Slytherin Rules!

"You could be great, you know, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that."

The Sorting Hat

 So, I'm meandering around during one of the breaks at LTUE and I notice the Utah Valley University student association is having a Harry Potter party later that night. As part of the advertising, two young lasses were dispensing free samples of butter beer and offering participants to be sorted by the Sorting Hat.

Me, being the Potter fan that I am, I stifled my squee and sat promptly in the chair awaiting the wisdom of said hat. It was placed upon my waiting head (I just gotta say... that hat is not comfortable) and called out...

"Slytherin!"

The two girls gave me a sympathetic, "Ooooooh!" and sent me on my way. Consoled only by my butter beer.

Slytherin? Really? I mean, everyone knows I should be a Gryffindor. Nearly Headless Nick is my homeboy!

Feeling completely dejected, I met up with Jo Ann from my writing group and unloaded my lament. She gave me an appropriate laugh and said, "Well, yeah. I mean, look what you do to your characters."

Hmmm. Lemme see. So far in Blood of Mars:
Death Count: 5 (Counting Backstory)
Humiliating Vampire Bites: 2
Complete Isolation from Friends: 4
Humiliating World Domination: 1 (That you know of...)

Holy crap on a crap cracker. I'm a Slytherin.

Granted I'm not the one actually committing murder and dominating worlds. But is Slytherin really so bad? I mean, Dumbledor himself said Salazar Slytherin chose students with cleverness, resourcefulness, determination, and "a certain disregard for the rules." Something Harry himself had in large quantities. Of course, Slytherins have earned their heavy handed reputation.

But there was something else Brandon Sanderson commented in the 'Writers on Writing' panel that made me feel like it was okay to wear the green and silver. Brandon said he's seen lots of writers with excellent ideas for stories, but very few of these potential writers had the determination to actually BE a writer.

So, I guess it's not too bad to be a Slytherin. After all, for a writer, if there is one Slytherin quality to want, determination is it.