Speaker 1: Welcome back to Muggle Snuggle. Just close your eyes and listen.
Speaker 1: This is your host, Nigel, here to guide you into
Speaker 1: a peaceful, dreamless sleep with another dose of absolutely thrilling
Speaker 1: Harry Potter Analysis to night. We are drifting into the
Speaker 1: realm of theory, specifically a thought that has been humming
Speaker 1: softly and boringly in the back of my mind for
Speaker 1: quite some time. It's about the sorting Hat, and course
Speaker 1: about you know who. The theory is this the sorting
Speaker 1: Hat knew about Voldemont all along, or perhaps more accurately,
Speaker 1: the hat possessed a knowledge of him that went far
Speaker 1: beyond what it should have, a knowledge that subtly shaped
Speaker 1: the fates of students at Hogwarts one by one, year
Speaker 1: after year. So get comfortable, Let your shoulders relax. There
Speaker 1: is no rush. We have all the time I am
Speaker 1: in the world to unpack this, this rather drowsy little idea.
Speaker 1: Let's begin at the very beginning, well not the very beginning,
Speaker 1: but the beginning of our story, Harry Potter's first day.
Speaker 1: The Great hall is full of candles floating so quiet.
Speaker 1: First years are called forward one by one to sit
Speaker 1: on that three legged stool and have the ancient, patched,
Speaker 1: frayed hat placed upon their heads. For most the hat
Speaker 1: mutters for a moment, perhaps having a silent conversation, and
Speaker 1: then shouts a house name simple. But for Harry, for Harry,
Speaker 1: it was different. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Speaker 1: chapter seven, the Sorting Hat, we get a direct window
Speaker 1: into this conversation, and it is unsettlingly specific. The hat says,
Speaker 1: inside Harry's mind, difficult, very difficult, plenty of courage, I see,
Speaker 1: not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes,
Speaker 1: and a nice thirst to prove yourself. Now that's interesting.
Speaker 1: So where shall I put you? This is the standard
Speaker 1: internal monolog But then Harry mentally shouts not Slytherin, not Slytherin,
Speaker 1: and the hat replies, not Slytherin. Eh, are you sure
Speaker 1: you could be great? You know it's all here in
Speaker 1: your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way
Speaker 1: to greatness. There's no doubt about that. No. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're sure, better be graffender. This exchange is well, it's
Speaker 1: the core of the theory. Why did the hat immediately
Speaker 1: juck to Slytherin as a possibility for Harry. We as readers,
Speaker 1: understand later that it's because Harry carries a piece of
Speaker 1: Voldemort's soul. The hat sensed Voldemort's essence. It saw the cunning,
Speaker 1: the resourcefulness, the ambition that Voldemort himself possessed. But at
Speaker 1: that moment, Harry is an eleven year old boy who
Speaker 1: knows nothing of this. The hat, however, seems to know
Speaker 1: something profound. It doesn't just say you have Slytherin traits.
Speaker 1: It says, Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness.
Speaker 1: It is making a specific prediction about the path Harry's
Speaker 1: life could take if he chose that house, and it
Speaker 1: is linking that path directly to the legacy of Salizar Slytherin,
Speaker 1: and by extension, to the most famous Slytherin of the age,
Speaker 1: Tom Rittle. It's almost as if the hat is presenting
Speaker 1: a choice not just between houses, but between destinies, a
Speaker 1: destiny tied to Voldemort or one defined in opposition to it.
Speaker 1: The hat knew it sensed the dark presence within Harry,
Speaker 1: and it offered him the house most associated with that presence.
Speaker 1: It was, in its own silent, enigmatic way warding him
Speaker 1: or tempting him. Let your mind wander on that for
Speaker 1: a moment. The hat a magical artifact created by the
Speaker 1: four Founders, imbued with their minds and memories. It would
Speaker 1: have known of Slytherin's fascination with blood purity. It would
Speaker 1: have known of every student it had ever sorted, and
Speaker 1: it would have, with chilling certainty, recognized the magical signature
Speaker 1: the very soul fragment of Tom Marvolo Riddle when he
Speaker 1: sat upon that stool decades earlier. This brings us to
Speaker 1: the second piece of evidence, the hat's own song. Each year,
Speaker 1: the sorting hat sings a new song in Harry Potter
Speaker 1: and the Order of the Phoenix. During the sorting of
Speaker 1: the first years, the hat sings a particularly long and
Speaker 1: detailed song. Itmentions the founders their values and ends with
Speaker 1: a warning, though I must fulfill my duty and must
Speaker 1: quarter every year. Still I wonder whether sorting may not
Speaker 1: bring the end I fear. In times of old one,
Speaker 1: I was new and Hogwarts barely founded. The founders and
Speaker 1: their teaching staff took students as they found them. It
Speaker 1: goes on, But then it sings this verse. Yet a
Speaker 1: disturbing trend I see of houses homing just one kind
Speaker 1: of mind. Remember, if you ever can, I'll always do
Speaker 1: my best for you. Though I must send you where
Speaker 1: you go, I'll always do my job, I vow. The
Speaker 1: song is in itself a boring, repetitive yearly occurrence, but
Speaker 1: in this version, the Hat is expressing a fear, a
Speaker 1: fear of being used to create a marginity, to sort
Speaker 1: students based on a single rigid trait. It's lamenting that
Speaker 1: its purpose may be bringing about an end. It fears.
Speaker 1: What end could that be? The end of unity, the
Speaker 1: end of Hawkwood's spirit of inclusion, and what is the
Speaker 1: single most damaging trend of this kind? In the story
Speaker 1: the rise of pure Blood supremacy, the ideology championed by
Speaker 1: Voldemort and his followers. The Hat, through its song, is
Speaker 1: aware that its sorting can be a catalyst for the
Speaker 1: very divisions that Voldemort exploits. It's a meta awareness. It
Speaker 1: knows its own role in the socio political ecosystem of
Speaker 1: the Wizarding World, and it sees how that ecosystem is
Speaker 1: being poisoned by an ideology that started with Slytherin and
Speaker 1: was perfected by Voldemort. The Hat isn't just a magic hat.
Speaker 1: It's a commentator, a weary ancient observer, singing about the
Speaker 1: dark patterns it has witnessed for a thousand years, and
Speaker 1: at the center of the most recent, most dangerous pattern
Speaker 1: is Tom. Now, let's consider a third angle. A more
Speaker 1: direct piece of evidence. This comes from Harry Potter and
Speaker 1: the Chamber of Secret. When Harry is dueling with DRICKA.
Speaker 1: Malfoy and later when he fights the Basilisk, he uses
Speaker 1: spells not typically taught to second years. Specifically, he uses
Speaker 1: serpent sortier and most famously the disarming charm expell you mus.
Speaker 1: But in the book after the Doing Club, there is
Speaker 1: a small, often overlooked detail. Harry is in the common
Speaker 1: room and Ron asks him how he knew the spell Expelliarmus,
Speaker 1: noting that Malfoy didn't seem to know it. Harry replies
Speaker 1: that he'd seen it used in a book. But later,
Speaker 1: when Harry is in Dumbledore's office after the events in
Speaker 1: the Chamber, Dumbledore has a quiet word with him HiT's
Speaker 1: in chapter eight Dobby's Rowart, Dumbardore says, it is not
Speaker 1: our abilities that show what we truly are, It is
Speaker 1: our choices. This is the central theme of the book.
Speaker 1: But let's look at the sorting Hat's role in Harry's choices.
Speaker 1: Harry chose Gryffindor the hat, sensing Voldemort's presence offered him sliverin.
Speaker 1: By choosing Gryffindor, Harry made the first most fundamental choice
Speaker 1: of his life to reject the path of his enemy,
Speaker 1: even though he carried a part of him within the hat.
Speaker 1: Knew this choice would define him. It knew that blacing
Speaker 1: a piece of Voldemort in a Gryffindor, in the house
Speaker 1: of courage and moral fortitude would create the perfect vessel
Speaker 1: for Voldemort's downfall. It was perhaps part of a larger,
Speaker 1: ancient design. The hat in sorting Harry to Gryffindor was
Speaker 1: not just assigning him a dormitory. It was placing him
Speaker 1: on a chess board as a counterpiece to Voldemort. It
Speaker 1: knew the game it was playing. This idea of the
Speaker 1: hat as a strategic actor is deepened when we think
Speaker 1: about its knowledge of other students. Consider a Nevill long
Speaker 1: Buttn in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Speaker 1: When Nevill uses the remembranle in his first flying lesson,
Speaker 1: we learn he is forgetful. When he is sorted, the
Speaker 1: hat must have sensed a deep seated bravery, a resilience
Speaker 1: that would eventually lead him to pull the sword of
Speaker 1: Gryffindor from the sorting hat itself in the final battle.
Speaker 1: But it also must have seen his potential for being overlooked,
Speaker 1: his potential for fear. The hat placed him in Gryffindor
Speaker 1: not just for what he was, but for what he
Speaker 1: could become. It made a choice that defied easy categorization
Speaker 1: because it could see the entire tapestry of his character
Speaker 1: and potential. Now consider Draco Malfoy. The hat sorted him
Speaker 1: into Slytherin. Did it do so because he was inherently
Speaker 1: evil or because it saw the ambition, the cunning, and
Speaker 1: the fierce loyalty to his family that defined him. The
Speaker 1: hat likely saw the potential for both a death eater
Speaker 1: and a reluctant, conflicted young man who, in the end
Speaker 1: could not bring himself to kill Dumbledore. I sorted based
Speaker 1: on the traits most dominant at age eleven, traits which
Speaker 1: were then nurtured by the environment of Slytherin House. The
Speaker 1: hat knew this too. It knew that the House had
Speaker 1: sent a child to would shape them. In sending Harry
Speaker 1: to Gryffindor, it was shaping him to be the antithesis
Speaker 1: of Voldemont. As seeing Draco to Slytherin, it was placing
Speaker 1: him in the current of his family's ideology, but not
Speaker 1: condemning him to it forever. As his final choices showed,
Speaker 1: the Hat sees the starting point, not the finish line,
Speaker 1: and with Harry it saw a starting point that contained
Speaker 1: Voldemort himself. A fourth line of reasoning brings us to
Speaker 1: Dumbledore velbers Stumbledore. In many ways, he is the human
Speaker 1: counterpart to the Sorting Hat. He sees the big picture.
Speaker 1: He knows about the prophecy, the haw Cruxes, the connection
Speaker 1: between Harry and Voldemont. He also, one must assume, has
Speaker 1: had extensive conversations with the Sorting Hat over the years.
Speaker 1: In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. In the
Speaker 1: chapter The Other Minister, the Prime Minister sees a portrait
Speaker 1: of Dumbledore and recalls him as a brilliant, if eccentric
Speaker 1: head Master. Dumbledore would have been the Hat's closest confidante
Speaker 1: for decades. He would have asked it questions, he would
Speaker 1: have sought its council. It is therefore plausible, even likely,
Speaker 1: that Dumbledore's own vast knowledge about Voldemort was in part
Speaker 1: informed by the Hat's unique perspective. The Hat sorts every student.
Speaker 1: It saw Tom Riddle, It's or Hagrid, who was expelled
Speaker 1: but later allowed back. It saw the children of Order
Speaker 1: members and the children of death theaters. It is a
Speaker 1: repository of data about the magical communities developing minds. Dumbledore, ever,
Speaker 1: the strategist, would have gleaned insights from this. When Dumbledore
Speaker 1: tells Harry in the Final Book, I knew that you
Speaker 1: and Valdemont were bound together, bound as surely as I
Speaker 1: knew that you were not a death Eater. One could
Speaker 1: argue that his servants his certainty came not just from
Speaker 1: his own genius, but from the Hat's silent testimony. The
Speaker 1: Hat knew Harry contained Voldemont. It sorted him as a
Speaker 1: grief endoor, a silent vote of confidence that Harry was
Speaker 1: more than the darkness within him. Dumbledore, trusting the ancient
Speaker 1: magic of the Hat, trusted in that vote. This creates
Speaker 1: a quiet, unspoken alliance between the head Master and the Hat.
Speaker 1: Both were looking to guide events toward Voldemort's defeat. The Hat,
Speaker 1: through its sorting, was Dumbledore's greatest, most silent asset. Let's
Speaker 1: explore a fifth, more tangential piece of evidence. Consider the
Speaker 1: concept of the Sword of Gryffindor. It is a magical
Speaker 1: artifact that presents itself only to a true Gryffindor in
Speaker 1: their time of need. The hat at one time contained
Speaker 1: the sword, as shown in Harry Potter and The Chamber
Speaker 1: of Secrets. This connects the hat directly to the legacy
Speaker 1: of Godrech Gryffindor. The hat was created by the founders,
Speaker 1: but it is often seen as embodying Gryffindor's will most directly,
Speaker 1: as it is the one that makes the final sovereign
Speaker 1: decision about a student's placement. Gryffendor the enemy of Slytherin,
Speaker 1: who feared his love for dark magic. By having the
Speaker 1: hat be the arbiter of destiny, Gryffindor ensured that the
Speaker 1: values of his house, bravery, nerve chivalry would have the
Speaker 1: final say over the sorting of every new generation, and
Speaker 1: when Voldemont, the ultimate Slytherin, arose, the Hat's actions can
Speaker 1: be seen as Gryffandor's posthumous countermar the hat by placing
Speaker 1: Harry the vessel of Voldemont's soul firmly in Gryffendorf was
Speaker 1: claiming that sole fragment for the side of good