Last time around, on the fourth installment, we started looking at the Ilvermorny houses. This time around, we’ll be closing out the overview of Ilvermorny, thus concluding our analysis of every individual house.

Starting Thursday, we’ll be looking at the house combinations between Hogwarts and Ilvermorny. There will be an article for each Hogwarts house, detailing its pairing with each Ilvermorny house. First up will be Gryffindor, and then we’ll do Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.

With all due anouncements having been made, let’s proceed on to the data.

Horned Serpent

Coming up next on Ilvermorny houses, we have Horned Serpent, whose emblem is the great horned river serpent that has a jewel set into its forehead. Much like other Ilvermorny houses are said to represent different parts of wizards, this house in particular represents the mind, favouring scholars. This might sound awfully familiar, establishing links with the house of Ravenclaw, but we shall see whether that is the case. As said in part four, 25% of all survey takers were sorted into this house.

Right off the bat, the similarities to Ravenclaw start to take shape – much like the Hogwarts house, Horned Serpents have a slight tendency towards introversion (84.13% against the base of 81.02%), but a more marked one than Ravenclaw, who had only 82.70%. Similarly, the Ilvermorny house has a slight tendency towards Intuitive Information Intake (86.51% against our base of 84.54%), while Ravenclaw also tends towards it, albeit in a slightly stronger fashion at 88.83%.

And since you can’t have two without a third, Horned Serpent has a very strong tendency towards Decisionmaking through Thinking (60.32% against our base of 45.40%). However, Horned Serpent’s tendency towards this Thinking aspect is a lot stronger than Ravenclaw’s, which combined with the reduced emphasis in Information Intake gives us our first brushes with which to paint a picture other than “the American Ravenclaws”. Our final brushstrokes come by the grace of Outer Perception, where Horned Serpent is decidedly neutral – the most neutral house in this regard, edging so so narrowly towards Perception (49.21% against our base of 48.73%) that we can safely say that this is thoroughly unimportant. Ravenclaw, meanwhile… well, you can go and read it yourself.

So what this tells me is that, even while both houses favour the mind and the scholars, they target a rather difference audience. While Ravenclaw had a penchant for the quirky, the zany, the outlandish, Horned Serpent doesn’t do the same distinction. A stronger Thinking aspect tells us that cold logic and level-headedness play a much stronger role than in Ravenclaw, where there is more room for individual values to take grasp. A more diminished Intuition aspect tells that that they are more grounded and practical than Ravenclaws, who have a bit more leeway to dabble in the theoretical and conceptual. And as a final touch, their Outer neutrality means in turn a lesser tendency towards Perception than Ravenclaw, meaning that they are much more observant of deadlines, and are more prone to having things carefully laid out and every step of the way clearly marked. Horned Serpents and Ravenclaws are still very much alike, mind you, but a Ravenclaw like Luna Lovegood would not have found herself at home at Horned Serpent.

All in all, we can summarize Horned Serpents as follows:

“Horned Serpent has a slight tendency towards Introverted Focus, a slight tendency towards Information Intake through Intuition, a very strong tendency towards Decisionmaking through Thinking and a neutral tendency towards Outer Actions.”

Our quintessential Horned Serpent would therefore be an INTP/INTJ.

Wampus

The fourth and final Ilvermorny house is Wampus, named after the mighty Wampus Cat from American folklore. Wampus is a house said to favour Warriors, and is meant to represent the body of a wizard or witch. With 66 people from the survey being Wampuses (Wampi?), around 13%, Wampus is the least represented house in our survey out of both schools. Having such a small sample size, Wampus’ findings are harder to gauge, as slight variations can swing them any other way. However, having nearly 70 entries makes me confident enough to formulate some postulates, at least against the base readership.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the house’s definition, Wampus is neutral both towards Focus and Information Intake, with Extroverted Focus having a minor edge (19.70% against our base of 18.98%) and Intuition Intake having the slightest of preferences (84.85% against our base of 84.54%). Wampus is therefore the house least defined by Focus and Information Intake, with no value in any house being as unimportant as its Information Intake (with a difference of only 0.3% from the base). This makes sense within the house definition – warriors come in all shapes and sizes, and are not defined by their degree of introversion or by the way they take in their information – what’s important is how they process this information, and what they then do with it. There is to me no clearer example than Harry Potter and Sirius Black, who are both decidedly warriors, but with Sirius being clearly EN and Harry being IS.

And herein lies the deciding characteristics of Wampus, leaving absolutely no room for doubt. They have a staggering tendency towards Decisionmaking through Thinking (66.67% against our base of 45.40%). Not only is this the strongest Thinking preference out of all houses, it is the second strongest tendency out of all houses for all values, period. (being edged slightly by Hufflepuff’s tendency towards Feeling) This makes it crystal clear: no matter what their focus is, or how they intake their information, a Wampus’ decisions are always made in the name of justice, through a rational approach. And this is coupled by the strongest tendency regarding Outer Actions out of all houses, with a very strong tendency towards Perception (59.09% against our base of 48.73%). No other house is as strongly defined by these two aspects as Wampus is, and this Perception preference is what makes them warriors – they are not bound by deadlines, or by rules for that matter, enjoy new situations, and don’t like to tie themselves down.

In my eyes, Wampus is an astounding set of data to analyse. While two aspects of personality are completely irrelevant to a Wampus’ definition, the other two are so pronounced, so definitive, that they are the strongest in that regard out of all houses. Whether they are outwardly or inwardly focused, or they learn by sensing or intuition, a Wampus will almost without fail take logical decisions and live their outer lives through perception. They are just, almost righteous, with a level head, but are not held hostage by rules or a standard way of living. The term warrior rings true to those definitions.

We can summarize a Wampus as follows:

“Wampus has a neutral tendency towards Focus and Information Intake, a very strong tendency towards Decisionmaking through Thinking and a very strong tendency towards Outer Perception.”

Our typical Wampus would therefore be any type as long as it is TP – ENTP/ESTP/INTP/ISTP

That concludes our analysis of individual houses. Make sure to check on Thursday for our next article, especially if you’re a Gryffindor. Cheers!