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TobyBartels comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 3 - Less Wrong
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There's also the power behind the throne. Cardinal Richelieu was definitely a Slytherin. (Well, the character in Dumas was; I don't know so much about the real person.)
How about the Vedic castes of India? Brāhmaṇa = Ravenclaw, Kṣatriya = Gryffindor, Vaiśya (later Śūdra) = Hufflepuff. Nobody admits to being a Slytherin, which is suspicious, don't you think?
I would have said Śūdra = Hufflepuff, Vaiśya = Slytherin. Vaiśya are the "merchant" caste, which plays rather nicely into a number of negative stereotypes, including the fat-cat capitalist robber-baron and the Evil Corporation.
Yeah, I thought of that, but I didn't think that it fit very well. So I went back to the original caste system, before Śūdra existed. I agree that when Śūdra came around, it replaced Vaiśya as Hufflepuff; I just don't feel that the newer Vaiśya fits any house.
And still later, Dalit = House-Elf?
The pre-Śūdra caste system also corresponds the the Three Estates of pre-Revolutionary France: First = Brāhmaṇa, Second = Kṣatriya, Third = Vaiśya. But again, the Third Estate later consisted (and had for centuries by the time of the Revolution) of both merchants and laborers. If you want to split those, you get a very good correspondence between Hindu castes and the European classes that allegedly inspired the 14th-century playing card suits that we still use: Hearts = Brāhmaṇa, Spades = Kṣatriya, Diamonds = Vaiśya, Clubs = Śūdra.
So by composing these relationships, we get a correspondence between playing cards and Hogwarts houses! (if we accept Vaiśya = Slytherin). There exists a set of Harry Potter playing cards by Bicycle which almost agrees, but they swap Slytherin and Hufflepuff (pic).
Interesting. I think that swap can be traced to Rowling, who upset the traditional progression from noble to base by putting Slytherin at the bottom.
Well yes he was. But he never organized a circle of Slytherins to permanently take over France.
And don't forget how unsuccessful were Machiavelli - model of everything that is Slytherin.
Brits were playing Indians against each other extremely successfully. They took over India before anybody even noticed.
That's a much later time period than Vedic society, but I like it all the same.
I didn't realize we cared about such minor issues in a thread that involved analogies between Hogwarts houses and Communist revolutionary factions ;-)