After making that post about how I sort the angels, I really wanted to do one for the main characters and some of the recurring cast, and I finally got around to that. My thoughts within!

  • Ravenclaw

1. Bobby, and the explanation for him is pretty simple to me. It’s not just that Bobby is smart, it’s that he’s a creative, out of the box thinker as well, and perhaps most importantly, that he genuinely seems to enjoy learning and applying his knowledge. For examples, he comes up with the very creative idea of a room designed to protect against the supernatural right down to it’s foundations because he had a ‘spare weekend’, he’s clever enough to think of using glow in the dark paint and blacklights to trap demons, he’s an endless source of information for hunters because he has such a drive for research that allows him to learn as much as he does, so on and so forth.

2. Ash. Honestly, just see above, because it covers Ash as well. He’s a genius, but instead of simply getting a high paying tech job that may be dull for him, he lives in a bar and gives himself the creative and intellectual challenge of coming up with a technological demon tracking system, even though there’s really nothing in it for him. He’s fluent in Enochian, and considering Ash died before there were angels introduced, it’s not like it would have had any real use to him- he learned what should have been a useless language apparently for fun. Even in Heaven, he’s constantly inventing, constantly expanding his skills and knowledge. Also, from Pottermore-

“Another cool thing about Ravenclaw is that our people are the most individual – some might even call them eccentrics. But geniuses are often out of step with ordinary folk, and unlike some other houses we could mention, we think you’ve got the right to wear what you like, believe what you want, and say what you feel. We aren’t put off by people who march to a different tune; on the contrary, we value them!”

Famous Ravenclaw Ministers for Magic include Millicent Bagnold, who was in power on the night that Harry Potter survived the Dark Lord’s curse, and defended the wizarding celebrations all over Britain with the words, ‘I assert our inalienable right to party.’

“Gryffindors haven’t got our intellectual curiosity, whereas we’ve got no problem if you want to spend your days and nights cracking eggs in a corner of the common room and writing down your predictions according to the way the yolks fall. In fact, you’ll probably find a few people to help you.”

Is that Ash or what?

  • Gryffindor

1. Dean. First, let me say in advance, I apologize for how much this section focuses on negative traits- it might seem rough on Dean, but it’s just that we know so much about the more positive aspects of Gryffindor and they’re such a given that I guess I find it easier to argue from the negative perspective?

When another sorting is really popular for a character, I feel the need to explain why I disagree, so let me start with why I can’t get on board with Hufflepuff!Dean. Hardworking, certainly, and yes, Dean carries an extremely strong attachment to family and an extreme sense of duty, but I don’t necessarily see loyalty as a big defining trait. Now, this is probably harsh, but there’s no way I can think of to rephrase this that makes me sound like less of an asshole to Dean while still getting the point across, so I’ll just say it- when I look at his treatment of Sam in season 4 (well, and throughout the series in general, TBH) and Castiel in season 6, ‘loyal’ is not a strong trait that comes to mind. He repeatedly turns his back on Sam, even though this is his Sammy, and he’s drowning and needs a lifeline, not someone essentially telling him ‘Shape up or don’t bother resurfacing for air.’ And with Castiel, even after he bestows the sacred title of family on him, he turns around and immediately proceeds to give up on him, over and over during the course of 6.20 through 7.02. To me, Hufflepuff is exemplified in Castiel showing up to save Lisa and Ben for Dean, even after Dean has basically spit on him over and over again and threatened him and completely belittled his war, in Sam calling out to Castiel with forgiveness and giving him a home to return to even after Castiel broke his wall and put him in a constant hell on Earth. Not so much in Dean’s “If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back” and “I wish this changed anything” approach.

And I just disagree that loyalty to family above all else remains a defining trait of his, and quite the opposite, it’s something he learns to let go of to an extent after the show spends seasons treating it as his weakness. He acknowledges John was a bastard in season 3, and by 4.17 he seems completely soured on the man. He even learns to let go enough to choose doing the right thing for the world by letting his brother throw himself into Hell. Y’know what I think that choice, which was such a big turning point for Dean’s characterization, is above all else? Brave.

Another point- let’s look at how Hufflepuff is described on Pottermore as written by JK herself.

“Our emblem is the badger, an animal that is often underestimated, because it lives quietly until attacked, but which, when provoked, can fight off animals much larger than itself, including wolves.”

 “First of all, let’s deal with a perennial myth about the place, which is that we’re the least clever house. WRONG. Hufflepuff is certainly the least boastful house, but we’ve produced just as many brilliant witches and wizards as any other.”

 “So, as you can see, we’ve produced more than our fair share of powerful, brilliant and daring witches and wizards, but, just because we don’t shout about it, we don’t get the credit we deserve.”

“Hufflepuffs are trustworthy and loyal. We don’t shoot our mouths off, but cross us at your peril; like our emblem, the badger, we will protect ourselves, our friends and our families against all-comers. Nobody intimidates us.”

“Like badgers, we know exactly how to lie low - and how to defend ourselves.”

Now yes, of course not every single member of a house is going to have all the same personality traits, but in general, when JK finally had the opportunity to share more with fans about Hufflepuff, this is what she chose as their defining traits. Living quietly, lying low, not running their mouth off, not being cocky or boastful, only acting out when attacked first and defending one’s self as needed. And to me, not a bit of that describes cocky, shoot your mouth off whether it’s a good idea or not, hot headed, confrontational, the best defense is a good offense Dean Winchester.

Also, another big trait of Hufflepuffs people don’t discuss as much is that they’re ‘fair’; Dean can be hypocritical as hell much of the time. He and Sam and Bobby can work with Crowley as much as they want if he deems it necessary, Cas is a traitor if he does it for any reason. Amy has to die because he says so, Maggie and Don get to live with a ‘thank you’. Amy has to die because she’ll clearly kill again, Sam has killed before but Dean repeatedly threatens to kill anyone who would do him harm even at those lowest moments. If Lisa were ever turned into a creature and she killed a few people to save Ben’s life exactly like Amy, I don’t think there is any question that Dean would not only not kill her, but would probably kill any hunter who posed an immediate threat to her, right or wrong. He demands Gabriel kill his brother and calls him weak and a coward for not doing it to save the world, but Dean would never have killed Sam himself for the sake of the world. Dean is a good man, I don’t want you to think I’m calling that into a question, but he’s certainly not someone I would call a fair one.

Now, as for why I do see Gryffindor. I don’t think anyone argues that Dean’s not extremely brave, but I think the difference is that I truly see it as defining, above all other major house traits. In our very first real Dean!episode, Dead in the Water, what is the first deep, introspective thing we learn about Dean from the man himself? ‘I do my best to be brave.’ The urge to be brave is there motivating every decision Dean makes. Gryffindors are also known for their chivalry, which fits Dean’s extreme sense of honor (2.20 is the shining example) and having a moral code you adhere to, and his self-sacrificing tendencies for the sake of others. Also ‘daring and nerve’- that is the boy who unflinchingly says ‘Screw destiny right in the face’ and vows to fight off the forces of Heaven and Hell even when he’s got nothing to work with and his level of resistance would be called downright stupid by so many others, that is the boy whose policy is to ‘take the fight to them’ whether it seems like a rational decision or not.

They have a reputation not just for recklessness, but for downright ‘pointless heroics’, as Phineas Black puts it. To me, it screams of Dean in 6.19 going out of his way to save the kids even with an angel telling him they don’t have time to bother, or how the leviathan got to intimately explore his headspace and immediately assessed not that Dean is loyal and attached to family to the max, but that Dean has a major hero complex and ‘applications for sainthood’. How do those who dislike Gryffindors, like Snape, tend to describe them? ‘Self-righteous’ and ‘arrogant’, with no regard for rules. Again, Dean Winchester from the POV of someone who’s not inclined to look at him positively to a T

Also, I suppose because we see so much of it in the books, JK didn’t really share new Gryffindor details on Pottermore for them, but from the perspective of others, this bit from the Ravenclaw prefect jumped out at me.

“[Gryffindors] also much less tolerant than we are of people who are different; in fact, they’ve been known to make jokes about Ravenclaws who have developed an interest in levitation, or the possible magical uses of troll bogies, or ovomancy, which (as you probably know) is a method of divination using eggs.”

An intolerance for people who are different (Dean’s black and white world view, anyone who isn’t 100% human and who doesn’t share the exact same views is evil- which, additionally, is reminiscent of the usual Gryffindor view of Slytherin) and making fun of things that are ‘nerdy’ or academic- remind you of anyone?

2. Jo. Yes, there are all her self-confessed daddy issues, but at the end of the day, Jo wants to hunt because there are monsters in the world and innocent people who need to be saved from them, and she’s someone who’s brave enough to do it, because she knows it’s right and that trumps everything. Her mother is all she really has left in the world, and Jo is willing to go against her wishes and damage their relationship to do the job- even when it means behaving ‘recklessly’, like running off on her own and leaving a fake trail to Vegas. At the end of 2.06, even after the horrors she went through, Jo is all smiles and personal satisfaction because she stopped the bad guy and gave a civilian their life back. Jo bravely offers herself up as a sacrifice to get to the devil and stop him because ‘this is important’. Plus, Jo and Dean have very clear similarities drawn between them on the show, and I would say even all those negative Gryffindor traits fit her too.

Hufflepuff

1. Meg. I know, you’re probably wondering how I can say all that information from Pottermore contributes to my view that Dean is not remotely a Hufflepuff, and then sort Meg here, but honestly, I do think that all fits her- it’s a matter of perspective. Pre 1.04, the boys have never dealt with a demon before, right? I do remember for sure that they’re very clearly caught off guard, and it throws them, because demons are so rare and unknown that they don’t know what they’re dealing with. Now, we know demons generally enjoy causing destruction and mayhem, but until then, they’ve kept extremely quiet because their goal wasn’t at hand- that’s ‘lying low’ and ‘living quietly’ to an extreme. And while she may talk a good game at times, it’s very rarely ever on her own behalf- she runs her mouth off in loyalty to Azazel and Lucifer, her fathers, and the majority of all of Meg’s actions on the show are done with the same motivation. Look at 6.10; most demons have moved on from Lucifer, or turned on him to stay in the new king’s good graces, and I think Meg had plenty of room for doubt about Lucifer’s true feelings for demons planted in her by others, but she doesn’t let it phase her, and she remains loyal to this day, telling Crowley that she’s going to kill him for Lucifer. Also, unafraid of toil? Look at 6.10 once again; not only has Meg been going up against the current forces of Hell now in addition to Heaven and humanity, she volunteers to take on numerous hellhounds by herself to guarantee her father’s traitor will be killed.

2. Ruby. Honestly, just take everything I said for Meg and maybe double it. For the reputation she has with the humans as a two faced traitor, to the demons, Ruby would be the most loyal character on this show if they knew what she did. Ruby gives up her place among her own kind to voluntarily be hated and scorned and looked at as the enemy, she forces herself to speak ill of her father and pretend to be working against him (this aspect in particular is where the ‘lying low’ and ‘not running your mouth off’ aspects come in), she has to allow herself to be brutally tortured, all over the course of her long con in the name of setting her father free. Ruby says it herself- ‘I was the most loyal’, and it’s the reason for every move she made. All of the above is also why ‘unafraid of toil’ fits Ruby perfectly; being a double agent for as long as Ruby was, with just how deeply undercover she was, has to be one of the hardest missions ever taken on by a character on this show, and Ruby worked her ass off for her father’s sake up to the very end. 

3. Ellen. Ellen dies because she won’t leave her daughter ‘alone in this’. In 5.02, she flat out states that she’s actively hunting again so Jo won’t be doing it on her own. Even after Sam and Dean ‘destroyed the world’ as Cas himself put it, Ellen’s first response to seeing them again is getting angry that they haven’t let her know they’re okay, because these are her boys, and the mistakes they both made really don’t matter in the face of that. 

Slytherin

1. Sam. Now, I’ve seen defensiveness over Slytherin!Sam before, angry comments about people declaring him less brave than Dean, and that’s not the case at all. At the top of an extremely long list is the fact that Sam willingly chose an eternity in Hell trapped with Satan for the sake of saving the world- of course I think Sam is brave, and I can certainly see Gryffindor for him. Hell, I can see Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff too- I’ve seen someone say Sam is the character who has traits from each house more than anyone else, and I agree with that. Sam is just a case where I see Slytherin the most.

Slytherins are ambitious, they’re achievement oriented. When you take away Sam’s lifelines, the people he loves who keep him balanced and in check and it’s just him, boiled down to his rawest state, that is completely who Sam is time and time again. Mystery Spot- Sam becomes 100% goal oriented, he eats, drinks, breathes, sleeps finding the Trickster, he ceases to live outside of this ambition. What I’ve always found interesting is that MS!Sam is essentially Soulless!Sam, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point in those months, Sam chose killing the monster over saving the innocent because he needed to get done with it and return to his work on the trickster. Post S3!Sam- he needs to find a way to save his brother, and revenge against Lillith becomes his pressing ambition. “These cunning folks use any means to achieve their ends” is Sam being willing to not only work with a demon, but start drinking demon blood and turning himself into a ‘freak’, which has always been his great fear. S4!Sam is so focused on the goal of killing Lillith that it completely escapes his attention that he started doing this for Dean, but now he’s destroying his relationship with Dean in the process. Soulless!Sam, as said above, wasn’t necessarily evil- it was just Sam’s goal oriented side cranked up to the max. He didn’t particularly want to kill innocent people, but if they had to die to get the job of killing monsters done in the most effective manner, then so be it.

And, what I think might be the biggest point- this isn’t exclusive to Sam when he’s on his own, striped to his barest emotions. Even in Wendigo, with Dean at his side, despite the fact that he knows there’s someone out there in need of help, when Sam realizes John isn’t there, just a wendigo, he initially wants to just get them out of there then hit the road without having looked for Haley’s brother, because this one case isn’t going to help him achieve his goal of finding John, and with him, the thing that killed Jess. It’s something that’s always there inside Sam.

To bring Pottermore into this once again-

But we’re not bad people. We’re like our emblem, the snake: sleek, powerful, and frequently misunderstood.

For instance, we Slytherins look after our own – which is more than you can say for Ravenclaw. Apart from being the biggest bunch of swots you ever met, Ravenclaws are famous for clambering over each other to get good marks, whereas we Slytherins are brothers. The corridors of Hogwarts can throw up surprises for the unwary, and you’ll be glad you’ve got the Serpents on your side as you move around the school. As far as we’re concerned, once you’ve become a snake, you’re one of ours

Sam Winchester certainly looks after his own, I don’t think there’s anything to explain or argue there, but what really reminds me of Sam here is the note of finality in this brand of loyalty- once you’re with us, you’re with us for good. To me, that completely rings of Sam’s continuing loyalty to Castiel in 7.01, even after Cas went so far as to break his wall. Giving up on Castiel is not an option to Sam, because Cas is one of his own now, and that’s for good. 

Because you know what Salazar Slytherin looked for in his chosen students? The seeds of greatness. You’ve been chosen by this house because you’ve got the potential to be great, in the true sense of the word.

I feel like the ‘destined for greatness’ aspect of Slytherin is very overlooked compared to the focus ‘ambition and cunning’ gets, but this is important to me too, because Sam is destined for greatness. So much of the story of Supernatural stems from exactly that fact; Sam, out of everyone there is, is destined to set Lucifer free because he’s the vessel for the most glorious of all archangels. Azazel is fixated Sam because out of all the psychic kids, Sam is the one he sees true greatness is. Sam is destined to possibly be the leader of a demon army, and as we learn from Casey, despite his human status, there were those ready to follow him because they clearly saw what Azazel did. And Sam fucking Winchester does the impossible and wins in a battle of wills against Satan himself. 

2. Bela. Bela values self-preservation and doing well for herself. She’s ambitious, she sets a goal, and she’s cunning and uses any means necessary to achieve it- she’s a textbook definition of a Slytherin. 

3. Crowley. See Bela- these two are kindred spirits.

4. John Winchester, who, let me start by saying, is a pain in the ass- I resorted him about 10 different times while I was working on this. But, this is going to be another brief explanation because he ultimately lands in Slytherin for the exact same reasons his son does for me. Dean was somewhat right; in specific areas, Sam and John are practically the same person- well, more like one specific area, and that happens to be their shared Slytherin trait, the goal orientedness. Everything I said about Sam up there applies to John post Mary’s death, and that time period defined his life and legacy, so in the end, I didn’t see how I could place him anywhere else.

So, there you have it, my take on many of the non angel characters. I know sorting is all good fun and completely subjective, and this is just how I personally view them; I tend to get too into this subject and take it a little too seriously at times, so my apologies if anything came across as abrasive, not my intention.

Oh, just for fun, I wanted to look at the totals for my sortings, and, the way I have them placed, between the angels, 3 main characters, and various other recurring characters, Supernatural has 3 Ravenclaws, 4 Gryffindors, 6 Slytherins, and 7 Hufflepuffs, plus my one unknown because after all this time, I still haven’t been able to make up my mind for Gabriel. 

tagged → #sorting hat
  1. godismycover reblogged this from songsofthestars
  2. laniemikaelson reblogged this from songsofthestars and added:
    things I cannot unsee: Ash, Balthazar and Bobby sitting in the common room plotting something
  3. deantops said: ~PERFECTION~
  4. songsofthestars posted this