What happens at Hogwarts if students aren't sorted equally into each house?

[Violent Rainbow]

I was just wondering about the sorting hat ceremony, you'd think based on how it works that there would be a skewed amount of students in each house, it certainly wouldn't be an equal amount each and every year, so why doesn't that seem to be a problem at Hogwarts? Definitely Slytherin SHOULD have the least students, I mean isn't being a pure blood a literal reuirement? And there aren't enough pure blood students plus they can get sorted into ANY house they don't all go to Slytherin so why is their table in the great hall just as full as everyone elses? You'd think Hufflepuff would be the most full based on it pretty much being level 0 entry while all other houses have specific requirements. So... surely Huffelpuff would win the house cup every year? It just makes no sense.

[€URO TRA$H]

but swishing and flicking a wand to do magic makes sense?
Its just fantasy dude - get a grip and enjoy stuff for what it is.

[JanWar]

Nope, slytherine only detests muggle born. Half blood are welcome. Snape and Voldemort are half blood. Ironically, Harry is pureblood.

[zero.calvin]

arr... being a pure blood isnt a requirement for Slytherin otherwise Tom Riddle wont be able to join Slytherin.

plus it's just statistic.. given number of possible result are limited, with enough number and time, all the imbalance between result would eventually reach a balance between each result...

you can actually test this with a coin flip, if you flip a coins a few times, you'll get imbalance between the number of head and tails you'll get, but if you keep going, eventually the number of heads and tails you'll get will reach around 50%

so during sorting there are bound to be inequality between houses, but it doesnt matter as it would overtime balance itself out..

[Violent Rainbow]

Originally posted by JanWar:

Nope, slytherine only detests muggle born. Half blood are welcome. Snape and Voldemort are half blood. Ironically, Harry is pureblood.

Harry is halfblood

[Violent Rainbow]

Originally posted by zero.calvin:

arr... being a pure blood isnt a requirement for Slytherin otherwise Tom Riddle wont be able to join Slytherin.

plus it's just statistic.. given number of possible result are limited, with enough number and time, all the imbalance between result would eventually reach a balance between each result...

you can actually test this with a coin flip, if you flip a coins a few times, you'll get imbalance between the number of head and tails you'll get, but if you keep going, eventually the number of heads and tails you'll get will reach around 50%

so during sorting there are bound to be inequality between houses, but it doesnt matter as it would overtime balance itself out..

But given the way muggle borns are treated by Slytherins you'd think sorting one into that house would be like throwing a rabbit into a wolf den? They seem to tolerate halfbloods but certainly not muggle borns.

[N0thing]

Originally posted by JanWar:

Nope, slytherine only detests muggle born. Half blood are welcome. Snape and Voldemort are half blood. Ironically, Harry is pureblood.

nope, Harry's mum is normie born. it's his dad James who is the full blood wizard.
Harry is half n half

[Psyringe]

You're presenting an interesting line of thought, but it's not clear to me where you see the problem. I mean, yes, there will be some random variation among the distribution of students to the 4 houses per cohort. And the school may need to put some extra beds in a dorm every now and then to accommodate for statistical outliers. But where's the actual issue?

Regarding the tables in the Great Hall, I don't think it would be a crime to eat at a different house's table if yours is full.

[Violent Rainbow]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

You're presenting an interesting line of thought, but it's not clear to me where you see the problem. I mean, yes, there will be some random variation among the distribution of students to 4 houses per cohort. And the school may need to put some extra beds in a dorm every now and then to accommodate for statistical outliers. But where's the actual issue?

Well there's the house cup for one thing, obviously if you have more students in your house you're far more likely to win. That aside it would just look strange if one house had 200 students and another had 75. It just makes sense logically that Slytherin would have far less students and Hufflepuff would have far more.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Violent Rainbow:

Well there's the house cup for one thing, obviously if you have more students in your house you're far more likely to win.

Are you sure that the House Cup just tallies up the points? I mean, it would be extremely easy to e.g. divide points by house members, or give smaller houses a multiplier for any points they earn. I mean, my experience with Harry Potter is extremely limited (never read the books), but I would expect some such rule to be in place anyway. Otherwise, some house will always have an unfair advantage and could win by numbers rather than skill.

Originally posted by Violent Rainbow:

That aside it would just look strange if one house had 200 students and another had 75.

Why?

Originally posted by Violent Rainbow:

It just makes sense logically that Slytherin would have far less students and Hufflepuff would have far more.

Not at all. The students are assigned to houses according to their main character traits. Why would "ambition" be "logically" a much rarer trait than "loyalty"?

I mean, muggle-born Slytherins will probably have a harder time in their house than elsewhere. But if their main personality trait is ambition, then why would the hat not sort them into Slytherin? It's not as if it was the decision of the house who's allowed to join them - that decision is made by the hat, right?

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Violent Rainbow:

Originally posted by Psyringe:

You're presenting an interesting line of thought, but it's not clear to me where you see the problem. I mean, yes, there will be some random variation among the distribution of students to 4 houses per cohort. And the school may need to put some extra beds in a dorm every now and then to accommodate for statistical outliers. But where's the actual issue?

Well there's the house cup for one thing, obviously if you have more students in your house you're far more likely to win. That aside it would just look strange if one house had 200 students and another had 75. It just makes sense logically that Slytherin would have far less students and Hufflepuff would have far more.

Points can be given AND taken away. More students in any House also increases the odds that a "rogue" will appear who's just gonna ♥♥♥♥ everything up for everyone else (I'd wager this would be a particular issue in Slytherin, someone tanking the entire House's score out of spite).

[N0thing]

We haven't taken the hat into consideration yet. It remembers where students go, it remembers individual students, It spends 99% of its life coming up with a song that is topical to what's going on in the world and the hat is also pretty bloody powerful; maybe even OP.
The hat for arguments sake could distribute the kids evenly to protect the balance I.E keeping house ratios tight so as to avoid over pop as well as over powering one house to the other 3. Slytherin was where dipstick (There's only one maniacal dipstick I'm aware of) came from, but his subordinates were from all over the show. It could be that it tells you what you need to hear at the sorting so you fit in where ever you end up, but it could also be that the hats instructions while simple end up Tailoring the house to suit society. The brave to griffindor, ambitious to slytherin, big brain to ravenclaw and hufflepuff are the hippies. There's at least a little bit of real world commentary going on there as well.
If potter were to stick with cho chang and knock out some kids with her you could have some fun ranting about inter mingling between the houses of course, but I'm also down for talking about blending cultures. Different houses lending different environments to create different assets. looking forward to seeing how the game develops as an IP as well as its contribution as a topic of discussion.

[zero.calvin]

Originally posted by Violent Rainbow:

But given the way muggle borns are treated by Slytherins you'd think sorting one into that house would be like throwing a rabbit into a wolf den? They seem to tolerate halfbloods but certainly not muggle borns.

the sorting hat dont care, it will put the student into the house where it suited the student the most...

[Patricia Hapon]

Well, first, it was already said, but there is no requirement. Also, all the "pureblood" thing is "modern" in the universe (and pretty much started with daddy's issue, Voldy being the first to pave the way).

Classes are mixed, you don't have classes with your house only, so we don't care about that.
House cup isn't fair, equal or anything. Slyther' became the gods of the cup because of their ambitious and competitive spirit... Until HP came and Dumble just took the system and cheated Gryff into winning.

Let's all remember that JKR is absolutly unable to make any fair things.
House cup ? Just because you asked, -100 points for your house. Also +1000 for the guy that killed nobody this year.
Quidditch ? Thanks for participating everyone but the opposite seeker just caught the golden thingy, so you lost, but great job for dominating your opponents all this time.
House elf ? Goblins ? Centaurs ? Muggles ? ...

Like I said, JKR rhymes with unfair.

"But, Otter, and what about the dorms, they can't have unlimited places !"
... Probably, but when you look at the sheer size of the castle, the fact that it take all the british wizards, the size of the dining room ... The common rooms and dorms can't exist, there is certainly some students that must despawn for making some place.

Here again, making sense wasn't on JKR mind, all the logistic of internship is messed up in everyway.

[JanWar]

Originally posted by Violent Rainbow:

Originally posted by JanWar:

Nope, slytherine only detests muggle born. Half blood are welcome. Snape and Voldemort are half blood. Ironically, Harry is pureblood.

Harry is halfblood

Ah yes I forgot Lily is muggle born.