Spoilers ahead: Read with caution
Hey readers I'm back! I know I promised weekly reviews and it's been, like, a month but job hunting and life in general really got in the way, I haven't even been reading Struggle to Salvation as diligently as I meant to. But anyway, I'm back now, with the Sorting Hat chapter!! (yes I know I've been neglecting my polls too, but for now on with the show!)
Summary:
OK, from Hogsmede station they move up toward the school, for the traditional journey. For older students they ride the carriages, but the first years get a special treat, the get to ride in boats across the lake. So they all split off into groups of four and head off across the lake with Hagrid. When they disembark the boats Hagrid finds Neville's toad Trevor and leads them to the door, from there the meet Professor McGonagall who takes them into the school and into an antechamber off the great hall, from there they await the sorting, everyone speculating on how it works. They are lead in to the great hall and Professor McGonagall calls roll alphabetically to get them sorted. Some are hat stalls, some are not. Our intrepid trio get into Gryffindor (even though Harry was almost in Slytherin) and the feast commences. After the feast they sing the school song (I always wondered how the founders
came up with that, I think Salazar and Godric got drunk one night). From there they move to their common rooms and go to bed. In this chapter we also meet Peeves, the Poltergeist (he drops a bundle of walking sticks on Neville's head) and the house ghosts.
Review:
All in all a bit of an expose chapter but really good, I really like this chapter, and not just for the sorting hat song. I always wondered why Peeves wasn't in the movies, he's such a great character, throughout all the books but they totally left him out! It also always made me wonder, if the sorting hat was meant to sort the students impartially, how can it be so easily talked out of placements? Like, if you take Hermione for example, it's obvious she'd do well in Ravenclaw and I know the hat is supposed totake your choice into account and she obviously made a wonderful Gryffindor but why did she talk the hat out placing her there? (I'm a Ravenclaw and it's an amazing house so maybe I'm a tad biased). Also, I think, in the books, what else bothered me was that everyone always said that Gryffindor was the good house and Slytherin was the evil house that sets them up for life! I mean, there were some bad wizards who were in Slytherin sure, but there was at least one in Gryffindor too. There were a lot of good wizards in Slytherin, Merlin himself among them, and let's not forget Regulus Black, but because of the Dark Lord they all get tarred with the same brush and it bugs me to no end (OK rant over). Either way, all in all I find this chapter really great and for the purposes of the story it does set up some really nice house rivalries.
That's it for today, hopefully it won't take me a month to get back it this time, I'll even do my best to update the polls. Until next time!
