osprey_archer | The Presidential Sorting Hat

zodiacal_light commented on my Teddy Roosevelt post that she'd had a conversation about sorting presidents into Hogwarts houses recently. I think this sounds like the MOST FUN EVER, and clearly no serious historical inquiry is complete without Hogwarts houses, so...let the games begin!

Teddy himself, of course, is a Gryffindor. He's obviously clever enough to go into Ravenclaw - in between big game hunting and being president he wrote like twenty books - but he valued courage above all else: his endless paeans to the active life, his love of hunting, his brief stint as a cowboy, during which he citizen-arrested a couple of horse thieves and dragged them quite a ways to the nearest sheriff's office...

Also, when the Spanish-American War broke out, he quit his job to muster a volunteer regiment to invade Cuba. They charged gloriously up San Juan hill. It is such a Gryffindor thing to do.

Other Gryffindors: Andrew Jackson, much as I hate him. (It always bothered me that the Gryffindors are always good in Harry Potter. Courage is an important part of being a good person, but it's not a magical stairway to heaven.) Possibly Grant? I don't know enough about him to decide definitively - I'm going mostly on the fact that he's a general, and they're brave, right? (He's clearly not a Slytherin. No political sense at all.)

However, our other two general presidents, Washington and Eisenhower, I'd both put in Hufflepuff: Washington for his vast sense of duty, and Eisenhower because of his avuncular geniality. They weren't overwhelming clever or brash or cunning, but they were great stabilizing forces, and both very popular in their times. Hufflepuff presidents: surprisingly effective!

(Hufflepuff never really recovers from its presentation in the first Harry Potter book. Slytherin may be evil, but Hufflepuff is the "oh no don't sort me there!" house.)

I'd say Thomas Jefferson as a Ravenclaw: clearly a very bright man, and completely incapable of seeing how his high-falutin ideals might apply to his actual life. This disconnect between thinking and doing seems Ravenclaw to me. I'd put Lincoln here too, although you might be able to claim him - surprisingly enough - for Slytherin, because he was an exceptionally clever politician. But Slytherins generally seem to lack the moral sense that is so central to understanding Lincoln, so he doesn't quite fit. (My dad is a Lincoln buff. It's rubbed off on me.)

And Wilson is so a Ravenclaw, too. I'd like to put him in Slytherin, purely out of spleen, but he clearly doesn't have the cunning God gave a goose so that would work.

And Slytherin? Tricky Dick Nixon, obviously. Otherwise it's hard to tell...it feels like a massive indictment of character to say "This guy! He's a Slytherin! JUST LIKE VOLDEMORT." But if we're including non-presidential founding fathers...Alexander Hamilton. Slytherin all the way.

Comments? Questions? Furious rebuttals? Anyone I totally should have sorted who I missed?

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I love sorting random people/characters into Harry Potter Houses. It's just a Good Thing To Do. I think an argument could be made for Nixon being a Ravenclaw because he was incredibly smart and the smart kind of tips into 'I am smarter than these jackasses why aren't they doing what I say?' type of ambition.

Obviously Slytherin makes lots of sense too, but I think the argument could be made.

Also I so agree with Hamilton's placement. The man is without a doubt my favorite Founding Father, but he's such a Slytherin.

John Adams would be a Ravenclaw though.

Yes, this is true about Nixon. I would still go with Slytherin because I think the will to power was stronger in him even than his pride in his intelligence, but both are important parts of his character.

Hmm, I don't know as much about John Adams. My main impression of him is from the musical 1776, where he's kind of a brainiac Gryffindor - like an even more socially inept Hermione - have you seen this movie? It's kind of ace. There's a song where Adams refuses to write the Declaration of Independence because "if I'm the one to do it, they'll run their quill pens through it, I'm obnoxious and disliked, you know that sir."

Um, but obviously that's a musical and not real history.

What do you think Madison would be?

He was Gryffinclawish, for sure, but I'd definitely go Gryffindor over Ravenclaw. I used to have a JA Gryff icon! A lot of both his political successes AND failures can be pretty quickly attributed to the fact that he would say "fuck this, I'm doing what I think is right". He was brilliant, sure, but he didn't tend to think being smart was enough to earn respect -- he respected people who Did The Right Thing or showed nobility or courage. It made him great for advocating Independency, but kind of a crap diplomat, and in the end made him unelectable. And I think if you look at his most shining moments (which from what I can see in his letters, were the accomplishments he was also proud of), they're (a) unpopularly representing the Boston Massacre defendants, (b) doggedly insisting on independence, and (c) avoiding war with France when "his" party was clamoring for it. Also, I suppose, the writing of the Massachusetts Constitution. Contrast with his friend/rival/friend Th Jefferson (definitely Ravenclaw no question), who requested that his tombstone list him as the author of a religious freedom resolution, author of the Declaration, and founder of UVA.

Madison is a tough sort but I think I've typically put him in Hufflepuff. He was very "behind the scenes" for quite some time, working really really hard to put together the R-D platform while giving Jefferson "party leader" credit. He was highly practical and methodical, and I never quite got the same sense of ambition from him as I did of ... everyone else.

I can agree on Washington as Hufflepuff though I think I used to put him with Slytherin -- though he was always very Slytherpuff. It depends whether you think his "oh no I don't want to govern" was genuine or just really really really well-played. But he was HIGHLY concerned with reputation and appearance and propriety and did little subtle things to establish himself (like wearing his old uniform to Congress before being appointed General, or knowing how to stay above the fray) that make me able to believe that it was the latter.

I think you should write a post Sorting the founding fathers! So many interesting things to consider!

Washington is a tricky case. I think his "I don't want to govern" schtick must have been at least partly genuine, because he did step down in the end, so for that reason I'd say Hufflepuff. Power was never his highest aim, as it would be if he was Slytherin, though he certainly didn't mind having it handed to him on a silver platter.

Definitely not Gryffindor, though. He was brave, but not at all foolhardy (not that Gryffindors have to be foolhardy, but it seems to be one of their common failure modes), and he doesn't seem to thirst for glory as most Gryffindors do.

The Presidential Sorting Hat

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