Subject: So what Sorting Hat are you? :D
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Posted on: 2014-09-19 10:05:00 UTC

Chapter 6 attempts to pin the different Hats (that's never going to stop being hilarious) down to four different types of Christianity. So how well are they pinned down?

-Slytherin is Catholicism; the Marian aspect is a dead giveaway. Only it's a sort of Catholicism that prays to, uh, statues. That sounds more like a corrupted version of the Eastern Catholic fondness for icons than anything I know about Roman Catholicism. I'm also not sure what the 'book full of guidelines' is - perhaps it's the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which would bring us back to Roman Catholicism?

They're also all red-haired; I assume that's a joke about Ireland, or maybe US Irish Catholics. Quite a funny one, actually, and explains why Ron's a Slytheratholic.

-After that, I can't pin names on things. Hufflepuff are clearly defined as 'wishy-washy', but frankly I suspect they're meant to reflect most of Protestant Christianity. Ravenclaw are 'the mean ones': they hate Slytheratholics, and explicitly hate women as well. Gyffindor is... whatever the author (purportedly) agrees with? It looks like they're just as strict as Ravenmean, but for 'the right reasons' - eg, they agree that women shouldn't be allowed to work, but their reason is based on positive 'they should do this instead' rather than negative 'women suck'. So... maybe Ravenmean is meant to portray the Dark Side of whatever demoniation Gryffinbest represents?

This is why I said Hufflewashy represents most of Protestantism: anyone who doesn't agree with the Gryffinbest principles (including women staying at home, rejecting the science of evolution, and not celebrating birthdays) is either a Mary-venerating Catholic, or a Hufflewashy. Since I don't believe the Gryffinbest principles are widely held across Protestantism, that means Hufflewashy is the largest non-Slytheratholic house.

I'm not sure Luna's sudden appearance makes it more likely to be a parody - I wouldn't call it a troll, because if it's not serious, then it's seriously well-executed. Draco does the same thing, after all; they just read like character introductions. However, my numbers 1 and 2 reasons for thinking 'parody':

-Sorting Hats. ^-^
-The level of knowledge is too up-and-down. Things like Sorting Hats would imply someone who's never read the books or seen the films, since it's not a change to fit the theme - it's just a very strange mistake. But the overall understanding of the books is too high, even if shown in altered form. It doesn't work unless you assume it's deliberate.
-Also (I know, I said two...), the author's notes don't ring true. She's not someone you'd see lying, but it is absolutely impossible that she's received three times as many positive PMs as negative reviews (Ch. 4). And the 'I got a PM from someone who thought I wrote the original books despite the fact that they were reading the Harry Potter section of FF.n' disclaimer (Ch. 5) is even less believable.

So: parody, but pretty good one. It doesn't poke fun at the beliefs it claims to be espousing: it just lays them out plainly and lets you decide whether or not they're ridiculous. See: A Modest Proposal, by J. Swift. Parody and satire are always best when they're 'serious'. ^-^

hS

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