I got sorted in the loser house

The Ilvermorny house sorting quiz came out today.

And I got sorted in the loser house.

I don’t know what to think about this.

I tried 5 different emails.

3 of which sorted me in the loser house.

The evidence that I belong in the loser house is incontrovertible.

I will now grapple with this identity crisis in a blog post.

For those of you who are confused, J.K. Rowling released on Pottermore today the backstory about Ilvermorny, which is the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in North America. Massachusetts to be exact. (Of course it’s in Massachusetts. Massachusetts….)

The story itself is really cool and you should totally go read it. Released along with the story was a sorting quiz for the school, which also has four houses: Horned Serpent, Wampus, Thunderbird, and Pukwudgie. Three guesses as to which one is the loser house…

Each house, according to Jo, corresponds loosely to a part of the body and has characteristics to match. Here they are:

• Horned Serpent: the brain house; scholars
• Wampus: the body house; warriors
• Thunderbird: the soul house; adventurers
• Pukwudgie: the heart house; healers

You might already in your mind be trying to equate these to Hogwarts houses, as many people on the internet are doing. If you were to do that, most are agreeing that Horned Serpent = Ravenclaw, Wampus = Gryffindor, Thunderbird = Slytherin, and Pukwudgie = Hufflepuff. Naturally, the Griffindor and Slytherin equations are the ones most debatable because Griffindor and Slytherin houses are similar anyway (as discussed many a time in the Harry Potter books), so your guess is as good as mine as to which is which.

But I don’t want to look at these houses as Hogwarts equivalents because they are different. It is a different school in a different country in a different culture. Yes, some of them may seem like dead ringers (Ravenclaw/Horned Serpent), but I think it’s better to consider this as something totally new, even though it’s obviously tempting to compare them to the only frame of reference we have.

As I was reading the descriptions of each house in the story, my first instinct was to place myself in Horned Serpent, because I am a proud Ravenclaw. I was sorted into Ravenclaw originally back in the beta version of Pottermore, again in the new version of Pottermore, and I even double-checked with this quiz, which compiles all the possible questions on the site just to be extra sure. But more importantly, I just feel as if I identify with the Ravenclaw house, and, as I will repeat later, this is what truly matters.

But considering that these houses are not direct equivalents to the houses of Hogwarts, I reconsidered. Thunderbird definitely sounded the most appealing to me as someone who has a wild imagination, loves to travel and wander and explore, and believes that there is some sort of soul that resides in all of us. Also, how cool is the name!? I want to be a Thunderbird!

But then I took the test. Pukwudgie. PUKWUDGIE!?

You can’t help but judge Pukwudgie as the loser house. I mean, it’s called Pukwudgie. All the other houses sound cool and bad-ass. Pukwudgie sounds like puke-wedgie.

The houses were named after the founders’ favorite magical creatures. Pukwudgie was named by the Muggle (the Muggle!) who helped found the school because he couldn’t think of a good name for the last house and thought the Pukwudgie creature he knew, William, was funny dude, so he named the house after him. There is absolutely nothing cool about that story. Pukwudgies as creatures are not exactly the most interesting either; they are goblin-like/hedgehog-like beings who really don’t like humans so they shoot poison arrows at them. The arrow thing is admittedly cool, but when compared to the Thunderbird, the Pukwudgie sucks.

I took the test again. Pukwudgie. Then again. Wampus. Then again. Pukwudgie. Then again. Horned Serpent. Not a Thunderbird in sight.

The above results attest to the fact that taking a Pottermore quiz on the site is not exactly reliable, which is why I took that compiled version I mentioned before for the Hogwarts sorting. I’m sure a compiled version of the Ilvermorny quiz will surface soon, too, as well as a detailed examination of the questions. But taking a quiz on the internet certainly would not compare to having a Sorting Hat (or in Ilvermorny’s case, carvings of the four creatures) look into your very mind and soul.

Which brings me back to my point: you are who you identify with. As we know, the Sorting Hat sometimes lets you choose, and apparently Ilvermorny lets you choose way more often than Hogwarts! I don’t think Pukwudgie was completely off for me, to be fair. I am someone who thinks with my heart over my head, and I love helping people. If we’re comparing to Hogwarts, Hufflepuff was always my second option for Hogwarts house; I’m a Hufflepuff supporter through and through. So I’m warming up to the fact that I just might be a Pukwudgie. But I’d like to think that if I were a witch (and of school age) ((and, you know, if none of this was fictional)), I’d get a choice.

The thing that makes it especially hard to judge at this point is that we know very little about these houses; after all, Thunderbirds might be complete a-holes. We don’t know any of the characters who belong to these houses or any further detail about them like we do Hogwarts. Maybe more of this will come to light in the Fantastic Beasts films, which is, after all, why Pottermore is slowly releasing this information: to hype the movie.

So, I’m going to hold off my ultimate verdict until I know more. But for now, it seems as if I’m a Ravenwudgie.

What about you? What houses do you think you belong in? Any Pottermore identity crisis stories to share?

#WudgeLife

UPDATE: Lots of fan theories have now surfaced about the houses (of course), and the wonderful Eric Scull posted this, which eases all of my worries and basically makes my whole identity crisis unnecessary.