The sorting process is problematic on a couple of levels.

For starters, each house represents certain values that can also be seen as stereotypes. The Gryffindors are brave and daring, Hufflepuffs are loyal and hard-working, Slytherin are clever and ambitious, and Ravenclaws are smart and value learning. These are somewhat constricting parameters for a person to meet and it over simplifies the complexities of human personalities. Lavoie exemplifies this idea when she is talking about the simplified online sorting quizzes, “Rowling’s character’s, and the houses in which the hat places them, are more complicated than the websites allow” (40). Some people would suggest that Hermione should be in Ravenclaw because she is extremely smart and is at the top of her class. Even though she possesses those values that are important to Ravenclaw she is put in Gryffindor. Given the fact that Hermione is so smart she would fit the bill for Ravenclaw and should be put there but she isn’t is put into Gryffindor. She defies the stereotypes that seem to constrict those in the houses they are sorted in. However, most people do not seem to defy the stereotypes of their house. Draco Malfoy is one such example. He is cunning in that he is always trying to trick the system to get what he wants; an example of this would be when he got on the Quidditch team not by talent but by buying his way on the team with new brooms for everyone on the team. He also confirms the stereotype around Slytherins going bad when he becomes a Death Eater.

The other issue with sorting the students right when they get to school is that the house you are sorted into determines the friends you are going to have for the next seven years. Though Gryffindor has classes with other houses, they mostly have class with Slytherin. Given the hatred those two houses have for each other that doesn’t really give them the opportunity to interact and become friends with people from that house. Though they do occasionally have classes with other houses no friendships seem to come from it. The houses divide them. The only time some of the houses seem to come together is against Slytherin, “more often than not Gryffindors are united with Hufflepuffs and Ravenclws in their abhorrence of Slytherin” (Lavoie 38). But this only seems to bring the houses as a whole together and friendships on a more personal level don’t seem to form. Harry doesn’t make a friend from another house until he meets Luna in his fifth year at Hogwarts. Even then it is kind of hard to call them friends as they don’t really spend any time together except for when they are in the DA or Luna is helping Harry, Ron, and Hermione out in some form or another. She mostly exists on the periphery of the story and of our trio’s lives.

So, the houses bring people together and tear them apart all at the same time. The houses create some pretty strict stereotypes that most people seem to adhere to with a few exceptions. It divides people symbolically and physically from each other. The houses determine who your friends are going to be before you even get a chance to meet any other people since the sorting happens right after the first years get to Hogwarts. The houses make it a lot harder to make friends outside of your house though it does happen sometimes in the case of Luna and the trio. Perhaps there is a better way to sort the houses or maybe even create some programs where members of different houses can freely communicate with those in other houses for we will always be stronger together than apart.