*Please note that I am not breaking down/explaining what each house represents in this post. You can find all of that information on Pottermore.com if you feel so inclined, rather than be forced to read it in its 100th reiteration here.
When J.K. Rowling, the author the wildly popular Harry Potter book (and film!) series opened up a website for Potterheads (fans of the series) in April of 2012, everyone immediately headed over to be sorted into their Hogwarts houses. The website was interactive and users worked their way through the stories, earning points for their house towards the House Cup that was awarded each year. I remember taking the quiz for the first time and finding out that I was a hat-stall. I answered the last question and was presented with a screen that asked me to choose between Gryffindor and Slytherin. I was pretty sure that was just the result it gave everyone because after all we were supposedly playing through the book series, and that’s the decision Harry ultimately makes. (I chose Gryffindor. Go Lions!) It wasn’t until I was scouring social media later that I realized people were actually being sorted into other houses. I had always wanted to be in Ravenclaw, and I remember taking the quiz about ten times before it finally put me in Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor. I never got the hat-stall screen again.
When the site went down for renovations last year, I was sad, to say the least. But low-and-behold, January 28th, 2016 brought renewed hope. Pottermore was back up and running, but it looked very different. Gone were the interactive game, the dueling, and the House Cup. What we did get, however, was a ton of backstory and fleshy bits (aka my favorite parts) about the world of magic. Most importantly, we still had a Hogwarts sorting quiz. The unfortunate part of that being that it was a new quiz and a lot of people were upset by it, having already identified themselves by the houses they had originally been sorted into. I, luckily enough, was still sorted into Gryffindor (hooray!), though I was not a hat-stall this time around.
June 28th, 2016, heralded a new surprise for Potterheads: a second sorting ceremony. This one for the American school of witchcraft and wizardry, Ilvermorny, who’s backstory was revealed the same day. I took the Ilvermorny sorting quiz and became a Pukwudgie. Then I immediately scoured social media to discover what this meant. Since taking the quiz, I have discovered a few things. First was a post that I discovered via Twitter, discussing the potential correlations between Hogwarts and Ilvermorny houses. I reblogged it on Tumblr, and you can also find the original post here. Thanks much to Layne Morgan for putting that together. The second, which I found more recently, was an article that showed where users from each Hogwarts house ended up in Ilvermorny. It’s quite interesting! You can find that over at Hypable.
Mostly what I discovered is that Pukwudgie and Thunderbird are the most popular across the Hogwarts houses, and almost no one is in Wampus. Because of all the data floating around, I felt the need to do some research of my own.
I took each quiz 6 times, and these are my results:
Hogwarts:
Gryffindor: 3 times Ravenclaw: 2 times Hufflepuff: 1 time Slytherin: 0 times
Ilvermorny:
Horned Serpent: 3 times Pukwudgie: 2 times Wampus: 1 time Thunderbird: 0 times
With Hypable’s article showing 36.3% of Gryffindors ending up in Pukwudgie and the same percentage in Thunderbird, I’m somewhat surprised by my findings. As far as the Hogwarts sortings go, I already mentioned that I was a Gryffindor who used to dream of being a Ravenclaw, so is it really a surprise that I got Ravenclaw a few times? In terms of what some Potterheads term ‘hybrid houses’, I’ve always been a Gryffinclaw. I found the singular Hufflepuff sorting interesting because my sisters were sorted into Hufflepuff in the original sorting quiz, so I guess loyalty just runs in the family.
*Please note that to take the quizzes you must be logged in to Pottermore.com. You can create an account for free using your email address.
Have you taken the sorting quizzes yet? What house(s) did you get? Let me know in the comments here or over on Twitter @Amanda_HHC.
Until next time,
Amanda