Post by Krissy Fleming on Aug 14, 2007 6:07:16 GMT -5
Figured posting these two together would make more sence 
Modern-day Hufflepuff is emphatically NOT the house that you get sent to if you lack any distinguishing characteristics. Where that particular misreading is concerned, the problem is one of perception, in that the ’Puffs identify themselves so completely with their “peer group” that to most outsiders’ eyes they all blend together. It’s vanishingly small wonder that an arrogant, immature, Slyth-to-the-bone like an 11-year-old Draco Malfoy regarded them with contempt and ill-disguised horror. Or that an immature dyed-in-the-wool Gryff like Ron Weasley dismissed them as a bad joke.
A Hufflepuff back-up team is every hero’s, every statesman’s, every brilliant ivory-tower innovator’s dream. But, by definition, as the hero, the statesman or the innovator, you are not a part of that team — so you have to earn their respect before they will willingly back you up. And if you do manage to enlist such a support group and then overstep yourself with them and turn them against you, they will withdraw that support, and they will bury you.
(You WILL notice that everyone in canon who sneers at the Hufflepuffs is careful to do so behind their backs. The ’Puffs in their standard formation are formidable.)
It has also been noted that if you ever do manage to cut one of the more talented ’Puffs out of the herd and let him carry the banner for the honour of his House, he shines. Cedric Diggory was close to honestly winning the Tri-Wizard Tournament. It’s no wonder that Barty Crouch Jr stepped in to make sure he didn’t. And there are a lot of very talented or very admirable wizards in Hufflepuff, every tribe has a chieftain, after all.
We’re in deeply tribal, “group think” territory here. The Hufflepuff’s motto is; “nobody left behind”, but that only applies if you visibly pitch in and do your part for the rest of your “team”. The Hufflepuffs generally come in last because they move at the speed of their weakest member — but they always finish the course. And the ’Puffs have zero tolerance for loners or “odd ducks”. They also have a nasty tendency to gang up on outsiders, slackers, or people who are perceived to have deliberately let their side down. [Note: you do NOT want to alienate the Hufflepuffs. There are a lot of them. And they stick together. Far more solidly than the Slytherins, whose alliances are tactical, strategic — and temporary.]
Here you have, on one hand, the ’Puffs, who not only close ranks against outsiders but will turn into an opposing army as soon as they decide that you have injured one of their own (when you take on the Hufflepuffs, you take on the whole House) and on the other, you have the ’Claws, who — with a distressing level of frequency — disdain conformity, have high levels of social ineptitude, frequently cruel tongues, no common sense, and not enough experience to recognize when a battle is not worth fighting, let alone starting.
The down side of Hufflepuff, of course, is rampant cliquishness and mob rule. I strongly suspect the disciplinary problem that the Hufflepuffs present to the staff of Hogwarts is a pervading tendency to gang up on whoever they decide has offended one of them. Inside the House, this problem is recast as intermittent squabbles between rival subgroups and the determination for each to demand that the onlookers take sides. There is also a nasty underlying tendency among poorly-socialized ’Puffs (oh, yes, those also exist, Zacharias Smith seems a good example, I was amused to note in HBP that if he is not literally the “Heir of Hufflepuff” he is, evidently, at least a descendent.) to regard the application of those wonderful, traditional Hufflepuff virtues of fairness, patience, generosity and above all, loyalty as only being owed to one’s own particular “tribe”, and the rest of the world be damned. I suspect that there might have been no few Hufflepuffs who would have quite happily chosen to support Voldemort. Or Tom Riddle, anyway.
Added on by Krissy Fleming
Hufflepuff is like a big family.
To quote Lilo and Stitch
"Ohana means family, family means no-one gets left behind"
What it means to be a Hufflepuff
Originally posted by Michael Rolen
Originally posted by Michael Rolen
Modern-day Hufflepuff is emphatically NOT the house that you get sent to if you lack any distinguishing characteristics. Where that particular misreading is concerned, the problem is one of perception, in that the ’Puffs identify themselves so completely with their “peer group” that to most outsiders’ eyes they all blend together. It’s vanishingly small wonder that an arrogant, immature, Slyth-to-the-bone like an 11-year-old Draco Malfoy regarded them with contempt and ill-disguised horror. Or that an immature dyed-in-the-wool Gryff like Ron Weasley dismissed them as a bad joke.
A Hufflepuff back-up team is every hero’s, every statesman’s, every brilliant ivory-tower innovator’s dream. But, by definition, as the hero, the statesman or the innovator, you are not a part of that team — so you have to earn their respect before they will willingly back you up. And if you do manage to enlist such a support group and then overstep yourself with them and turn them against you, they will withdraw that support, and they will bury you.
(You WILL notice that everyone in canon who sneers at the Hufflepuffs is careful to do so behind their backs. The ’Puffs in their standard formation are formidable.)
It has also been noted that if you ever do manage to cut one of the more talented ’Puffs out of the herd and let him carry the banner for the honour of his House, he shines. Cedric Diggory was close to honestly winning the Tri-Wizard Tournament. It’s no wonder that Barty Crouch Jr stepped in to make sure he didn’t. And there are a lot of very talented or very admirable wizards in Hufflepuff, every tribe has a chieftain, after all.
We’re in deeply tribal, “group think” territory here. The Hufflepuff’s motto is; “nobody left behind”, but that only applies if you visibly pitch in and do your part for the rest of your “team”. The Hufflepuffs generally come in last because they move at the speed of their weakest member — but they always finish the course. And the ’Puffs have zero tolerance for loners or “odd ducks”. They also have a nasty tendency to gang up on outsiders, slackers, or people who are perceived to have deliberately let their side down. [Note: you do NOT want to alienate the Hufflepuffs. There are a lot of them. And they stick together. Far more solidly than the Slytherins, whose alliances are tactical, strategic — and temporary.]
Here you have, on one hand, the ’Puffs, who not only close ranks against outsiders but will turn into an opposing army as soon as they decide that you have injured one of their own (when you take on the Hufflepuffs, you take on the whole House) and on the other, you have the ’Claws, who — with a distressing level of frequency — disdain conformity, have high levels of social ineptitude, frequently cruel tongues, no common sense, and not enough experience to recognize when a battle is not worth fighting, let alone starting.
The down side of Hufflepuff, of course, is rampant cliquishness and mob rule. I strongly suspect the disciplinary problem that the Hufflepuffs present to the staff of Hogwarts is a pervading tendency to gang up on whoever they decide has offended one of them. Inside the House, this problem is recast as intermittent squabbles between rival subgroups and the determination for each to demand that the onlookers take sides. There is also a nasty underlying tendency among poorly-socialized ’Puffs (oh, yes, those also exist, Zacharias Smith seems a good example, I was amused to note in HBP that if he is not literally the “Heir of Hufflepuff” he is, evidently, at least a descendent.) to regard the application of those wonderful, traditional Hufflepuff virtues of fairness, patience, generosity and above all, loyalty as only being owed to one’s own particular “tribe”, and the rest of the world be damned. I suspect that there might have been no few Hufflepuffs who would have quite happily chosen to support Voldemort. Or Tom Riddle, anyway.
Added on by Krissy Fleming
Hufflepuff is like a big family.
To quote Lilo and Stitch
"Ohana means family, family means no-one gets left behind"