On being a Hufflepuff.

As many of you probably know, I did my Pottermore sorting last week, and while I've boasted a proud Slytherin for the last 8 years or so, I was in fact sorted into Hufflepuff.

I know a lot of people are saying "It's just a test on a website it's not a big deal" but for one, this test was written by J.K. Rowling herself, and moreover, we'll be representing these houses for the next 2-3 years as more books are released and we play through the remainder of Pottermore. It's also been suggested to me that I start a new account when the beta is over and try to get Slytherin, but to me, that's very outside the spirit of Harry Potter and being sorted at all. Students at Hogwarts don't just get to defer their first year, come back the next year, and get sorted again. You get sorted once. And that's your house.

So I'm a Hufflepuff.

People used to ask me all the time why I thought I was a Slytherin at all. They said, "but you're so nice!" or "you're not evil at all!" But, just because a lot of evil does come out of Slytherin doesn't mean everyone who gets sorted there is inherently so. I was (and still am) a huge believer in the good that could come out of Slytherin house, with the right personality type. I think it's easy to fall into a more crooked lifestyle in Slytherin, but that the strong willed could avoid that.

I always thought I was a Slytherin because there's a certain level of narcissism you need to have to be a vlogger, an artist, a writer, or a creator in general. To be a successful artist, you need to truly believe you're worthy of creating things that deserve to be seen by others, or, in the case of a vlogger, you need to think you're awesome enough to justify basing your whole career around talking about yourself. All the time.

I assumed I had to be a Slytherin, because I definitely have a lot of those qualities. But as Dumbledore said, it's "our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities". A lot of the time, I use the online power I have to connect with people, to talk with fans about their lives, to entertain others, to help with charity -- I guess I had always seen myself as a Slytherin based on what I do because I didn't even notice the very innate Hufflepuff qualities I actually possess in how I act.

So, the whole sorting experience was very interesting for me. Secretly, I always felt kind of split between Slytherin and Hufflepuff (though I never made that common knowledge!) but - I thought the nature of my job and relatively narcissistic lifestyle condemned me to being a Slytherin. I know I have a lot of the cunning and ambition and drive-for-personal-success of a Slytherin, but at the end of the day I care about people way too much to step over them or use them to get what I want. I could never sit back in the Slytherin common room listening to my peers talking about how they cut corners and made things happen for themselves the easy way -- I would much rather be proud of the hard work I put in the honest way. That's something that's only really been made clear to me in the last couple years, though.

So while I loved playing a Slytherin onstage these past 7-8 years, and while I know the Sorting Hat would probably lean a bit toward Slytherin with me just like it did with Harry -- when I saw that Hufflepuff crest on my Pottermore quiz, I knew deep down it was time to embrace who I truly am. And now, I'm really okay with it.

Besides, for as much crap as Hufflepuff House gets, I am really proud to represent the group that's loyal and fair, patient and hardworking. Those are all the aspects of a human-being I think people should aspire to be. To be told that's where I actually belong is more of a compliment than most people realize. :)


Have you been sorted yet? Did you get the house you wanted? Did your sorting make you learn anything about yourself you maybe didn't know or see before?


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