Harry Potter Study: Relation between House and Politics

What does your House indicate about your beliefs?

The Sorting Hat draws from your character to decide your house, but just how consequential are these traits?

On the heels of my study about the relationship between political beliefs and one’s side in the Skyrim Civil War, I began a similar effort to find links between one’s Hogwarts House and one’s political beliefs. After over a week of gathering data and analyzing the results, I am ready to share. Before I get into that, I need to discuss the sample and the methodology.

Understanding the Data

A Google form asked participants five questions. First, it asked them to state their Hogwarts House. Then it asked if their answer was consistent with the result that they got on Pottermore. This question served as a filter, in order to anchor the houses to a standard authority, which I decided should be Pottermore, since the test for sorting was devised by J.K. Rowling herself, thereby making it official. About 11% of the participants stated that their house did not align with Pottermore’s results, so their data were thrown out, and everything that is concluded in this study is based on the remaining 89%.

The last three questions asked about political alignment (conservative/right-wing, liberal/left-wing, centrist, libertarian, and none of the above), country/region of residence, and age group. Political alignment is the central focus of the study, and the other two categories aim to identify if factors other than politics also play an influence. The United States, the UK/Ireland, Canada, Germany, and Australia/New Zealand were the only places with enough participants to be considered statistically significant, so while France was an option, its data was included with “Other.”

The Google form was primarily distributed on Reddit, in subs such as r/samplesize and r/harrypotter. Social media and Medium itself played a lesser role in distributing the form. After a week and a half (and after the filter question), the study had 785 total participants. As with the Skyrim study, the predominance of Reddit as a source makes the sample non-random. This means that the percentages of certain political groups or certain houses might be overrepresented, so only cross-sections of the data should be treated as meaningful.

With that said, let us look at what relations we found.

Houses and Politics

Most respondents were Ravenclaws, and the least were Gryffindors. Once again, this does not mean that most people are Ravenclaws, only that most Redditors are. Similarly, most respondents were liberals, but this is also probably indicative of the sample source, not the overall picture.

Going into this, my hypothesis was that conservatives would be more heavily represented within both Gryffindor and Slytherin (G-S), while liberals would be more represented within Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff (R-H). I was less certain about libertarians, but I expected them to gravitate toward Ravenclaw. What did the data ultimately say?

On liberals and conservatives, I was correct. R-H comprised a majority of liberals at 64.2%. When conservatives were analyzed, G-S grew to a majority of 51.9%, at the expense of both Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Interestingly, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw were the most sensitive to this shift. Now, what about libertarians and centrists?

Centrists had an R-H coalition almost equal to that of liberals, at 64.5%. Similarly, G-S libertarians reversed the trend, nearly matching their conservative G-S friends with 50.8%. Unlike liberals, however, centrists drew far more heavily from Ravenclaw, having a majority in that house alone. Libertarians, meanwhile, drew more heavily from Slytherin than Gryffindor. While more libertarians were still Ravenclaws, libertarianism seems to draw out Slytherin traits better than any other house, so I consider my prediction about libertarianism to be incorrect.

While the preceding data might suggest that Hufflepuff is the most liberal house, their highest representation was actually among people who described themselves as “None of the Above” politically, at a whopping 34.8% (but Ravenclaw still led in representation). What does this say about Hufflepuff? How do we interpret these results when the group is as non-specific as “None of the Above?” All that label means is that participants rejected the other labels; its says nothing about their views. Someone who checks “None of the Above” could be apolitical, but they might also be right-wing or left-wing.

We have some evidence to help interpret this, however. In the course of this study, I received complaints that the word “liberal” was paired with “left-wing,” with the consensus among these critics being that this phraseology was more meaningful to Americans. I wondered if — even though left-wing ideology was explicitly stated— people might have still rejected the term “liberal” on this basis, so I compared the data on countries.

Of the American respondents, 5.4% claimed None of the Above, while 63.8 claimed to be liberal/left-wing. Among the non-Americans, 12.9% claimed to be None of the Above, while 61.6% claimed to be liberal/left-wing.

We can see that not being American made one more than twice as likely to say “None of the Above.” The fact that Americans led in claiming to be liberal/left-wing is also telling, because most non-Americans in this study are from first-world countries, and other first-world countries tend to have more left-wing values than America. These data therefore suggest that many in the “None of the Above” crowd are actually liberals (in American parlance) who rejected the term. This means that the liberal R-H coalition is actually a bit larger than 64.2%, and this strengthens the assumption that a relationship between political views and Hogwarts houses exists.

With that said, let us see how where one lived affected one’s Hogwarts house.

Houses and Homelands

In each country/region, there are divergences, but they are generally milder than what we see through the lens of politics. For example, Ravenclaw never fell below 40% in any country or region, and the R-H coalition was a majority wherever one looked. When an area led in house representation, it was often to a lesser extent than political groups. For example, Australia/NZ led in Gryffindors at 20.7%, but conservatives were 25% Gryffindor.

Still, some things did stand out. Canadians were the least likely to be Gryffindors at 9%. Does their reputation for politeness also mean they are less bold? Americans were also the least likely to be Ravenclaws, while they were the most likely to be Hufflepuffs. Aussies and Kiwis were the least likely to be Slytherins, at 10.3%. I suppose they would not have the best relationship with snakes Down Under, so this makes sense.

The most unusual of all were the Germans. They were the most likely to be Ravenclaws, with a majority at 53.1%, narrowly putting them ahead of centrists. They were the most likely to be Slytherins too, as well as the least likely to be Hufflepuffs, making them perhaps the most lopsided of all people.

Houses and Ages

Even across age groups, Ravenclaws led. They were strongest among people aged 36–45, at 60%, the highest of any grouping, and only 3.3% of them were Gryffindors. Hufflepuffs also reached an all-time low with people 18–25 at 6.9%. Despite some lows like that, the R-H majority always held.

One interesting trend of note was that the number of Gryffindors tended to decline with age, while the other houses trended to grow with age.

Conclusions

We can see that political views had an influence on one’s house. That said, broader, cultural influences also played a part, such as country of residence or one’s age. It would be a mistake, therefore, to look at the sorting process on Pottermore as a specifically or primarily political test.

Political views, however, were more impactful than residence or age. For all nationalities and age groups gauged, the R-H coalition held a majority. Only when tested for politics did the G-S coalition form a majority. The margin of change between an R-H majority (for liberals and centrists) and a G-S majority (for conservatives and libertarians) is around 15%. Some might find this to be minor, but try to imagine just how consequential a 15% change in public opinion would be for elections, and the significance is clearer.

Pottermore’s sorting process also has a tendency to group people according to house. Libertarians were about 1.42 times more likely to be sorted into Slytherin than the average participant. Conservatives were 1.8 times more likely to be Gryffindors. Liberals were at least 1.07 times more likely to be Hufflepuffs (higher if we correct for refusal to identify as liberal). Centrists were 1.22 times more likely to be Ravenclaws.

As secondary favorites go, libertarians were 1.26 times more likely to be Gryffindors, conservatives 1.15 times more likely to be Slytherins, liberals at least equally likely to be Ravenclaws, and centrists about equally likely to be Slytherins.

A look at secondary favorites makes Hufflepuff stand out more as, indeed, the most liberal house, while Slytherin could be said to be the most “illiberal.”

Summary:

Libertarians: Slytherin

Slytherin Conservatives: Gryffindor

Gryffindor Liberals: Hufflepuff

Hufflepuff Centrists: Ravenclaw

When compared to the preceding study on Skyrim, Pottermore seems to be similar in that it causes liberals and centrists to align somewhat, and the same goes for conservatives and libertarians. The relationships in Skyrim are far starker, however, and this may be because the Skyrim Civil War is a more explicitly political scenario, while the house sorting process is a general look at character traits. Nonetheless, one could reasonably surmise from this that Imperials are more likely to be Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs, while Stormcloaks are more likely to be Gryffindors and Slytherins.

Another interesting parallel was that libertarians did better than conservatives with the group that is often considered by fans to be the most racist: in Skyrim, the Stormcloaks; in Harry Potter, the Slytherins. (This does not mean that anyone in those groups is racist.)

I bring up racism because it is definitely the canon in the HP series that Slytherins are heavily more racist. Voldemort’s pro-pureblood agenda found most of its support in Slytherin, and the house had racist tendencies stretching back to its founder (Salazar), to the point that a war was fought over it. Ergo, the canon suggests that one’s house is not wholly irrelevant to one’s politics. Based on the the results of this study, it would appear that Rowling was “successful” in creating an actual process that relates the two, even if it does not gauge one’s attitudes on race.

Still, there were plenty of exceptions. There were conservative Hufflepuffs, just as there were liberal Slytherins. In the books, some Gryffindors ended up supporting Voldemort (even in spite of their friends), such as Peter Pettigrew, while Professor Slughorn, a Slytherin, refused to serve Voldemort.

Some might wonder why Gryffindors and Slytherins tend to align in this study, when the book depicts them as bitter rivals. My best explanation is that the boldness of Gryffindors is actually similar to the ambition of Slytherins, so while they may be written fictionally as adversaries, in practice they have a lot in common.

Final Thoughts

Even though the links are not as strong as with Skyrim, we can conclude that there is a clear connection between one’s political views and their Hogwarts House, as determined by Pottermore. The sorting process must be tapping into some character traits that also influence what we believe politically. What these traits may be, however, is unknown. Another perhaps more qualitative study is required to determine that.

Whatever the case, fictional games are proving to be good predictors of our politics.