Fan Input #1: Should I change the Hogwarts Houses in my upcoming story, Elysium?

Aloha, fans and visitors!

To start off my "fan-input" bit, something I hope to have once a week, I'd like a little help on something. I have a pressing matter that greatly affects the direction of my upcoming Harry Potter story, Elysium. This being whether or not I should change or alter the renown (or infamous) houses at Hogwarts. I've plain gotten bored of all the different combinations of traits Harry can maintain in each house and I'm thirsting for something new and less close-minded. That and I never found the houses competently made to begin with.

Really? Putting a bulls-eye on all 'ambitious and cunning' students that enter Slytherin? I call bull on that. How about letting Harry slip into the house he wanted simply based off of his extreme desire to be away from Malfoy and not seen as evil? Talk about a pushover hat. That single act compromises the integrity of the entire sorting system, making such a fundamental part of Rowling's universe seem pointless. To further frustrate me are things like the hat putting Neville in Gryffindor. Is the Sorting Hat a seer? Neville has been proven to be timid and withdrawn from the start, and while he gets progressively bolder in canon to the point of being a popular badass, he's shown more loyalty than anything else in the stories (a Hufflepuff trait). Even if the hat saw his heart as one that was courageous and had potential for bravery, wouldn't the Sorting Hat sort the individuals based off of their current and previous actions more? To paraphrase Batman from Begins, "It's not who a person is underneath, but what they do that defines them". There was no guarantee Neville would become as brave and reckless as he did (though, I guess surrounding him by equally brave people influenced him), so why would it make him a Lion?

I'm sensing a similar case to Harry being allowed into Gryffindor as well as most of Malfoy and his cronies being sorted into Slytherin - tradition. With the exception of Sirius, who is and will forever be awesome, I'm not aware of another character that was sorted into a house that neither of their parents were sorted into. Is that Sorting Hat focusing on hereditary traits? Allowing children to be sorted wherever their parents went regardless of who they are as an individual person? This theory right lead to an even bigger problem - identity is hardly ever something that an eleven year old authentically has regardless of their childhood environment. Harry is obviously an exception as the main character, as is Sirius, but most people fictional or otherwise are merely products of their environment and upbringing at the tender and ignorant age of eleven. They do not yet have the mental capabilities and the psychological developments required to craft their own identity apart from their childhood surroundings. So why sort them so young if you have to sort them at all?

I'm obviously looking to closely at the house system, I admit that, but when one reads as much fanfic as I do, it's hard not to be a bit of a nit-picker on something like this. It is so frustrating when you look at it closely and see how hollow this overly influential cornerstone of her story is. I think J.K. acknowledged this. She gradually tried to counter this problem when more and more adults began reading her stories, by allowing boundaries to fall and friends to be formed outside of one another's houses, yet we still see adults - ADULTS, ya' know, mature people - putting such an emphasis on someones house affiliation. This is seen between the professors, within the Order, and in the reflections of the main characters even when they're my current age.

Rowling put such a great emphasis on the four houses in her books, which makes sense as they are children's books to begin with. Children dwell in a world of power levels and constantly try to generalize and place people in set boxes. The house system at Hogwarts is pretty much Rowling's attempts at making sure her target audience knows who the bad guys and good guys are. This is not something I want to continue in my story, but I can understand that it would alienate fans to change something so drastically.



So I want you opinion. Should I risk changing the house system? Altering it to be a little more practical while still giving us the cool separation of Hogwarts that creates so much drama and offers so many plot possibilities?


For an example of what I'd do, please look at chapters five and six of Kyuubi666's fanfic, "Shadow of the Snake". I'll link it below. It basically utilizes the same Hogwarts Houses based on the four founders, while introducing a more important factor of the wizarding school - guilds. It's a new introduction in the school and a really interesting (and far more logical) one. I'd try and simplify this approach if I were to utilize the same parameters, but that's really up to you folks.

Please let me know what you think. I always appreciate your feedback!

Link to the possibleuse of guildes example: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8381866/5/Shadow-Of-The-Snake