'Wizarding caste system': The Sorting Hat gets roasted on Reddit for being more villainous than Voldemort, tribal conflict develops in the comment section

Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor

Jul 4, 2023 11:30 AM EDT

Imagine being told that you're doomed to be a wicked, bad-guy wizard just because some Hat told you that you're too ambitious. Or maybe you're going to be a boring witch because you're too smart. Or you're destined for pretty much nothing because you're a Hufflepuff. Don't lie, every child watching the Harry Potter movies for the first time had stars in their eyes over becoming a Gryffindor, but was that solely because that wrinkled old Hat told us to hate every other house?

Muggles and wizards alike love the Harry Potter universe and have been finding their place in the wizarding world through aptitude tests, determining your Hogwarts house affiliation. Like our own cyber-version of Sorting Hat guilt, everyone is always dismayed when they're sorted into anything other than Gryffindor, wondering if they could have changed their answers to seem like the bravest version of themselves.

Well, the reason that every Harry Potter fan is desperate for Gryffindor house is simple: because the Sorting Hat told us so. The Hat is the one character who fakes niceties with children who are choosing their paths in life, talking smack on every other house apart from Gryffindor. So god-forbid you get placed in any other LAME house when you could have been brave and loyal with the other cool kids. Imagine being told that you belong in the "evil house" when you're an 11-year-old… If that doesn't set you up to be the bad guy, I don't know what would.