Here we go with a shortie...

I was re-reading lovely "Death's Jest Book", no, not the novel by Hill, but the real thing. Beddoes tragedy, chock full of lust, love, revenge, incest, necrophilia... and death, of course. Don't know why I like it so much, maybe because it is funny in a macabre way, maybe because my brain has gone to mush lately.

Aaanyway, I got this idea for a New Year's shortie with my precious Remy... he'ssss our preciousssssss...

Alright, not gone to mush, gone to definite derangement. Sorry. Where was I? Ah.

This shortie with my Remy and so I typed it. Now how to make that clever link-in-parenthesis things LJ users do....

Oh well!

( Dream Peddler )

A hell of Houses or Houses from Hell?

Yay I found the spiffy lj-cut thingy and now this LJ looks a tad more normal.

Alright, that being out of the system, let's rant a bit about HP canon - this will lead to rants about Icness and OOCness in fanfics but not now - and especially two things that drive me insane: the lack of logic and the lack of any form of justice. Yes, life's unfair but fiction shouldn't be.

The most glaring lack of logic to me is the House system as envisioned by JKR. She states there are four Houses in Hogwarts, right? Right. Perfectly Edwardian British public school system having Houses. They take their names from the Founding Four - bit like the Fantastic four, innit? - instead of from their current masters but who cares, those are wizardlings and that's how their own exclusive school works.

That accepted, she lays rules of belonging for each House, and nevermind that one House could be stuffed to the gills and another be almost empty, because it's not practical things like number of beds available that decide who's going where, they're sorted by a failed rhymester transformed into a hat - remember the Hat in Sourcery? *g* - according to their nature. So the Good, Brave and Oblivious go to Gryffindor (emblem being a lion not a griffin God knows why and what's a lion doing in a tower? poor kitty); the Intelligent and Reflective, but not very Practical, go to Ravensclaw; the Practical but not very Brave or Particularly Intelligent, but very Orbservant (? I added that because the poor Puffs not only have an unfortunate name, but are practically absent or cannon fodder) and Loyal go to Hufflepuff (can't figure out the badger, shouldn't it have been a dog?); and all the Bad Slimy Persons Who Will Become Death Eaters go to Slytherin, the House of teh EBUL wizlings.

It always struck me as quite cretinous to have a bad House by definition, many could be taught to be good if nothing else by sheer peer pressure in another House; it also strikes me as eminently unfair, but that's another rant.

So we have the Unholy Trio - ok, ok, I know it's Holy - and the token coetaneous enemy sorted into the Houses. How very nice, not to mention better balanced and logical it would have been to have each of them in a different House. Especially since they break the rules all the time, so it wouldn't have been too hard to meet whenever they felt like it.

So in my logical non-canon HPverse Harry would have got Gryffindor - of course - Hermione, Ravenclaw - she's the brainiest kid in school, isn't she? - Ron, Hufflepuff - loyal and not too bright, good with his hands - and my lil dragonet would still have ended up in Slytherin because, let's face it, that house was expressely created to host him. See? Nicely balanced, instead of this all Gryffindor/Slytherin and... uh? Other Houses? Um... ah... Ah. Yes yes, I'll put a thing here, alright, other Houses who cares booooring...

Star, who's a very intelligent person and fantastic beta, told me it is all about power and the different kinds of power each wizardling will desire or be able to handle when all grown up. It's a very logical theory too. It goes like this. Being a wizard/witch is all about power so Gryffindors are the one willing and able to use brute power, not much finesse but lots of impact; Ravenclaw get brain power, abstract power and its uses, maybe it won't have much impact, but it will always be very well aimed and in the right dose; Hufflepuff - really, whimsy hurts my brain UGH - get nurturing power, healing and restoring and making things work, of course what heals can kill, but the puffs are not aggressive by nature and would only defend; Slytherin get political and social power, their power is all about having power in a society, so they can be either evil or good, but they are necessary too. Sorry Star luv, I mangled your beautiful words.

But then, if we had logic into the HPverse, Voldemort would have been defeated ages ago and so what price 7 books not to mention the utterly game-style horcruxes from the part of Hell where authors go in little circles flapping their hands and screaming 'how can I make this one novelette plot last another damn book'?' (how i laughed at Maya's lovely snarky pun: "Yes, young man, what can I do for you? You're looking for WHAT??? Sodoff you little pervert!" LOLOL)

Right enough parentheses and blatehrings, am off to write a parody.