Welcome to another installment of the Sorting Hat, where we take characters from our favorite stories and sort them into Hogwarts houses! In honor of Rogue One releasing this week, we’ve sorted the main characters from Star Wars, and it’s quite possible that this was our most difficult and contentious sorting to date.
For the purposes of this post, we tried to stick to the movies, although that proved difficult at times for Sarah and Teija, who have each read a good number of the Extended Universe books. Lauren, however, has only ever seen the movies, which is probably at least partially why there was so much dissent.
Han Solo
Lauren: I vote Slytherin.
Sarah: Okay so Han… Same. My gut was to say Gryffindor, but I checked myself and I think he’s actually Slytherin.
Teija: He’s very much a “how can I be the guy who comes out on top of this situation” kind of guy.
Lauren: He is conniving and wily.
Teija: The whole Kanjiclub situation was super Slytherin, playing folks off each other.
Sarah: And he’s supremely loyal, but only to a select few. I don’t think you become a really skilled smuggler without at least a bit of Slytherin in you.
Teija: He’s great at turning situations to his advantage, I think he’s got a lot of cunning.
Lauren: Truth.
Sarah: Oh, totally. He thinks he can talk his way out of anything, and he’s usually right. But if not, he’ll resort to shooting.
Lauren: He’s just a brave, loyal Slytherin who likes to shoot things. But even then the shooting is strategic, not hot-headed.
Sarah: Usually. Sometimes not, like in the trash compactor.
Lauren: Well, who really is at the top of their game in a trash compactor?
Sarah: I’m going to say no one except the dianoga?
Teija: I mean he has some hot-headedness to him, but he can usually reign it in and still think straight even when his temper flares.
Sarah: Oh, I agree completely.
Lauren: And Slytherins aren’t exactly the most level-headed folk anyway.
Verdict: Slytherin
Luke Skywalker
Sarah: Hufflepuff.
Lauren: I can make an argument for Gryffindor.
Teija: I can see Hufflepuff.
Sarah: I think he is the Cedric Diggory of Star Wars.
Teija: He’s hardworking, as shown with Yoda. And even on the moisture farm, even though he whines about it.
Sarah: He is a brave Hufflepuff. He is hardworking, he is super loyal to people and causes he thinks are right.
Teija: He has a very strong sense of right and wrong.
Lauren: He’s so whiny though, and he just charges into things.
Teija: Hufflepuffs can be whiny! Look at Justin Finch-Fletchley: “bawww he threw a snake at me!”
Sarah: He is whiny, but I don’t think whiny makes him not a Hufflepuff.
Lauren: No, it’s more that I don’t think hard work is one of his core characteristics. I think he does it because he has to. He whines about the farm and he whines about having to train for Yoda.
Sarah: Luke’s reasoning in wanting to go fight the empire isn’t for glory, it’s because he strongly believes in right and wrong, and it’s why he stays on Tatooine to help his uncle even when he’d rather leave.
Lauren: Gryffindors don’t have to fight for glory.
Teija: I mean, he still DOES it.
Sarah: Yeah, I don’t always think a Hufflepuff means they ENJOY the work, but they do it because they have to.
Lauren: I think they do it because they feel like they SHOULD, not because someone is making them.
Teija: And yeah, he stays even though he’d rather leave, and then in TFA the implication is that he banished himself because of whatever happened with Kylo Ren.
Sarah: Yeah, that doesn’t feel super Gryffindor to me. Also, he left a treasure map basically saying, “I don’t really want to leave you all, please come and find me.”
Teija: Plus, he’s usually charging into things because of some reasoning. He’s so convinced in his sense of right and wrong and he’s usually righting some ‘wrong’ he sees.
Lauren: He is always charging into things, though.
Sarah: I will give you that, but I don’t know if that alone is enough to put him in Gryffindor.
Lauren: It’s not alone, it’s in concert with him only working hard because other people are making him and him making all of his decisions based solely on his gut.
Sarah: I don’t know that he only works hard because others make him, I just think he’s whiny about working but he does it because he knows he should.
Lauren: I just don’t see hard work or fair play being his core values at all, his whole Jedi training is “why do I have to do this, it’s so hard, why can’t I just be a Jedi NOW?”
Sarah: I think there is a lot of that, but I think part of that is also just immaturity. He tends to get exasperated when Han just rushes off into things, like in the first death star battle. Luke likes to make a plan and stick to it. (Also to be fair, I am having a difficult time separating out everything I know from all of the books to just the movies.)
Lauren: I am not convinced he likes to stick to his plan. He goes off book a lot in the heat of the moment.
Sarah: I think he reacts to things that happen that force him to change his plans.
Lauren: I’m outnumbered if you’re both firm on Hufflepuff, I just really don’t see it.
Sarah: I would honestly see an argument for Slytherin before Gryffindor, because he is whiny and has a bit of entitlement.
Teija: And I don’t see Slytherin for him.
Lauren: He’s not really shrewd, though. The one big plan he masterminded was to get the best of Jabba, and we all know how well that turned out.
Teija: I can see the Gryffindor argument, but I’m still with Sarah on this.
Sarah: Luke is a bit of a weird hero. (whispers Han was better.)
Lauren: I’ll concede to Hufflepuff but I can’t agree.
Verdict: Hufflepuff
Leia Organa Solo
Sarah: My gut says Ravenclaw because she is typically the brains behind the operation.
Lauren: I was making a pros-cons list in my head for Slytherin and Ravenclaw.
Sarah: I think she’s the Hermione, where she has the guts of a Gryffindor, but the brains of a Ravenclaw.
Lauren: I think Ravenclaw has the edge.
Sarah: She’s tactically brillant; there’s a reason she’s a general. I could see an argument for Slytherin as well for her, but I do think Ravenclaw has it overall.
Lauren: Yeah, I think Ravenclaw is clearest. I think she’s really good at puzzling her way out of tricky situations.
Sarah: I think if Leia had been the main character, the story would’ve ended by Empire.
Lauren: Even the way she figures out how to communicate with the Ewoks is very Ravenclaw-like.
Teija: I think Ravenclaw is the best for her, but that she would be suited well in Slytherin. She has the shrewdness and the cunning, but I also think her intelligence is a defining thing for her.
Sarah: Oh totally, she reasons her way through all of that. And I think she absolutely does have cunning, she needs it to work in politics.
Lauren: Yeah, I think she has a strong Slytherin secondary.
Sarah: But I think she relies on her brains more?
Lauren: Agreed.
Verdict: Ravenclaw
Chewbacca
Teija: Chewie is a Hufflepuff.
Sarah: Well, hmmm. The loyalty thing is a life debt that is part of their culture.
Teija: Yeah, but I don’t think that ANY Wookiee with the same life debt would be as loyal or as caring as Chewie gets to be not only with Han, but with his whole family.
Lauren: Wookiees are hotheaded too, as a species.
Sarah: Not generally, actually. They are very intelligent.
Lauren: Han’s explanation to Luke to not anger Chewie is that when Wookiees get mad they rip your arms off. I would call that hotheaded.
Sarah: Yeah, but part of that is just to scare Luke.
Teija: Or it’s just a joke that Han made. Wookiees are just as varied as any other species, they’re often shown as very diplomatic and thoughtful in the books so I wouldn’t want to paint them with the “hotheaded angry species” brush.
Lauren: I’m going based off of what the movies tell us about Wookiees.
Sarah: I do think the fact that Chewie extended the life debt to cover all of Han’s family shows that it goes beyond just what is expected due to cultural things.
Teija: I just think that it’s not a given that life debt would automatically mean friendship and loyalty and devotion to a whole family tree. That’s Chewie, not the debt.
Sarah: Agreed. That is all Chewie. Which means I’d put loyalty pretty high up there on his list of core traits.
Teija: You know 100% that Chewbacca could have and would have killed Kylo Ren with a single shot after he murdered Han, but Chewie deliberately did not hit him with a killing blow, because he’s family.
Lauren: The movies never even get into the Wookiee customs on life debts, so we just have the way Chewie acts and what Han says about them as a species to go off of.
Sarah: That is true, the movies barely cover the life debt other than just in passing.
Lauren: All that to say, Chewie gets a bit temperamental, but in the movies at least, Han indicates that’s a species thing, not a Chewie thing.
Sarah: I think Chewie is super loyal to the people he deems family. And that’s without any mention of the life debt extending to cover them.
Teija: True, but I do think that he’d be more of a Hufflepuff with Gryffindor secondaries than a Gryffindor in full.
Lauren: I actually agree on Hufflepuff for one reason that has nothing to do with any of this.
Sarah: Haha! Oh?
Lauren: And that is that he salvaged and put C-3PO back together.
Teija: Heeeeeee!
Lauren: I feel like salvaging all the parts of a wrecked droid and painstakingly putting him back together is a very Hufflepuff thing to do.
Sarah: He went and found Threepio, who we’ve seen annoys him, but he found him and pieced him back together because he is part of the pack. It does also show how intelligent he is, because he did that with like next to no tools.
Lauren: Yeah, but he’s also essentially a mechanic so that’s a professional thing, not a personality thing, I think.
Sarah: Oh no, I agree.
Verdict: Hufflepuff
Lando Calrissian
Sarah: I want to say Slytherin, because he is very conniving… but sometimes he is also not so good at it.
Teija: He’s got some daring.
Lauren: Also I think one of the reasons Han was so surprised by his betrayal is that it was uncharacteristic.
Sarah: I kinda feel like he’s a Gryffindor that wants to be a Slytherin? Like he wants so badly to be as good at smuggling as Han, but he does better when he does the right thing and is honest.
Teija: He is one of those people that are like I’M SOOOO TOTALLY A SLYTHERIN but aren’t really, because they think that Slytherin house is the “cool” house to be in.
Lauren: He acts like he’s more comfortable when he’s doing things like leading squadrons and less when he’s trying to run a city.
Sarah: Yes, I agree with that.
Lauren: I’m gonna vote Gryffindor with some cultivated conniving tendencies, sure, but I think at his core he’s a Gryffindor.
Teija: Yep.
Sarah: As long as I can keep my headcanon that he wants to be a Slytherin deep down because he wants to be just like his bestie.
Lauren: Oh I definitely can see that.
Verdict: Gryffindor
Anakin Skywalker
Lauren: SPEAKING OF WHINING…
Teija: Uh, Anakin’s a Gryffindor.
Lauren: YUP.
Teija: Dude doesn’t think anything through before he does it.
Sarah: He doesn’t. And he is SO easily manipulated. He’s a follower, not a leader.
Teija: He is never afraid to leap into a thing and do it, but he does not listen to anyone and he just DOES STUFF and everyone else is like, “dear god, what!?”
Lauren: Anakin is that person who is completely and totally convinced by whatever the last thing he read or saw was.
Sarah: I don’t think he’s Slytherin, because he is not conniving or cunning or any of that.
Lauren: He has no deep inner convictions, he’s just like “WELL THEY MADE A COMPELLING ARGUMENT, I AM ON THAT SIDE!”
Sarah: Yes. That is exactly it.
Teija: “SOUNDS GOOD COUNT ME IN!” He belongs in Gryffindor.
Lauren: Gryffindor.
Sarah: Is he a weak-willed Gryffindor?
Lauren: Not that all Gryffindors are easily convinced, but more that he always goes with his gut, and his gut is very easily swayed.
Sarah: By the worst arguments ever because dude doesn’t fact check.
Lauren: Nope, you know 90% of Anakin’s FB page is fake news. Padme is constantly sending him Snopes links.
Sarah: “OUTRAGE AND ANGER OVER THIS HEADLINE! BE OUTRAGED WITH ME!”
Teija: Oh my god.
Lauren: “Anakin, seriously, just bookmark this site.”
Verdict: Gryffindor
Emperor Palpatine
Sarah: So Slytherin. So very Slytherin.
Lauren: Palpatine is the SW Voldemort.
Sarah: manipulates everything and everyone Look I win everything, and now I’m in charge!
Teija: Yeah, I don’t see how he could be in any other house, even.
Lauren: Slytherin 100%, everything else 0%.
Lauren: Well, that was easy.
Sarah: Hah because there was no other option.
Verdict: Slytherin
Boba Fett
Lauren: Next up is Boba Fett, who has no personality in the movies.
Sarah: Well some more if you look at Jango and the clones.
Lauren: True, there’s some… still not a lot to go on.
Sarah: He’s a hired mercenary, but he sorta has a single-minded focus on things.
Teija: He’s… I mean, being a bounty hunter implies some stuff. He’s got to be cunning and shrewd to be the bounty hunter that beats the others to the prize.
Sarah: But I don’t know if it’s conniving or intelligence.
Lauren: Yeah, but he’s not… especially those things. I’d actually lean more Ravenclaw.
Teija: Yeah, it could be Ravenclaw as well.
Sarah: His tactical ability is what they use for the clones.
Teija: I mean it could also be bravery, boldness, or daring.
Sarah: And the way he tracks Han, he thinks outside the box rather than relying on cunning.
Lauren: I don’t think he shows a lot of daring, I think it’s strategy.
Sarah: I agree, I don’t think it’s daring at all. I think in order to be a good bounty hunter, you have to have good strategy to track your mark.
Lauren: Yeah, and I think a Gryffindor bounty hunter would have a greater tendency to rush in guns ablazin’.
Teija: Fair. I’m good with Boba Fett the Ravenclaw.
Sarah: The tipping point for me is the tactical ability the clones get from him, that’s totally Ravenclaw.
Lauren: Yeah, I feel good with Ravenclaw.
Verdict: Ravenclaw
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Lauren: Obi-Wan… who I think is also Ravenclaw? Perhaps? I’m not married to it, that’s just my knee-jerk answer.
Sarah: I can see Ravenclaw. I can also sorta see Hufflepuff? He’s not Gryffindor or Slytherin.
Lauren: Nooo.
Sarah: He doesn’t rush into things, and he’s not nearly conniving or cunning enough.
Teija: I think Ravenclaw.
Lauren: I definitely see Ravenclaw more than Hufflepuff.
Sarah: He thinks before acting, and he only acts if he thinks it’s the right choice.
Teija: He’s so, so thoughtful, and I think it takes a lot of cleverness to get in and out of many situations he’s in. Also, he takes over for Qui-Gonn as the teacher for Anakin and he tries so hard.
Sarah: I’m trying to see how much of that is Jedi teaching more so than his core traits.
Teija: He’s the ONLY CHARACTER in the prequels that is begging people to THINK of the consequences of their actions.
Sarah: That is a good point.
Lauren: I think Ewan!Obi-Wan shows his core traits a lot more.
Sarah: He is the only character in the prequels that seems to realize there are consequences.
Lauren: Yes, I’d agree, he shows a lot of foresight.
Sarah: I think my Hufflepuff thoughts come from the fact that he stayed on Tattooine to watch over Luke, but I do see a lot of Ravenclaw.
Lauren: I feel like that was almost more guilt than anything else because he felt like he’d failed Anakin.
Sarah: That’s a good point.
Teija: Yeah, I think his Ravenclawiness is his primary feature.
Sarah: I’m good with Ravenclaw, I was mostly just thinking out loud to see if I felt Hufflepuff was a fit at all.
Verdict: Ravenclaw
Padme Amidala
Sarah: I am torn between Ravenclaw and Slytherin.
Lauren: She is so weird.
Teija: For Padme I see Ravenclaw also, just because she shows all the traits that Leia has, and I don’t think she’s leans nearly as strongly on the Slytherin stuff.
Lauren: In the first movie I’d say definitely Slytherin but by the end IDEK.
Teija: Like she’s the politician, yes, but you get the impression that she’s a politician that would actually eventually drown in the political muck because she isn’t necessarily as cutthroat as she would have to be. She carries the weight she does because she was Queen, not because of her poltiical acumen necessarily. But she still has the knowledge and intelligence that makes her a good senator.
Lauren: The whole body double thing is so Slytherin to me.
Sarah: But is that Slytherin, or is that necessity?
Lauren: I think both.
Sarah: That was what made me think Slytherin, too.
Lauren: I think that it even occurred to her as an option is a Slytherin thing to do.
Sarah: Now I’m not entirely sure, if it was her idea, I’d say Slytherin, but we have no idea who decided that.
Lauren: True, but considering she was the queen I’m allowing for it to be her idea.
Sarah: I think she has a lot of Slytherin traits.
Teija: I am still leaning more Ravenclaw, I feel like she’s like Leia.
Sarah: I think I’m leaning more Ravenclaw, because she doesn’t act without thinking.
Lauren: ALSO having the double puts Keira Knightley at risk, which I feel like a Slytherin would be more okay with. Compromising an underling for personal benefit.
Sarah: Yeah, but looking at all three movies is where I get unsure.
Lauren: Slytherins don’t have to act without thinking.
Sarah: I think by the end Ravenclaw is the frontrunner in how she acts in the second and third movies. Wait, no, now I’m second gessing myself.
Lauren: Shrewdness and calculation are by definition not knee-jerky actions.
Sarah: She does the decoy thing again in the 2nd or 3rd movie when they land and the other ships are shot at.
Lauren: I feel like I have to discount some part of the 3rd movie because once she becomes super pregnant, she kind of loses her entire personality.
Sarah: I do agree with Teija that she’s not really cut out for politics, she’s disgusted by the backstabbing.
Lauren: Yeah, but I think you can be an honorable Slytherin.
Teija: I’m still leaning Ravenclaw here.
Sarah: I can’t decided if she’s a Slytherin who is just not cut out for politics, or if she’s a Ravenclaw who has some Slytherin traits every now and then.
Teija: I’m in “Ravenclaw with strong Slytherin secondaries” land.
Sarah: I actually think I’m gonna go with Lauren on this one. I think Slytherin wins.
Lauren: YAY!
Sarah: It’s a narrow lead there, but I think she’s a very honorable Slytherin. Also, I like the idea of mother and daughter being opposites.
Teija: All righty, I’ll go with it.
Verdict: Slytherin
Qui-Gon Jinn
Lauren: Poor Liam Neeson.
Sarah: Your time was cut so short. Much like your torso.
Lauren: OUCH.
Sarah: Too soon?
Lauren: Ummm, what was he though?
Teija: He just didn’t have a lot of time to show us his traits, but he was a “wise teacher character” archetype.
Lauren: He was, which makes me think Ravenclaw?
Sarah: I think he was.
Lauren: Considering he didn’t have much characterization beyond “mentor.”
Sarah: He was very much that archetype, and he didn’t show any other strong traits that would indicate he was a strong contendor for the other houses.
Verdict: Ravenclaw
Darth Maul
Lauren: Um. Gryffindor?
Sarah: Ugh, I’m still salty over how they wasted him.
Lauren: He was very fight-y.
Sarah: I think so. He rushes in, does the thing, doesn’t think through consequences.
Lauren: Gets cut in half.
Teija: I would probably put him in Gryffindor based on what little we got.
Lauren: They really needed to keep him around longer.
Teija: Because all we really got was “guy runs in and tries to kill people repeatedly.”
Sarah: Which feels very Gryffindor! Raises sword, runs in swinging, doesn’t check anything first.
Lauren: Yeah, put him in the tower.
Sarah: That poor Tower, I’m amazed it’s still standing.
Lauren: It’s standing by sheer force of will.
Verdict: Gryffindor
Count Dooku
Lauren: Next we have Dooku, another Slytherin.
Teija: Yeah, I’m down with that. He’s a lot like Palpatine, but I can also see him having a Gryffindor secondary because of the way he behaves. Unlike Palpatine, who is just pure Slytherin.
Lauren: I just also always see Christopher Lee as a Slytherin. It’s the voice. I still think Dooku is too conniving to be a Gryffindor, though.
Sarah: I think he is, too. I am good with Slytherin for him.
Verdict: Slytherin
Yoda
Sarah: Okay so I say Slytherin because he manipulated so many things. He’s kinda like the opposite of Qui-Gon, who is all about knowledge and teaching.
Lauren: He is wily, what with his “you seek Yoda, I will take you to him!” thing… but how much of that is just wisdom gained from living for hundreds of years?
Sarah: Yoda is all “I’m not gonna tell you that Vader is your dad, because I need you to be a-okay with taking him down.”
Teija: So I am down for Slytherin if only because even if he IS super wise and very very intelligent, he also is a MASTER of holding things to the chest and letting other people know them only when he decides it’s right.
Sarah: “I will manipulate the scenario to create that outcome.”
Lauren: It’s hard with someone who’s been around as long as he has, because how much of what we see him do is PERSONALITY and how much is just learned behavior?
Sarah: That is a fair point.
Lauren: He’s been alive so long he just knows what works.
Teija: He’s smart like a Ravenclaw but he has this manipulative, string-pulling thing down pat where he is the guy who gets to decide at all times who gets what information, when, and why.
Lauren: “Don’t tell the emotional kid the thing that’ll make him be stupid, that will not give you the desired outcome.”
Sarah: He is not wrong. The whole “being 900 years old” thing does complicate things a bit. Also not ever knowing what species he is.
Lauren: I think I lean Ravenclaw a bit, although I can see both. The way he talks sort of in riddles feels Ravenclaw, how he makes everything a bit of a puzzle.
Sarah: Like a tiny green sphinx.
Lauren: A lot of it doesn’t feel manipulative to me, it just feels like he’s learned not to reveal his whole hand at once. He puts out breadcrumbs to see where they’ll lead.
Sarah: I would say that’s more cunning and learning how to best play the game though. Which does still feel more Slytherin to me, in a good way. I really want to know if long life is a species trait or if Yoda just somehow figured out how to extend his life.
Teija: Yeah, the puzzley-riddles talking does add another tick into the Ravenclaw column, considering they love those kinds of challenges. I mean, their house has a riddle-knocker for entry instead of a password.
Lauren: I can see both, but I feel like his personality is a little more playful than cunning, which is why I lean Ravenclaw. But I don’t think Slytherin is far off. I have a feeling that a lot of the manipulative behavior is learned, not innate, but it’s just a feeling.
Sarah: Okay, I will concede Ravenclaw because I dont think a Slytherin would grudgingly let Anakin become a Jedi if they felt it was the wrong move. That’s a very Ravenclaw attitude, “but he can learn if we teach him.”
Lauren: That’s a good point.
Sarah: A Slytherin would’ve held firm on that.
Lauren: We are nothing if not stubborn.
Verdict: Ravenclaw
Poe Dameron
Sarah: Oh, Poe.
Lauren: My beloved Poe!
Sarah: So Gryffindor. So brave, so determined, so good. He’s so cocky. I think he’s a Gryffindor with a Hufflepuff secondary?
Lauren: Or is he Hufflepuff though?
Sarah: I don’t think so.
Lauren: I’m over here waging an internal battle with myself.
Sarah: I think the risk-taking and the boasting win out and make him more of a Gryffindor. He’s all “of course I can fly your dumb little ship, I can fly anything.”
Lauren: See, Poe is the one I can see being more of a Cedric.
Sarah: And the way he gets all sassy with Kylo Ren. I dunno, I think we see him doing more risk-taking than anything Hufflepuff-y.
Lauren: He is indeed sassy, but he’s also just so… decent.
Sarah: Oh, he is, I think that’s the Gryffindor chivalry though, more than Hufflepuff loyalty. He’s like a Neville.
Lauren: Like how quickly he trusts Finn and how strongly he’s bonded to BB-8.
Teija: I think Poe’s a Gryffindor. The way he flies that X-Wing is full of that cocky bravado and daring that you have in that house. And it takes nerve to go fly into that turbine thing to blow it up like that.
Sarah: I do think he has a strong Hufflepuff secondary, but I think Gryffindor nerve and daring are stronger by a small bit.
Teija: AND he stands up to Kylo Ren in that torture chair thing as much as he can.
Lauren: But so would a Hufflepuff.
Sarah: He is all about bravado.
Lauren: The chair is about willpower, not bravado. A Hufflepuff would hold on to the information in his head as long as possible because he knows lives depend on it.
Sarah: I think Gryffindor barely edges out Puff in this movie, but I could see that changing as we see more of him in the next two.
Lauren: I can also definitely see Gryffindor.
Sarah: A Gryffindor is the one who comes up with the daring escape plan.
Teija: Yeah, I think from what we’ve seen of him he’s a Gryffindor.
Lauren: I will concede Gryffindor (barely) for TFA, but I will not be surprised at all if he goes more Puff in future installments.
Verdict: Gryffindor
Finn
Lauren: Next is Finn, who I would argue is ALSO a Puff.
Sarah: Yes I agree, no problem. Look how loyal he is to people he just met and how far he’s willing to go to protect and save them.
Lauren: I feel like the very first thing he does – refusing to fire on unarmed villagers – is pure Hufflepuff.
Sarah: I think the fact that he emerged from the First Order still as good and selfless and loyal as he did, shows how very strong of a Hufflepuff he is.
Lauren: I think in order to throw off his conditioning and take that sort of stand when he has no one backing him up is indicative of an extremely strong sense of decency and fairness.
Sarah: Agreed.
Teija: Yeah, Finn is a total Hufflepuff.
Sarah: He is such a GOOD person.
Teija: No argument here!
Verdict: Hufflepuff
Rey
Sarah: I want to say Ravenclaw for her.
Lauren: Ummmmmmm…
Sarah: I think the fact that she built this whole pulley system to scavenge shows how intelligent she is, and she apparently taught herself how to fix a ship.
Lauren: You can be a smart Gryffindor though.
Teija: Yeah, I think Rey is a Ravenclaw. She’s entirely self-taught.
Lauren: cough Hermione cough
Sarah: You can.
Lauren: Or a smart… any other house.
Sarah: But I think she’s way more Ravenclaw than Gryffindor. You can also be a brave Ravenclaw.
Teija: I don’t think a Gryffindor would have run off after that lightsaber flash vision.
Lauren: I’m just saying that her rigging a pulley system doesn’t automatically make her a Ravenclaw.
Sarah: No, but I think that plus teaching herself all about ships and apparently creating her own speedcraft shows that she relies on her intelligence more than just about anything else.
Teija: I think a Gryffindor, having just seen the visions that the lightsaber showed her, would have gritted their teeth and been like “well fine,” but she panicked and ran off in a moment that would have showed bravery if she hadn’t. I think that her intelligence and her craftiness really point toward Ravenclaw.
Lauren: I’m not actually oscillating between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, I’m going between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.
Teija: I don’t really see Hufflepuff in her, not a lot. Maybe hints of it, but she’s basically a self-made self-preservationist character by necessity, and I think her entire character revolves around the fact that she had to figure everything out on her own. Flying ships, how to survive, all of it.
Sarah: And look how proud she is of the things she figures out.
Lauren: The stubborn refusal to leave Jakku because her family might come back, rescuing BB-8 and refusing to sell him even when it would put food in her mouth…
Sarah: Look at the way she tells Han what she did to the ship.
Teija: She enjoys the learning and figuring out.
Lauren: The thing is, if she HAS to learn it for survival, then is it her personality or necessity?
Teija: The fact that she enjoys it though, that’s the part that matters. She takes pride in it.
Sarah: I think it’s personality, she didn’t need to learn how to pilot a ship to survive on a desert planet. Or how to fix ships.
Teija: It’s not just that she does it because she has to. I mean the part she HAD to do was scavenge, that’s how she got food. But the learning ships and fixing things, that was her.
Sarah: Especially if she was determined to stay there for when her family came back, it’s not like she needed to learn to pilot a ship in order to escape. She did it for funsies.
Lauren: Is that actually established in the movie or is it just an assumption? That she taught herself for fun?
Sarah: Well, I think it’s implied? Because she wasn’t planning on leaving Jakku.
Lauren: Do they say no one taught her, or that she didn’t receive any instruction prior to being left on Jakku?
Teija: This is all just what I picked up from the movie, I haven’t read any books that have her in them. Even if she’d learned to pilot some as a super tiny child, there was no way they taught her how to repair a ship. The flashback shows her being left on Jakku at a very small age. It’s implied she taught herself the majority of the things she knows.
Sarah: And it’s also the look on her face when she fixes things, she clearly enjoys it.
Lauren: I’ve thought since I saw the movie that one of the mysteries is how Rey learned everything she knows,
so I just wasn’t taking it as a foregone conclusion that she taught herself as a hobby.
Sarah: She is SO PROUD of herself for fixing the drive on the Falcon when Han asks what she did.
Teija: I mean, she looked really young in that flashback when she was left there, and she was left with Unkar Plutt. There’s no way he taught her damn near anything. So either someone was teaching an EXCEPTIONALLY SMALL CHILD to pilot and fix ships, or she learned it herself.
Lauren: Oh totally, but there’s still a good decade+ in there unaccounted for.
Sarah: It’s at least implied that she spends most of her time alone.
Lauren: NOW she does, but has she the entire time she’s been on Jakku? If she did teach herself all that stuff just for fun, I’d absolutely go with Ravenclaw. I’m just not as convinced that that’s definitely what happened.
Teija: Even still, I think the fact that when she learns how to do things she reacts like “woah cool look what I can do!” (even when she figures out force powers) speaks to a Ravenclaw-ishness regardless.
Lauren: That is true.
Teija: The fact that she was kind of forced into the situation doesn’t matter so much because we can see that she enjoys the learning.
Lauren: I’ll go with Ravenclaw, I’m just not convinced that all the supporting evidence is actually factual.
Sarah: There’s a book of short stories about the three of their lives before the movie. In the book she taught herself alien languages from a computer inside the downed walker, and studied all the schematics of ships and things because she wanted to learn about them. It gives a lot more insight into her life on Jakku and it makes it pretty clear that she teaches herself a lot of things because she’s interested in them.
Lauren: Then assuming the book is canon, I’m good with Ravenclaw.
Sarah: The book IS canon, but I know not everyone has read them. Any of the books that feature the new characters are canon.
Teija: That’s the fun thing about Star Wars, if it says “Star Wars” on the cover, it counts as canon. Minus the EU, but that’s another conversation.
Lauren: Going off the movies, I still say it requires a few leaps.
Verdict: Ravenclaw
Kylo Ren
Lauren: Last but not least: Kylo Ren.
Sarah: Oh, Kylo.
Lauren: I’m going to dig my heels into the ground and say NOT SLYTHERIN.
Sarah: I don’t think he is Slytherin.
Lauren: I just wanted to get that out there.
Sarah: I think he takes after his grandfather, and he’s a Gryffindor that was corrupted. I think he is another one who wants to be Slytherin SO BADLY because he thinks it’s evil and mysterious. But he’s just not.
Lauren: The temper tantrums really point to Gryffindor.
Teija: No, he’s definitely not a Slytherin.
Sarah: Oh, they totally do.
Lauren: But Kylo is… not brave.
Sarah: He shows off. I think he’s got that frequently mis-understood teen thing.
Teija: He is very intolerant of people unlike him. He is totally willing to destroy everyone who isn’t following his very narrow Vader-based code.
Lauren: He is absolutely a show-off, which is more Gryffindor. I’d also say he’s rather bold, if not necessarily brave.
Teija: Yeah he’s definitely that, I think. So that whole scene where he tricked Han into thinking they were gonna have a moment and then speared him through with a lightsaber… is that not some Loki-esque trickster business?
Sarah: It kinda is, and it’s TERRIBLE.
Lauren: Well, except Han totally saw it coming. Kylo just hoped he wouldn’t.
Sarah: He thought he could talk him down, which is so very Han.
Teija: But Kylo didn’t know his dad saw it coming, I don’t think. I think he thought he was playing his dad, but his dad was too shrewd not to catch it.
Lauren: Right, but it’s not truly cunning if you’re not actually fooling anyone, and even LESS SO if you think you are but aren’t.
Sarah: Okay, then I stand by my “he’s a Gryffindor trying hard to be a Slytherin” stance.
Teija: Hah he’s a “wannabe Slytherin.”
Sarah: Because he thinks he has to be in order to be the lord of all evil.
Lauren: That, I think, pushes it back toward “wannabe Slytherin” rather than actual Slytherin.
Teija: I’ll take it.
Sarah: Emo Kylo Ren thinks you have to be Slytherin to be evil.
Lauren: I think he’s a corrupted Gryffindor. I also think (and hope) that in future movies when we learn more of his backstory, we’ll see more of those Gryffindor traits as a kid. I think he’s willfully squashing them.
Sarah: Poor Kylo.
Teija: Oh, I think we already saw some of that. He spent most of TFA working to convince himself of his own evil.
Sarah: He’s not even going to be the actual villain of the story. He’s just a sad little pawn who thinks he’s more important than he is.
Lauren: Nah, it’s gonna be Snoke.
Sarah: He’s going to end up sobbing in Leia’s arms at some point over all the bad choices he’s made.
Verdict: Gryffindor