In Which Emily Probably Puts Far Too Much Thought Into This...
While I was showering this morning (no, this is not going to be a dirty story), I started thinking about how the Pevensie children would be Sorted at Hogwarts. It seems like a fairly easy task - 4 children, 4 Houses, one for each, right? And yes, I'm ignoring the general trend for families to be Sorted together. I'm also ignoring the fact that part of the Pevensies' importance and charm is that they are completely non-magical children. They don't have special powers but rather are the epitome of 'interesting things happening to normal children.'
The easiest one to place seems to be Edmund. I mean, everyone knows that Edmund betrayed his siblings, he was bought by the Witch for the price of a box of Turkish Delight. The overwhelming impulse is to place him in Slytherin for that alone. And yet, it seems a bit simplistic. For one, the boy is under a magic spell, and for another, the minute redemption appears, Edmund grasps for it. He's the one that prevents the Witch from winning the battle by realising her power lies in her wand, and he's the one that destroys it almost at the cost of his life. So is it fair, is it just (to take the word from his later title) to decide that he's a Slytherin based on the singular betrayal of his life? And yet...
With that I have to move onto Susan. Because she's the only other sibling who could possibly be Slytherin, and yet, ambition has nothing to do with her. She's named 'the Gentle' as a Queen, but I've never been able to reconcile that with the Susan we see. She's the practical one with the flair of intelligence who's never allowed to utilise that gift outside of Narnia. She's the pretty one, and it seems her post-Narnian life is rather defined by that characteristic. During Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when Peter is off studying for his exams, Su's sent to America. She apparently has finished school but has no hope of exams or a university of her own. Is there no wonder her penchant for the practical takes over? What else is she to do? So Susan with her logic, her ruthless practicality, her intelligence, she could very well be a Slytherin though I tend to think of her more as a Ravenclaw. I don't see a Slytherin allowing herself to be trapped in quite the same way.
When I'm thinking about Sorting the Pevensies, I tend to think of two duos. The first of which is Susan and Edmund who both could be placed in either Slytherin or Ravenclaw. One of the things I enjoyed about the movie was the obvious bond between those two. They're the ones that 'get' each other. So even when it's oldest vs. youngest, or boys against girls, there's still a commonality of understanding that ties them together. These are the two without the shining charisma their sister and brother have. They're the practical, intelligent ones who are relied upon immensely by their siblings for their abilities.
The second duo is, rather obviously since there are four siblings, Peter and Lucy. The oldest and his baby. Peter is a good big brother, that's a truth of his character, but with Lucy there's an extra spark of warmth. He's the one that immediately jumps to protect her from Edmund's teasing or apologise to her when she's proven right (and she is over and over and...). He's the one that carries her during the journey to the Stone Table (another moment of the film, I absolutely enjoyed along with the way he approaches her after the river incident), and, in my mind, he's the one that continues to protect her as they grow into their roles as the Kings and Queens of Narnia. Lucy never learns the sword because Peter gently forbids it. (I never said he was a feminist), but he can't deny his littlest sister the opportunity to ride to war when she grows up. Lucy is the Valiant one. The youngest who can see clearly. (in the Buffy parlance, in many ways she's Xander who sees - and to extrapolate from that, Peter is the heart, Edmund's the mind, and Su's the spirit. They, like the Scoobies, function best when they're together)
Peter seems to be the obvious choice for Gryffindor. I mean, he's the one with the lion on his shield, right, as well as the magnificent warrior, leader, and High King. But I don't like that. It's too simplistic. Because the other part of Peter's character is the honourable and loyal, faithful and true brother. He's also not nearly rash enough to be a Gryffindor. And, in one of the defining moments of Peter's character, directly after the Battle of Beruna, when he's in the moment of glory, he credits Edmund for the victory. He's aware enough of his limitations even in the flush of battle to give credit where credit's due. This? Not particularly Gryffindor. (though it is a traditional characteristic placing him at the center of the idealised British boyhood) He shares the Gryffindor trait of not precisely living an examined life (something that's a big difference between him and the Susan and Edmund duo), but he also has an underlying base layer of common sense. He doesn't have the same flair of brilliance, but he knows how to listen, how to take advice, and has immense charisma - how else does a twelve year old lead a country into a Golden Age?
Therefore, I put Lucy, the Valiant one, into Gryffindor. She's brave beyond her years and station. It's a defining trait in her character from the moment she ventures into Narnia for the first time to volunteering to climb the stairs in Voyage of the Dawn Treader to free the invisible Dufflepuds from riding out to battle as a grown up Queen to standing up to her brothers and sister over and over before they believe her about Narnia. She may also have that same underlying grounding of common sense that Peter has, but it never comes into prominence. It never really has too. People love Lucy because she's charming, she's innocent in so many ways, she's charismatic but in a way that makes one want to protect her rather than follow her. Which, of course, is ironic as she leads the Pevensies into Narnia in the first place - which one could attribute to her allegorical role as the little child who will lead them.
Peter then is a Hufflepuff in the tradition of Cedric Diggory. Susan is a Ravenclaw who is somehow cowed into not fulfilling her potential. Edmund is Slytherin not solely because of the betrayal but because of his later actions, his understanding that power has consequences, and his treatment of his cousin Eustace. And Lucy is a Gryffindor in all her rashly courageous but clear-sighted glory.
What do you all think? It's certainly not a perfect correlation, and I think an argument could easily be made to at least put the duos into the same house - or to reverse my Sorting, but I don't really think all four of them could be put into the same House. And I do enjoy that particularly about Narnia and the Pevensies. They're not carbon copies of each other in the way that siblings in children's literature can become. I also love just how much the children in the recent movie embodied the qualities of the characters without seeming to have to reach. William Moseley as Peter was convincing as a leader of a country. When he asks Orieus, the Centaur general, if Orieus will follow Peter, it doesn't seem too unbelievable that Orieus will and does. Part of this, of course, is aging the children slightly. We modern folk aren't used to ascribing authority to children. But beyond the leadership, the relationship between the siblings is played out in a way I'd never have thought possible before seeing the movie. The glances, the bonds between all four of them with the shifting alliances and loyalties that are present in any band of children, especially siblings, are what make the movie for me. Without the base four characters who could feasibly take over a country and rule it as a unit for 25 years, the story is simply an allegory without a truth of its own.