Tony Stark is a Gryffindor. Like many of us, I’ve always thought MCU Tony Stark is mix between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, but hear me out, his true house is Gryffindor!!🦁
I was reading some lengthy analysis of each house on @sortinghatchats, initially looking for support that Tony is a Ravenclaw or a surprising Slytherin, and as I read along what they say about Ravenclaws Primary & Secondary, I just can’t find any other traits or beliefs that scream Tony Stark to me, other than ‘collect useful skills, build complex clever systems, invent vitally useful things, which make them a creative problem solver.’ I think this is why many of us would think to sort him as Ravenclaw because of his intellect, his scientist-inventor side. But when I look at Ravenclaw’s core value, their motivation and what they prioritise, it’s almost the opposite of who Tony is and what he would do
‘Ravenclaw Primaries have a constructed system that they test their decisions against before they feel comfortable calling something right.’
‘They are the system-lovers. They create, modify, and adopt systems that give them frames and guidance for interacting with the world.’
‘They value truth. They want to find the correct, best way to look at the world and to interact with morality and the people around them. For a Ravenclaw, truth is something you find.’
‘Some of them distrust their gut reactions, emotional impulses and leaps of moral intuition; others just place no weight on the biased preferences that stir in them. Ravenclaws feel most right when they make their decisions based on what they have built, rather than what they feel.
They have a tendency to toe at uncomfortable moral lines even when the Claw’s gut is telling them “no”
Tony does not have a constructed system to test his decision before he takes action, he takes action because ‘I just finally know what I have to do, and I know in my heart that is right.’ What drives him to leap into action is based on what he feels is right, it is not based on factual accuracy that one builds. His guilt for not doing enough, his fear of losing his loved ones, his urge to protect the Earth from any unknown extraterrestrial threat, his emotional impulses are the drive of the decision he makes, the action he takes, which is something very unravenclaw-like. He values truth and morality, and he has a logical thinking mind and knows to plan ahead, he is well-equipped to analyse the situation comes up with the best tactics in battlefield, these are traits and tendencies a Ravenclaw Secondary has, but fundamentally what differentiates him and what makes him not a Ravenclaw is that he is emotionally motivated, and when it comes to what’s true what’s right, he goes with his intuition, which is exactly how Gryffindor approach the subject on moral and truth.
Once I start to see how closely aligned Tony is with Gryffindor, the unfulfilled and doubtful feelings I had when I tried to sort him into either Ravenclaw or Slytherin disappeared, because turns out he is neither of them! I don’t know why many of us see the general traits of Gryffindor, ‘courageous, daring, reckless, chivalrous’ and decide oh that’s Thor, oh that’s Carol, but not, oh that’s Tony! Because even with these simplest terms of definition for the house, Tony is all of them. And when you read the Gryffindor Primary, you’ll see how loud it is screaming Tony Stark back at you.
Gryffindor Primaries are willing to stand up for what they believe in even if it means that they stand alone.
They are one of the Houses most comfortable, as a whole, with being lone wolves, with finding meaning in martyrdom. [..] However, though a Gryffindor can and will work alone, there is a special strength brought out when they’re part of a team. They can be charismatic and passionate, dedicated and on task. [..] Their drive can help breathe life into a group on the verge of burnout. Their enthusiasm and genuine belief in the goodness of their goals can unify a group of diverse people.
These literally describe the relationship Tony has with the Avengers. He stood up for himself in AoU about the impending threat even no one was listening, he stood by his belief in accountability that he had come to realised and believed since the first Iron Man movie even when half of his team were against it/him in Civil War. He is self-sufficient enough to work alone, he spent most of the time in his three solo movies working alone (with some occasional but also significant help of his two (2) friends). But when you look at the Avengers, he is also the one who brings them all together, the tower, the compound, all the tech and gadgets he’s more than happy to provide. His charisma and playfulness literally and figuratively ‘bring the party to them.’ With the Guardians, he puts his leadership quality to use, he listens and indulges while keeping everyone in check, the team works together wonderfully together despite having just met on the day. Though, ultimately, I think the decisive vote on whether Tony is a Gryffindor based on the strong grip of their moral core they share, and what drives them and how they act on it.
‘While Gryffindors are just as capable of looking at things logically and weighing the consequences of different courses of action, they will feel the most at peace with themselves when acting in accordance with their gut morality. They trust their moral intuitions and have a need and a drive to live by them. They feel what’s right, and that matters, If they don’t listen to it and act on that, it feels immoral.’
Remember how Tony desperately wanted to ignore what he felt was the right thing to do when it came into conflict with his personal feeling about leaving his family, and the possibility of risking the safety of reality by meddling with time travel, ‘maybe I should put it in a locked box and drop it at the bottom of a lake, and go to bed.’ But one question from Pepper, ‘But will you be able to rest?’ validated his gut feeling and belief and sent him into action.
Gryffindor Primaries are the type to leave everything and travel halfway across the world if that’s what they feel is necessary. They are the type to work long days and into the night, even while conscious of the hit their relationships with family members and friends might take, because their work is important.
‘Gryffindors do not know the definitions of good and evil any more accurately than any other House– more importantly, they know they don’t know any more than anyone else. But inherent fallibility doesn’t mean you should sit on your heels and not try the best you can. It’s the bravery to try and it’s knowing that trying matters.’
Gryffindor Primary’s greatest strengths is their ability to make a decision, and then go out and do their damndest to make a difference. [..] They can create great change in the world because they are willing to make difficult decisions and then commit fully to that decision, even at the expense of things most other people would not be willing to sacrifice.
In Tony’s case, one of the obvious examples is in Endgame how he followed through his commitment for the mission once he set his mind to it. He figured out time travel, built the quantum tunnel, got the stones, invented the gauntlet to harness the stone power, and then when all the heroes in the battlefield were just focusing on getting the gauntlet to the van, he took the step no one would think to take and used the stones himself to end the battle and Thanos and save everyone, at the expense of his own life and his time with his family.
The other example is in Infinity War when he didn’t for a moment hesitate to charge towards the spaceship that is leaving Earth, in order to rescue Peter and Strange, as he act on impulse and protectiveness. When he was convincing Strange to take the fight to Titan and away from Earth, his reason was out of his necessity to protect, even he didn’t know for sure it was the best idea, ‘I don’t know what to do. So I’m not so sure if it’s a better plan to fight him on our turf or his… but you saw what they did, what they can do. At least on his turf, he’s not expecting.’ He willingly stepped into the unknown because he believed they had to try, to try their best to protect Earth and prevent the nightmare he saw from coming true. The decision is made out of courage and his will to protect. His self-sacrificing tendency, his willingness to do whatever it takes to do what he believes it’s right, it’s a very prominent and distinguished Gryffindors trait.
It is notable that Tony displays a very strong protective streak and deep sense of personal loyalty, which shares the model of Slytherin’s system. You can say he is a loyalist Gryffindor. While ‘Slytherin prioritises individual loyalties and find their moral core in protecting and caring for the people they are closest to and often construct a secondary morality system to deal with situations that are not addressed by their loyalty system.’ is true for Tony to an extent, Tony’s loyalty to his family overlaps with his moral core, and there is no second set of morality system he uses to apply for everyone else. His need to protect those who he cares deeply about has extended to his need to protect everyone who live and breathe in the same universe. Tony wouldn’t have even thought to go look at the possibility of time travel if his individual loyalty to his family outshone his moral core. True, Peter is like a son to him and the personal loss increases his motivation to try, but the picture of him and Peter also represents Tony’s morality, it forces his individual loyalty to his family to confront his morality of doing what he knows it’s right. And I’m sure that even if Peter had been alive, Tony would still go and try figure out time travel and help the team when they suggested the idea to him. Simply because Tony couldn’t help himself to sit by and watch everyone suffer, knowing there could be a way to help, while he enjoyed the comfort of having his family safe. ‘I saw them all dead, Nick. I felt it. The whole world too. Because of me. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t do all I could.’
His sacrifice in Endgame is the ultimate proof that he is a Gryffindor through and through, you may still try to question that well his motivation is to protect his family and everyone just happens to live in the same world with his family, but at the end of the day, he is not just sacrificing his own life, he is sacrificing Morgan’s father, Pepper’s husband, Rhodey’s best friend, he is sacrificing the life of his own family could have had to save everyone from distinction, because he knows it in his heart it’s the right thing to do.
He has the right mind to be a Ravenclaw but his heart makes him a Gryffindor; he has traits of a Slytherin but it’s his moral core for the good of everyone that outshines his individualism, that ultimately claims him a Gryffindor. We bitches thinking he’s Ravenclaw or Slytherin when Tony in his red and gold Iron Man armour is looking into camera like he’s on the office
