Last week was the Society of Women Engineers holiday social at work. We spent a fair bit of time talking about Harry Potter houses, because we're nerds, and one of my SWE friends pointed out that she feels like she's in a different Hogwarts house now than she would have been at age eleven, when the sorting takes place (let's note that eleven is ASTONISHINGLY young to be telling a kid what they're supposed to be like for the rest of their life).
I tend to agree with her assessment. As a kid, I took several house sorting tests and got sorted into Ravenclaw most times. When Pottermore was released, I took the official test and was sorted into Hufflepuff. When the Ilvermorny houses were released, I made a new Pottermore account, got sorted into Hufflepuff again, and got sorted into Thunderbird as my Ilvermorny house, in the American wizarding school (Thunderbirds are known for representing the soul of the wizard, and tends to favor adventurers. However, there isn't as much lore about Thunderbirds as there is about Hufflepuffs. I look forward to discovering more about being a Thunderbird as the Fantastic Beast movies are released!)
For those that are not familiar, Ravenclaws are "intellectuals" valued for their intelligence, Hufflepuffs are loyal friends, and not valued for their aptitude. Many Hufflepuffs note at this point that this does not mean Hufflepuffs are not smart - after all, Cedric Diggory, who qualified for the TriWizard Tournament, was a Hufflepuff - rather, it means that the loyalty is more important to them than other things.Which I like, because one of my friends/mentors pointed out that I'm extremely loyal, and disloyalty upsets me (which is why I don't like the movie, "The Notebook", because poor James Marsden gets ditched for no good reason.
I'm not sure if I would have been sorted into Hufflepuff house at age eleven. I think, in the seven years students are supposed to be at Hogwarts that they likely change, a lot. And I'm curious to know if the sorting hat can see their future, and sort them into the house they will ultimately grow into, or if it's based on their thoughts that first day, and that day alone. Seeing the future could explain why Neville Longbottom is in Gryffindor despite not being a particularly brave child, or why Hermione Granger is not in Ravenclaw, despite being a particularly intellectual child - but it could also be that the house shaped them into that adult, and perhaps they would have been different had they been placed in other houses.
Which goes back to the age old question, nature vs. nurture. Are you born into a particular personality type, or are you trained into one? Introverted parents can have extroverted children, which seems to imply some stuff is just born into a child, but other things are clearly are a product of upbringing (like how a child can be brought up to like or dislike math based on their parents feelings towards the subject, which is why you should never ever say you're "just not a math person"). In the end, the sorting hat is nothing more than a personality test, which I think are flawed ways to try to capture the complexity of a person's soul.
Other thoughts about personality tests on this blog:
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