#helix-vine

[merefolk]

Notice to Followers

helix-vine has been renamed hexdust for the sake of my sanity/lack thereof. 

[pottermoreanalysis]

helix-vine 27-question sorting

So I've tried the Pottermore sorting test a few times, but my house has never been consistent, varying on which questions I'm asked. I'd like you to look into it, please, with the 27-question self-sorting: (listed in order from your directory)  

Q1: Cowardly, Don't care because I'm dead, the Bold, Wisdom potion.

Gryff, Slyth, Gryff, Claw. "Don't care" and "The Bold" are relatively unusual answers.

2 Gryff, 1 Slyth, 1 Claw

Q2: Golden potion, violin, luminous pool, pewter box, fresh parchment.

Gryff, Slyth, Slyth, Gryff, Claw

2 Gryff, 2 Slyth, 1 Claw. None of these are particularly unusual: the gold potion is #2 overall (and probably not #1 simply because of having 300 extra Claw Sortings); violin is #2 overall and draws over 30% of all people; the pewter box is vying for most popular with Merlin's.

Q3: book, cure then records. Trusted, loneliness.

Ravenclaw primary, Slyth secondary on the cure order; avoids the common bias problem of cure/book/records.

Trusted is Hufflepuff primary/Gryff secondary, but UGH AWFUL QUESTION EVERYBODY ANSWERS TRUSTED IT'S AT OVER 55% OVERALL RN. Also this question screws over Ravenclaws MAJORLY and Slyths to a lesser degree.

Loneliness is Puff primary/Gryff secondary and the fairest of the 3 questions.

Ravenslyth vs. 2 Huffledors.

Q4: ability to change past, ghost, hexes and jinxes.

Slytherin primary/Gryff secondary; Gryff primary/Claw secondary; Slyth

Ghosts is hugely unfair as an answer and improperly scored if you're going by actual popularity (in practice it ought to be Ravenclaw primary/Puff secondary; it also takes huge chunks of every House; Gryff gets the top 3 creatures where Slyth doesn't get any of the top 3.) Hexes and jinxes, OTOH, is an extremely unusual answer: easily the least-popular subject on that question.

Slytherdor, Gryffinclaw, Slyth Q4

Q5: volunteer, told Flitwick before test, dark lantern-lit path, eye peering at me, draw wand & discover source, offer to call a mental hospital.

Gryff, Slyth, Slyth, Gryff, Gryff, Puff

Volunteer, tell before test, the alley, draw and discover, and mental hospital are all unusual (at least to a point for mental hospital, although again it's probably only unusual because of the low number of Puff Sortings.) The eye nightmare, your only not-unusual answer, is a completely messed-up question; most Claws also give the Gryff answer where most Slyths give the Claw answer (heights) and nobody gives the Slyth silly voice answer.

3 Gryff, 2 Slyth, 1 Puff

Q6: Dusk, Stars, forest,

Huffleslyth, Huffledor (but also majorly screwed up - should be Ravenpuff), Gryffinclaw

Mostly Puff/Gryff, some Slyth/Claw

Q7: black, tails, left.

Slytherdor, Gryffinslyth, Ravenslyth

Always Slyth, mostly Gryff, some Claw

Thanks; I really don't know what to make of my stubbornly unSortable nature!

**

Overall: 

Q1: 2 Gryff/1 Slyth/1 Claw

Q2: 2 Gryff/2 Slyth/1 Claw

Q3: 1 Ravenslyth, 2 Huffledor, but one of those Huffledors is hugely unfair

Q4: Slyth, Slytherdor, Gryffinclaw

Q5: 3 Gryff/2 Slyth/1 Puff

Q6: Mostly Puff/Gryff, some Slyth/Claw

Q7: Always Slyth, mostly Gryff, some Claw

Overall, I'd call you a Slytherdor Hatstall. You might get more Gryffindor in practice, but if you take out the biased/bad questions (trusted, ghosts, eye), it about makes those two exactly even. Ravenclaw's a clear 3rd, Hufflepuff in last, and Hufflepuff would be EXTREMELY hard to get, if not impossible (trusted or loneliness/mental hospital/stars or dusk, but you'd also have to vary the other questions enough to split the vote - a Claw Q1, Gryff Q2, Slyth Q4, and preferably "left" if you pulled stars. It would be really tricky to engineer, but probably possible on the outside.) 

But, yeah - you're never going to get a consistent result because this is so split, and you might even see a fair number of 'Claw Sortings because you can pull Claw answers on every question but 5 (the odds of a Claw Sort goes up when you pull those and probably when you pull a Puff Q5, to pull weight away from Gryff and Slyth.) Overall, I'd say you're a majority Slytherdor.

Fairest-Sorting produces cowardly, golden potion, loneliness, hexes/jinxes, alley, forest, left - which probably goes Gryffindor very narrowly (by about one question - turn that forest into dusk and you have a definite Slyth Sorting.) 

2nd-fairest-Sorting produces The Bold, parchment, BCR, change the past, mental health, dusk, tails. That's likely Slytherin, although again it's a hard call: 1, ((3)), (4), 7 Gryff (there appears to be a very light tertiary Gryff weight on BCR but it usually doesn't factor in enough) vs. (3), 4, (6), (7) Slyth, 2, 3 Claw, and 5, 6 Puff. That's again a really hard call between Gryff and Slyth - I would love to test it to see, but I suspect it would be a very narrow Slyth Sorting.

Pulling your unusual answers to look at them, there are Bold, opinion while alive, jinxes, tell before test, alley, mental hospital, volunteer, draw/discover - which again splits about equally Slyth/Gryff (3 Gryff vs. 4 Slyth, but "tell before test" is one of those answers that ends up not working well in practice either: a majority of Hufflepuffs pick that while a majority of Slytherins opt to lie.) 

So, really, it's not all that surprising that you don't get a consistent result: you really are a Slytherdor Hatstall on this quiz (even if you never see one, because Gryff-involved Hatstalls are really difficult to get for some reason.) 

Hope that helps!