Thoughts About 'The Rest'
The Sorting Hat meme that was making the rounds last week prompted a few (and non-exhaustive) thoughts on why I - and I end up in that house every time I take a test to be Sorted - always feel it's a compliment to be Sorted into Hufflepuff and something quite hard to live up to. We're told from the first that 'Puffs are hardworking and honest. They make loyal and faithful friends, and we may infer that they're the kind of people you can always count on when the going gets tough.
In Book 1, the Sorting Hat tells us just that - the characteristics of Hufflepuff are loyalty and faithfulness. In the first Sorting Hat Song, all four houses are described in positive or (in the case of Slytherin) neutral terms. Still, it's the chapters preceding Harry's own Sorting that first associate Hufflepuff with something negative. In spite of being the Boy Who Lived, Harry fears that he really isn't magical enough to go to Hogwarts and assumes he'll either end up in Hufflepuff, the house 'everyone' considers full of 'duffers' or, which is even more scary, that he won't be Sorted into any house at all.
Throughout the series, in fact, Hufflepuff is associated with the notion of not being enough - not smart enough, brave enough or indeed magical enough. I'll take the rest says Helga in the Sorting Hat's song in OotP, and I believe that to many (and to Harry), this is what's so damning about being sorted into her house - it's the just the default alternative.
And then, there's the obvious - the distinguishing characteristics of the Hufflepuffs are geared inwards, towards their own group, or house, and we, following Harry's Gryffindor perspective, have little opportunity to learn much about them until Cedric appears in GoF and above all in Book 5, where the students face a common enemy from the outside for the first time. Acts of loyalty and faith are often small things, performed in silence, but of overwhelming importance nevertheless.
In Book 1, the Sorting Hat tells us just that - the characteristics of Hufflepuff are loyalty and faithfulness. In the first Sorting Hat Song, all four houses are described in positive or (in the case of Slytherin) neutral terms. Still, it's the chapters preceding Harry's own Sorting that first associate Hufflepuff with something negative. In spite of being the Boy Who Lived, Harry fears that he really isn't magical enough to go to Hogwarts and assumes he'll either end up in Hufflepuff, the house 'everyone' considers full of 'duffers' or, which is even more scary, that he won't be Sorted into any house at all.
Throughout the series, in fact, Hufflepuff is associated with the notion of not being enough - not smart enough, brave enough or indeed magical enough. I'll take the rest says Helga in the Sorting Hat's song in OotP, and I believe that to many (and to Harry), this is what's so damning about being sorted into her house - it's the just the default alternative.
And then, there's the obvious - the distinguishing characteristics of the Hufflepuffs are geared inwards, towards their own group, or house, and we, following Harry's Gryffindor perspective, have little opportunity to learn much about them until Cedric appears in GoF and above all in Book 5, where the students face a common enemy from the outside for the first time. Acts of loyalty and faith are often small things, performed in silence, but of overwhelming importance nevertheless.