Are You A Gryffindor Or A Slytherin?
February 8th, 2008
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Image from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
In Catherine Lawson’s post Are Criminals Better Entrepreneurs?, she talks about how some famous entrepreneurs have committed crimes in the past. It turns out that criminals have many entrepreneurial traits, including management skills, passion, and willingness to take risks.
This immediately reminded me of Harry Potter. In the first movie, all the first year students line up to find out what house they’ll be assigned to: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff. The houses we know the most about are Gryffindor, which values courage and chivalry, and Slytherin, which values ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness. More to the point, Gryffindors are good and Slytherins are evil.
At the sorting ceremony, the children wait their turn for the sorting hat to be placed on their head. The sorting hat can read personalities, and in most cases can quickly determine the house that the student is best suited for. However, it has some trouble trying to read Harry Potter:
“Hmm, difficult. VERY difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh yes. And a thirst to prove yourself. But where to put you?”
“Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin.”
“Not Slytherin, eh? Are you sure? You could be great, you know. It’s all here in your head. And Slytherin can help you on your way to greatness, there’s no doubt about that. No?”
“Anything but Slytherin, anything but Slytherin.”
“Well if you’re sure, better be…GRYFFINDOR!”
Harry breathes a sigh of relief that he turned out to be good after all. But the next year, Harry wonders if he might be the heir of Salazar Slytherin, and unknowingly responsible for terrorizing the school. He goes to see the sorting hat again:
“Bee in your bonnet, Potter?”
“Well, you see, I was wondering…”
“If I put you in the right house? Yes…you were particularly difficult to place, but I stand by what I said last year: you would have done well in Slytherin.”
Poor Harry! Does he really have the traits of a good Slytherin? Is he really evil at heart? Well, yes and no. Professor Dumbledore is the one who eventually explains it to him:
“It’s true, Harry. You do possess many of the qualities Voldemort himself prizes. Resourcefulness. Determination. A certain disregard for the rules. Yet the sorting hat placed you in Gryffindor.”
“Only because I asked it to.”
“Exactly. Which makes you very different from Voldemort. It’s not our abilities that show what we truly are, Harry. It’s our choices.“
By the same token, abilities such as management skills, passion, and willingness to take risks are just abilities. They don’t make us who we are. We still have the choice to be either an entrepreneur or a criminal, and that choice makes us who we are.
Do you choose House Gryffindor or Slytherin?
February 8th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Brilliant post Hunter. And what you say is so true. It’s not the skills we have that make us good or bad, it’s how we choose to use them.
I would choose Gryffindor for me.
But, I think sometimes when people make the wrong choice – like Richard Branson did, they can learn by their mistakes and begin to put their skills to good use, rather than bad.
CatherineL’s last blog post..The Secret Ingredient of Online Business Success
February 8th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Hi Hunter,
So true. It is the choices we make. As we tried to teach our children, all choices have consequences , good and bad. We just need to learn to think past the answers, and have foresight with regard to where our decisions may lead us.
I agree with Catherine, if we do make mistakes, we can become better individuals if we learn from them…and not repeat the same ones over and over.
Barbara’s last blog post..Are Spammers Saying “Gotcha”
February 8th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Yes, we can certainly learn from our mistakes. Real life is more flexible than Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in that we can change our house at any time!
February 9th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Perhaps in a weaker moment, this post touched me more deeply than normal.
Having been through an awful lot of stuff with respect to business, I do wonder how our choices affect us.
I pondered my choice to this question – Gryffindor or Slytherin. Is that good or evil? Or is it something less black and white when it comes to business?
But then again, should we simply make a choice?
We all wear many hats. Sometimes we can take Gryffindorian paths – courage and chivalry – but other times, ambition, and self-serving principles.
The choice really is good or bad.
Sorry to mix in a bit of Star Wars, but in business, there are certainly times when the dark side tempts you. When struggling, should you pay your staff or the taxes on time?
In the end, giving inot the dark side is not the way – you have to battle through because the ultimate judge, the customer, will always reject the baddies.
Ian Denny’s last blog post..Champion The Wonder Horse Defeats Business Despair In 32 Seconds
February 9th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Good point, Ian. We might take different paths at different times. Overall we can be on a path of courage and chivalry, and yet sometimes we might be more self-serving. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Someone can be on a mission to serve their customers, and also decide to raise their rates once in a while because they need to take care of themselves as well.
However, you can’t give in to the dark side even once. Once you cross that line, it’s too hard to ever come back. BTW, never be sorry to mix in a bit of Star Wars!
February 12th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Excellent post, Hunter.
Yes, our choices determine a path, and that path can lead us in a direction we later decide we don’t want to go, and getting off that path is even harder — although, to stay with movie culture — Anakin Skywalker WAS able to return from the path (to the Dark Side) he chose as a young Jedi.
Luckily, most of us don’t lead such melodramatic lives (I hope), but we do have to make choices at many points in our time here.
Isn’t it great that there are some many shades of gray (I can see it now, the path of the Lighter Gray Side).
Nez’s last blog post..Locke and Demosthenes: A Thought on Political Blogs
February 12th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Nez, this ties into your recent post about habits. Our choices determine a path, and the longer we stay on that path, the harder it is to change it. It look Anakin a long time to re-evaluate his choices, but we can do so at any time.
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November 24th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Totally awesome! It’s so true.
But, GO SLYTHERIN!
Vicki´s last blog post..Nu andas vampyrerna
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