A friend over at the Barnes and Noble Book Club I’m moderating this month wrote a longish post about the Four Houses, their Four Elements equivalents, and their probable spiritual qualities. I do enjoy thinking about Ravenclaw (Air), Hufflepuff (Earth), Gryffindor (Fire), and Slytherin (Water) along these lines, if I would have never come up with what Oriflamme did. More recently I have been tracking the choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholic humors/temperaments in the various characters. Fun stuff.
Most interesting to me is how Ms. Rowling has used these traditionalist conceptions of character and physics to make postmodern points — and has done so from the first book of the series.
I am thinking about Dumbledore’s four word speech to the Four Houses after the sorting in Philosopher’s Stone. He says, “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!” and sits down. This talk made enough of an impression on Harry (and Ms. Rowling thought it important enough) that he recalls these words during the eulogy at the Headmaster’s funeral in Prince.
The context of his talk is the Sorting of the ickle firsties into their respective houses. However off-the-wall, Albus seems to be making an important point about the divisions that have just been made and the identities these students are about to take on. In short, each of the four words is a “put-down” that one house would use to describe the “other” (anyone not part of their new house).
“Nitwit:” Ravenclaw is the house of witches and wizards of greater intelligence. As a rule, Rowena’s children will think of those not selected for membership in their select group as “nitwits” or dummies.
“Blubber:” Blubber, in contrast, is a word used on playgrounds in the English speaking world for “fat.” It is disparaging because children use it to be unkind to their peers who are heavier than the average kid and probably less athletic. Gryffindor, the jock or frat house, sees the “other” as less physically bold or courageous, for which condition, an eleven year-old would probably find “blubber” a handy signifier.
“Oddment:” This is a word from the world of sewing and fabrics. An oddment, if memory serves, is the remainder from the bolt of cloth, a remainder not large enough to be usable in making anything significant. Slytherins are lovers of “pure-blood” and, in this, “wholeness” or “integrity.” The “other” to a Slytherin is any witch or wizard born with insufficient purity, an insufficiency that makes them an oddment of less, even no value.
“Tweek:” Hufflepuff is the Hogwarts House for magical folk who were not smart, bold, or pure enough for the three Houses described above. From Malfoy’s comments in Madame Borkin’s in *Stone,” they seem to be the dustbin house, where the nobodies wind up. Cedric’s success in *Goblet* also suggests that glory is something of a stranger to Hufflepuff champions.
I have to doubt this is the Hufflepuff self-understanding. They look at the “other” and see “excess” or “imbalance” not “excellence” and “virtue” they lack. Hufflepuff witches and wizards are down-to-earth, humble (humilis), and real people. The “other” needs to be “tweeked” or adjusted to refine their excess and bring it to the mean, which as Aristotle teaches, is where virtue really lies.
The Headmaster doesn’t make a long speech about what a shame it is that they have been divided and will soon see themselves as better than their friends who have had the misfortune to be sorted into the “other” houses. As a good postmodern linguistics professor, he notes that the Sorting Hat is the vehicle of the metanarrative or Grand Myth that is the *real* evil of their world and throws out his comic marker for those capable of hearing what was not very well hidden in his short speech.
As Harry must act as Quintessence to the Four Houses and Four Magical Brethren and was destined to this role as “The Chosen One,” it is no accident that these words stayed with him. Here’s hoping he can make sense of this lesson in his Deathly Hallows efforts to unite the Magical World against Lord Voldemort.
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Excellent! I was just re-reading PS and this caught my eye. Couldn’t for the life of me figure out what DD was talking about!
Very clever of you.
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Another cultural data point for your four elements/quintessence observation: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Leonardo=Fire/Courage
Donatello=Air/Intellect
Michaelangelo=Earth/Appetite
Raphael=Water/FluidityIndeed, it seems the plot is that the turtles have separated and must rejoin to win the day. In fact, a couple of the clips are explicit about “fighting as one” and that the team without Raphael is incomplete. Thought you’d appreciate another point of confirmation.
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John, what a neat idea, and I hadn’t thought of it that way at all! I believe you are right – Dumbledore is urging unity and understanding with this odd speech. But I would interpret the individual words a bit differently. I think he is mentioning the ways each House is seen negatively by *all* of the others. Thus:
1. Nitwit = Ravenclaw. The Ravenclaws may be extremely intelligent, but they are also impractical, idealistic and (sometimes) eccentric. Wouldn’t you say most of the other kids see Luna as a nitwit?
2. Blubber = Slytherin. I don’t think this word means overweight; it means bursting into tears. The Slytherins, based on Snape’s nickname and Draco’s flood of tears in the bathroom, are the weepy house, and the other houses scorn them for their open emotionality – especially those stiff-lipped, warrior Gryffindors.
3. Oddment= Hufflepuff. What other house could be scorned as the ‘leftovers;’ the bits and pieces no one else could think to use?
4. Tweak = Gryffindor. At first, it’s hard to see why, but the only casual cheaters we’ve seen have been in Gryffindor. (Bagman, who was almost certainly a Gryffindor; Peter Pettigrew; and, alas, Ron and Harry.) Gryffindors are also, more often than not, the sort of bullies who ‘tweak’ other kids.
So I think Dumbledore deliberately chose words that reflected the *negative* stereotype of each house. In this speech, he was urging the students to look beyond those stereotypes; he was also pointing out that every House had negative aspects, but every House was far more than the worst impression it might make.
Just my two cents!
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I didnÄôt understand the hidden meaning of these four words till your explanation. I suspected a link with the four houses but didnÄôt figure it out. One more time, I must say ¬´¬bravo!¬¬ª
However, the DDÄôs short speech began with a warmly ¬´¬welcome¬¬ª and ended with ¬´¬Thank you¬¬ª. It sounds to me like: ¬´¬Welcome Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment, Tweak! And thank you!¬¬ª. What is the meaning of this joke: an apology (DD let them be divided) or a warning? Apology seems to be the Christian answer and the warning the postmodern one. My opinion is that humor is the JKRÄôs way to bind both. -
Coming quite late to the discussion, but I have quite a different interpretation of Professor Dumbledore’s fascinatingly brief speech–Boggart slaying!
Through out the entire series, one of the major recurring themes is that of the need to name and face our fears. One way this theme is personified is in the boggart which can only be slain by facing it directly, accepting it for what it is, and then using laughter to rob it of its controlling powers.
In the days and moments leading up to the Sorting Hat ceremony, the young students have all verbally or mentally expressed the common fears of school children anywhere heading into the unknown terrors of a new school, to wit:
Nitwit: I will not be quick enough to grasp the work. I don’t have enough preparation. I will be publicly humiliated as a fool.
Blubber: I will not have the courage to carry on. I will break down in tears in front of everyone. I will be publicly revealed as a coward.
Oddment: I do not belong here. I will never fit in. I will never be chosen for anything. I will be publicly exposed as unworthy of being here.
Tweak: I will hate it here! I will never be happy here. I will always be scared. I may never be seriously harmed, but I will be publicly tweaked in some way every day.
And then the imposing figure at the head table shouted the children’s deepest fears right into their anxious little faces…NITWIT! BLUBBER! ODDMENT! TWEAK!
For one frozen second all the children must have thought “He knows! The charade is over! I’ve been exposed!” Four great boggarts hovered in the air ready to strike!
Then the great imposing figure said “Thank you.” and sat down.
The room erupted in laughter and the boggart’s went up in smoke. A few hundred hungry children relaxed and began to enjoy themselves, and a wise old professor smiled into his freshly filled plate because he had just demonstrated one of most important principles they would ever learn at Hogwart’s. And the children didn’t even realize that the term had started.
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… and I just thought Rowling must have been a fan of Spike Milligan!
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I have to say that I loved this blog. I have not seen anyone really describe the Hufflepuff like it should be and you finally did. I tried to do this in my blog but you did in one paragraph what I couldn’t.
I am not a big fan of the Slytherin part. That needs work. I do not subscribe to the Slytherin house being tagged as the “Hitlers’ of the wizarding world as people try to depict them. But, because of the founder, certain prominant house memeber, and the overall Slytherin traits, that is where a unproportionant number of evil witches and wizards come out from.
Again, great job on the Hufflepuff description. I really do not believe that they are in fact the “dumb” house and that there was always something more J.R. Rowling was trying to get out of it. What makes me upset is that she never fully developed the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff house as I would have liked. I actually think she did a woefull job in that department. While there were not main characters, besides Cedrick and it lasted for one book and at limited times, from those two other houses she could have found some way to develop them better and let us see more into their personalities. Quite frankly, I know tons of Gryfinddors and tons on Slytherins (my house I might add) but when it comes with Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaw I really have to use my immagination.
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mary said, “The Slytherins, based on Snape’s nickname and Draco’s flood of tears in the bathroom, are the weepy house, and the other houses scorn them for their open emotionality – especially those stiff-lipped, warrior Gryffindors.”
Are there any instances in the story where Slytherins show open emotionality? They seem to spend most of their time mocking and laughing, not crying.
Snape’s nickname would not have been known to the students, and Draco’s crying took place in private. I don’t see how Slytherins would have been seen as “weepy.”
Just my two cents.
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You made a mistake in the tweak part
you said madam borkins, but its madam malkins… robes for all occasions.
you mixed it up with borgin and burkes.. -
thanks.
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I disagree with the opinion that Hufflepuff is for leftovers (in some instances). That doesn’t explain why Tonks got into Hufflepuff. She’s not particularly hufflepuff-y to me…
John’s Twilight Blog!
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