application for Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby)
(( Aided, abetted, and egged on by Gatsby-mun, of course. ))
Later, Nick would suppose it might all have been inevitable. Some senseless and improbable fate had ordained that he, Nick Carraway of Chicago, should alone serve as clear-eyed witness and chronicler to the culmination of Jay Gatsby's fabulous life. Why not Gatsby's afterlife as well? he'd think, and shake his head.
Later, too, he'd think how unremarkable and ordinary his own initial reaction to Hogwarts must have been. Probably almost everyone sucked into the Sorting Room thought himself or herself to be dreaming. In Nick's case, the supposition was doubly apt, since the last thing he remembered was nodding off to sleep. He had finally bid farewell to the East. Sick of its confusion and hothouse excess, he had packed up what belongings of his own had taken up space in that eighty-dollar-a-month West Egg bungalow next door to Gatsby's mansion, and he had shipped them home ahead of himself. He had boarded a train and he was going home. He knew, now, where home was; where home had always been.
The train's noise and regular shuddering drew him into sleep, as trains will do. His frayed jaded subconscious mind threw up before him nothing new, only a succession of things he had seen before: people splashing in fountains, champagne spurting in a wasteful trajectory across the glittering moonlit lawn. When he awoke, he was no longer in his train seat, nestled into the comfortable hollow left by hundreds of travelers before him. He was in an armchair, in a high-ceilinged room of stone. His immediate association was not with castles of any kind, but with some old buildings at Yale.
Funny odd dreamlike questions were lobbed at him like shuttlecocks. Groggy and amiable, Nick batted them back.
1. What is your favorite cheese? Why is it your favorite?
"I'd say if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Stilton. It's a fairly complex cheese that goes well with more things than you might think. It could be served as dessert with a glass of port, or it could go with a good cream of celery soup at dinner." What a funny question, thought Nick with sleepy goodnatured amusement. Funnier still was the quill moving of its own accord to take dictation from his answers.
2. Who would you kill first, Barney or Carrottop?
That was a question Nick didn't like. He sat up a little straighter in his chair, and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Unless Barney or Carrottop are enemy soldiers and I've been in a foxhole this whole time only dreaming the last few years have happened, I wouldn't kill either one of them."
3. What time is it where you are?
Nick drew his watch from his pocket, only to discover its hands had stopped. He shook it as if to jar its hidden inner workings back into motion. When nothing changed, he shrugged. "I'll have to ask someone with a watch that isn't broken."
4. If you were Albus Dumbledore returned from the dead, which member of the Order of the Phoenix would you sexually harass? How would you harass them? If you are Albus Dumbledore, please answer as if you were Sirius Black.
That was almost too much to follow. Nick squinted into the middle distance, piecing it all together.
"Those aren't names I know. If the Order of the Phoenix is some kind of secret society or honor society, hopefully the fellows will have the decency not to harass anybody at all."
5. If you are pushing to be in:
A. Slytherin - please state the clever, witty name of the bar in which you bartend, in the dark.
Nick blinked. "That's a trick question, isn't it? We're under Prohibition."
It had not occurred yet to Nick that he was no longer in the year 1922.
B. Gryffindor - Debate whether Harry should ultimately end up married to Fred or George. Use examples from a variety of world mythologies to bolster your argument.
"Who's marrying who, now?" Gamely, Nick gave it the good old college try. "You want examples from world mythologies. Let's see. Olympus was rife with infidelity, so Greco-Roman myth won't help much. Teutonic mythology gives us the Ring cycle, with Siegfried and Brunnhilde in love but married to other people. Their love is tragic. Along the same line you have Tristan and Isolde, if we're going to plumb the depths of myth by way of opera ..."
What came to mind most readily wasn't mythology, the yellowing pages of Bulfinch, the horned helmets on stage at the Met. No, Nick's vagrant thoughts coursed elsewhere.
He thought of the girl back home he hadn't wanted to marry, and how now that he was going home he'd have to fend off the gossips all over again.
He thought of Daisy's story, her wedding at the height of June in Louisville, with people fainting from the heat.
He thought of Jordan Baker, whom he still had not forgotten, even though he was sure he ought to forget her.
Finally, Nick sighed. "Most mythologies don't contain much by way of happy marriages. In that way myth imitates life, I suppose."
C. Ravenclaw - You guys are supposed to be smart. Explain why my desk is inundated with paperwork at all times, even though I’m constantly disposing of it.
"You need a better system of organization. Make a list for yourself with plans for self-improvement, and follow through on that list. It's worked for great men in the past," he said, though he still had private doubts on whether the former James Gatz had indeed become a great man. Whatever Gatsby was, great or not, he was at least a self-made man, so surely this advice -- the advice to emulate Gatsby, though Nick didn't spell it out as such -- was not misguided.
D. Hufflepuff - Prove you are not useless.
Nick figured the question to be an unusually combative way of asking what he did for a living. "I took a degree at Yale, then served as an officer in the Great War, and now I'm learning the bond business. Why do you ask?"
6. Offer a bribe to the members of this community so that they will not squib you. Items used in bribery do not necessarily have to belong to the person offering the bribe. Do not threaten us rather than offering a bribe. A threat indicates you either don't really want to be here, or don't have enough sense to answer the question properly. The hat will automatically squib you, regardless of other votes, if you do.
Bribery? Come again, now? Nick straightened further in his chair. He was more alert now. The question had moved him to something like indignation, insofar as Nick ever expressed such a feeling.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said flatly.
"I have read the hogwarts_hocus faq, and understand it is a crazy, cracktastic sorting community and RPG. NC.
I have read the hogwarts_hocus rules and agree to abide by each and every one of them.NC.
I agree to be a good sport and not get my knickers in a bunch. NC.
One day, marmalade will rule the world. NC."
Later, Nick would suppose it might all have been inevitable. Some senseless and improbable fate had ordained that he, Nick Carraway of Chicago, should alone serve as clear-eyed witness and chronicler to the culmination of Jay Gatsby's fabulous life. Why not Gatsby's afterlife as well? he'd think, and shake his head.
Later, too, he'd think how unremarkable and ordinary his own initial reaction to Hogwarts must have been. Probably almost everyone sucked into the Sorting Room thought himself or herself to be dreaming. In Nick's case, the supposition was doubly apt, since the last thing he remembered was nodding off to sleep. He had finally bid farewell to the East. Sick of its confusion and hothouse excess, he had packed up what belongings of his own had taken up space in that eighty-dollar-a-month West Egg bungalow next door to Gatsby's mansion, and he had shipped them home ahead of himself. He had boarded a train and he was going home. He knew, now, where home was; where home had always been.
The train's noise and regular shuddering drew him into sleep, as trains will do. His frayed jaded subconscious mind threw up before him nothing new, only a succession of things he had seen before: people splashing in fountains, champagne spurting in a wasteful trajectory across the glittering moonlit lawn. When he awoke, he was no longer in his train seat, nestled into the comfortable hollow left by hundreds of travelers before him. He was in an armchair, in a high-ceilinged room of stone. His immediate association was not with castles of any kind, but with some old buildings at Yale.
Funny odd dreamlike questions were lobbed at him like shuttlecocks. Groggy and amiable, Nick batted them back.
1. What is your favorite cheese? Why is it your favorite?
"I'd say if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Stilton. It's a fairly complex cheese that goes well with more things than you might think. It could be served as dessert with a glass of port, or it could go with a good cream of celery soup at dinner." What a funny question, thought Nick with sleepy goodnatured amusement. Funnier still was the quill moving of its own accord to take dictation from his answers.
2. Who would you kill first, Barney or Carrottop?
That was a question Nick didn't like. He sat up a little straighter in his chair, and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Unless Barney or Carrottop are enemy soldiers and I've been in a foxhole this whole time only dreaming the last few years have happened, I wouldn't kill either one of them."
3. What time is it where you are?
Nick drew his watch from his pocket, only to discover its hands had stopped. He shook it as if to jar its hidden inner workings back into motion. When nothing changed, he shrugged. "I'll have to ask someone with a watch that isn't broken."
4. If you were Albus Dumbledore returned from the dead, which member of the Order of the Phoenix would you sexually harass? How would you harass them? If you are Albus Dumbledore, please answer as if you were Sirius Black.
That was almost too much to follow. Nick squinted into the middle distance, piecing it all together.
"Those aren't names I know. If the Order of the Phoenix is some kind of secret society or honor society, hopefully the fellows will have the decency not to harass anybody at all."
5. If you are pushing to be in:
A. Slytherin - please state the clever, witty name of the bar in which you bartend, in the dark.
Nick blinked. "That's a trick question, isn't it? We're under Prohibition."
It had not occurred yet to Nick that he was no longer in the year 1922.
B. Gryffindor - Debate whether Harry should ultimately end up married to Fred or George. Use examples from a variety of world mythologies to bolster your argument.
"Who's marrying who, now?" Gamely, Nick gave it the good old college try. "You want examples from world mythologies. Let's see. Olympus was rife with infidelity, so Greco-Roman myth won't help much. Teutonic mythology gives us the Ring cycle, with Siegfried and Brunnhilde in love but married to other people. Their love is tragic. Along the same line you have Tristan and Isolde, if we're going to plumb the depths of myth by way of opera ..."
What came to mind most readily wasn't mythology, the yellowing pages of Bulfinch, the horned helmets on stage at the Met. No, Nick's vagrant thoughts coursed elsewhere.
He thought of the girl back home he hadn't wanted to marry, and how now that he was going home he'd have to fend off the gossips all over again.
He thought of Daisy's story, her wedding at the height of June in Louisville, with people fainting from the heat.
He thought of Jordan Baker, whom he still had not forgotten, even though he was sure he ought to forget her.
Finally, Nick sighed. "Most mythologies don't contain much by way of happy marriages. In that way myth imitates life, I suppose."
C. Ravenclaw - You guys are supposed to be smart. Explain why my desk is inundated with paperwork at all times, even though I’m constantly disposing of it.
"You need a better system of organization. Make a list for yourself with plans for self-improvement, and follow through on that list. It's worked for great men in the past," he said, though he still had private doubts on whether the former James Gatz had indeed become a great man. Whatever Gatsby was, great or not, he was at least a self-made man, so surely this advice -- the advice to emulate Gatsby, though Nick didn't spell it out as such -- was not misguided.
D. Hufflepuff - Prove you are not useless.
Nick figured the question to be an unusually combative way of asking what he did for a living. "I took a degree at Yale, then served as an officer in the Great War, and now I'm learning the bond business. Why do you ask?"
6. Offer a bribe to the members of this community so that they will not squib you. Items used in bribery do not necessarily have to belong to the person offering the bribe. Do not threaten us rather than offering a bribe. A threat indicates you either don't really want to be here, or don't have enough sense to answer the question properly. The hat will automatically squib you, regardless of other votes, if you do.
Bribery? Come again, now? Nick straightened further in his chair. He was more alert now. The question had moved him to something like indignation, insofar as Nick ever expressed such a feeling.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said flatly.
"I have read the hogwarts_hocus faq, and understand it is a crazy, cracktastic sorting community and RPG. NC.
I have read the hogwarts_hocus rules and agree to abide by each and every one of them.NC.
I agree to be a good sport and not get my knickers in a bunch. NC.
One day, marmalade will rule the world. NC."