Skip to main content

harry potter - Ravenclaw House - is it really a good place for eccentric people?


The Ravenclaw House's motto is:



"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasue." (Rowena Ravenclaw)



And from their welcome letter, it seems Ravenclaws associate eccentric behaviour with creativity and intellectual giftedness:




"...Another cool thing about Ravenclaw is that our people are the most individual – some might even call them eccentrics. But geniuses are often out of step with ordinary folk, and unlike some other houses we could mention, we think you’ve got the right to wear what you like, believe what you want, and say what you feel. We aren’t put off by people who march to a different tune; on the contrary, we value them!"



But it seems that Luna Lovegood, who is definitely an original, and her behaviour is often described as highly eccentric, gained the nickname "Loony" and felt out of place in her house, even saying to Harry she really loved the DA meetings:



"I enjoyed the meetings, too. It was like having friends." (HBP)



Indicating she felt pretty isolated in Hogwarts. And it seems she wasn't just friendless, but was also pranked, as in fellow students hiding her stuff, including her shoes. (I am assuming those were Ravenclaws, as who else had access to the Ravenclaw dorms where her belongings were?) It's not a very nice joke in Scotland where the mildest winter in the 1990s had an 5.15 °C (41.27 °F) average temperature.


Myrtle, a muggleborn Ravenclaw student was also treated badly and felt out of place in Hogwarts.


And the Slytherin acceptance letter states:




"...we Slytherins look after our own – which is more than you can say for Ravenclaw. Apart from being the biggest bunch of swots you ever met, Ravenclaws are famous for clambering over each other to get good marks, whereas we Slytherins are brothers."



Even though the welcome letters are far from being objective, they do give insight how the students preceive the Houses.


So all this got me thinking how accommodating Ravenclaw house is towards quirky people? Maybe instead being the best, it's the worst place they can be?



Answer



I think you may be slightly mis-reading the welcome letter (never mind buying into pro-Ravenclaw propaganda :)


The letter doesn't quite say Ravenclaw is absolutely "accommodating towards ALL quirky people".


It merely assets that (1) "some ... are eccentrics" and "we think you’ve got the right to wear what you like, believe what you want, and say what you feel" "unlike other houses". This means they are





  1. ... better at it than lockstep jocks at Gryffindor... but it does not necessarily mean they are all THAT perfect in absolute.




  2. ... that there are more people there that are accommodating.


    But every house has its share of jerks - do you seriously think Quirrell was Mr Nice? Or Mr. Creepy Ollivander? Or "you are irrelevant because you have No Inner Eye" Trelawney?




  3. ...That they may not accept absolutely everyone. But Luna was really really really weird even for an eccentric wunderkid - if you recall, even friendly, accepting Hermione was put off by her.


    For that matter, most of them probably thought she wasn't all that smart because of her belief in weird stuff. She didn't go out of her way to advertize her Ravenclaw-ness.





  4. As one of the commenters pointed out, in reality, having a bunch of uber-geeks together is hardly a likely ground for peace and universal harmony.


    Ravenclaw type people can frequently run from merely "not suffering fools gladly" abrupt personality, all the way to socially malajusted geniuses on Aspergers/Autism spectrum. Friendly Hufflepuffs they are NOT.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...