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epitome of incomprehensibility
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My captcha today was "ssss" - maybe the Sorting Hat should've put me in Slytherin?
That is, I took a Harry Potter-themed personality quiz years ago, and the results landed me in Ravenclaw. I wasn't surprised. Griffindor tends to breed heroes and Slytherin villains, and I didn't think I was either hero or villain material. The other alternative was Hufflepuff: they're all relational and touchy-feely - huffly-puffly? - and I'm bit like that, but not enough. Ravenclaws seem to be nerdy, bookish types.
But the "four personality types" have been a theme, or scheme, long before Harry Potter. In medieval Europe they were based on bodily fluids - sanguine, melancholy, choleric, and phlegmatic. Are Ravenclaws phlegmatic? Too, ahem, snotty? And does Griffindor = sanguine, Slytherin = choleric, and Hufflepuff = melancholy? Or maybe Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff should be switched around. Phlegmatic meant that you were calm but perhaps overly passive, and scholars were thought to be melancholy... Mind you, I got most of my medieval knowledge from a class on Chaucer.
And then there was the personality test the staff took at one of my summer camp jobs. I'm not sure it had any more psychological relevance than the Harry Potter quiz. Personalities were colours:
Gold - conventional and dependable, your typical valedictorian, the goody-two-shoes who isn't necessarily a hero, but likely has good shoes
Orange - the risk-takers, daredevils, sometimes careless but with good leadershippy qualities if properly channeled
Blue - creative people, artists and dreamers, often impractical, but with business potential as innovators and entrepreneurs
Green - people who like facts and analytical thinking; people into math, science, and the technical aspects of language
Hm! Harry Potter's a well-rounded character, at least for a children's series, and I'd say he's a bit of all four. But to colour the Houses themselves:
Gryffindor = orange-gold
Slytherin = green-orange
Ravenclaw = blue-green
Hufflepuff = gold-blue
(I was solidly blue-green, with a bit of gold, and hardly any orange. But what about other colours? Purple, anyone? I'd like to think I had a purple personality. And some people seem bright yellow. My best friend, I'd say, is a mellow burgundy. Maybe it's time to mix up this four-based scheme a little. Astrology? Well, but twelve is divisible by four. Maybe eleven would be more interesting. Popular art tends to recognize eleven basic colours and/or shades: white, grey, black, brown, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, and green. I guess eleven personality types would be hard to remember.)
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