babylon5_love | Day 4: Babylon 5 Sorting Hat Chats

Since the introductory post said things other than fanworks were allowed, and specifically mentioned memes :)

I'm a huge fan of 'sorting' characters into various categories, and find the Sorting Hat Chats system particularly interesting -- it's Hogwarts Houses sorting, but in at least two dimensions and with a lot more nuance and flexibility as a result. (In brief, for those not familiar with it, you get a Primary house that describes a character's central truth, and a Secondary house that describes how they go about doing things. But for anyone interested in sorting-type questions who hasn't found this system yet, I highly recommend reading through the linked post!)

I couldn't find any record of this sorting being applied to Babylon 5 characters before, and when I tried it myself, it led me to some interesting conclusions I wanted to share with the community :)

(I'm not at all an expert on the system, although I've enjoyed playing with it in the years since I've discovered it, but may well be getting some nuances wrong, so corrections and clarifications are very welcome!)

I like to start off by sorting the characters I'm approaching the simple way, without the extra Sorting Hat Chats dimensions, which for B5 left me with:

The aliens: G'Kar is a Gryffindor -- brash when the show starts, self-sacrificing when it ends, courageous and steadfast throughout. Londo is equally clearly a Slytherin -- no wonder those two don't get along too well :P Lennier is very, very Ravenclaw. Vir is very much a Hufflepuff. Delenn is, hmm, hardest of the aliens for me, because I can see elements of everything but Hufflepuff in her. I think I'm ultimately leaning towards Gryffindor -- she's pretty "charge right in" for a religious caste Minbari, and also has this thing where she'll be high-handed / borderline manipulative For the Greater Good that I associate with Gryffindors who could've done well in other houses (e.g. Hermione, Dumbledore). I think there's also kind of a species sorting going on, too -- while that's obviously not true for everyone, Narns are sort of collectively Gryffindor, unbowed and proud; Centauri are decadent and backstabbing Slytherins (by which I mean, the way Slytherins are presented in the HP books, which is a ridiculously narrow view; don't get me started on my JKR's-portrayal-of-Slytherins rant); Minbari are cool, measured ~~space Elves~~ Ravenclaws.

The humans: Ivanova is a Gryffindor. Sheridan is DEFINITELY a Gryffindor. Sinclair is probably also a Gryffindor -- I mean, it makes sense the human military command structure would attract Gryffindor types -- but I feel like they're all slightly different in their Gryffindorness, and the Sorting Hat Chats method helps sort them out. Franklin is -- oh, gosh, he's another Gryffindor, isn't he XP -- more of the Hermione type, who feels his rightness incandescently and thinks that being right justifies the means. Marcus is also a Gryffindor, I think, in yet a different way (and with a strong Ravenclaw side). Which leaves Garibaldi, who I think is the only major human who is not a Gryffindor: he's a Hufflepuff, I think, which is one of the reasons he doesn't drink post-Z'ha'dum!Sheridan's messianic kool-aid (I mean, besides PsyCorps tampering, of course).

And now, the Sorting Hat Chats way of thinking about it:

Vir Cotto, I think, is a Hufflepuff on both axes. He's got a Hufflepuff primary -- he's a decent person, and holds on to his decency not because it's Just and Right, but because Morden is creepy bad news. He helps smuggle out Narns because he realizes Narns are people, and never cares to take the credit. That seems like a very Hufflepuff primary thing. And how does he do it? By working hard, mostly in obscurity. Scheming doesn't come naturally to him, nor wild charges, and I don't feel like his plans are particularly well thought out either -- but he Shows Up. So, yeah, Hufflepuff secondary there. Conclusion: Hufflepuff/Hufflepuff.

Londo Mollari is a Slytherin primary (with not a lot of people he cares about; Adira, though, and eventually Vir). He performs Hufflepuff occasionally, early on, but it doesn't go very deep. His Secondary was harder for me to pin down. Not Hufflepuff (too fond of taking the easy way out), too shifty for Gryffindor, and I feel like a Ravenclaw would've thought ahead in the "deal with the devil" situation. I think he's a Slyth secondary who basically counts on his ability to slither out of an unpleasant situation as necessary -- except eventually you can't keep Slythering anymore, and he runs aground on that realization pretty hard in season 4. Conclusion: Slytherin/Slytherin.

G'Kar is a Ravenclaw primary, I think -- constructed truth -- and I say that because I tend to think of Ravenclaw primaries as those people who can undergo a radical shift in their worldview without shattering. So I think G'Kar is a Ravenclaw primary, and early G'Kar is working under a Slytherin model: caring about "his" people, where "his" people are = the Narn. He is working for Narn's greater good, but in a pretty Slytherin vein: he's perfectly happy to mess up things for the Centauri, do some shady stuff to bring telepath genes back into the Narn DNA, etc. Post-revelation G'Kar, on the other hand, I think adopts a very large-scale Hufflepuff model, where his community now encompasses not just Narn but everyone, and he rejects revenge because it doesn't do the community as a whole any good. But secondary-wise, I do think G'Kar is a Gryffindor, a charismatic leader but one who is fairly monomaniacal in what he is after, whatever that happens to be under his given adopted primary model. Conclusion: Ravenclaw (who exchanges a Slytherin model for a Hufflepuff one)/Gryffindor.

Delenn, ah, Delenn is interesting! I think she is a Slytherin primary, who is ready to do some questionable things to keep HER people from harm (not telling John about Z'ha'dum) or to avenge them (the Earth-Minbari War). She has a strong Hufflepuff model layered over that, courtesy of the Minbari Religious Caste philosophy, and she acts within that model most of the time, but when push comes to shove, there are definitely people she values above the good of any community (or above ideals/morals, or some abstract truth). Secondary-wise, I think she's actually a Gryffindor -- there's a reason, I think, that when the people she loves are threatened or hurt, her approach defaults, essentially, to 'kill them all!' and 'if you want him, you'll have to come through me' :D. But I feel like there's Ravenclaw studiousness, Slytherin diplomacy, and Hufflepuff value of hard work all layered over that as models and/or performances, to be used whenever they fit best. It makes her a really complex character, but I think her core is actually very strongly emotionally driven, with the Slytherin primary and Gryffindor secondary.

Lennier is absolutely a Ravenclaw Secondary, studious and methodical and curious. His Primary was much harder for me, but I eventually settled on Ravenclaw. Like Delenn, I see him as someone who has adopted the Religious Caste Minbari Hufflepuff model (souls are sacred, etc. etc.), and when he betrays that model in season 5, he urgently needs to scramble for another one. I do think he also picks up some of Delenn's Slytherin primary by osmosis over the course of the show, with her as the one person whose well-being trumps all aspects of morality. Conclusion: Ravenclaw primary (with conflicting Hufflepuff and Slytherin models, poor guy), Ravenclaw secondary.

Michael Garibaldi is (still) a Hufflepuff primary, I think. He doesn't seem too much like anything else -- he feels like a genuine loyalist primary without the classification of people into "mine" and "whatever" like Slytherins do. He does seem to value community a lot, and understand the value of community to others -- like, he's the only one who doesn't entirely turn away from Londo when Londo is going through his in-bed-with-Morden thing, and offers understanding to G'Kar when he's incarcerated, and tries an intervention with Franklin instead of reporting him. Which is not to say that he doesn't care about them as people, but I do get the sense that he would've done the same for people he knew less well, too. And I think what's hardest for him is when he lets people down, either through his own faults or not -- that's why he's as low as he is at the very beginning of season 2. For secondary, I'm not sure, but I think an improvisational secondary for him, and Slytherin feels righter than Gryffindor -- he's better at "code-switching", I think, between command staff and lurkers, for example. Conclusion: Hufflepuff primary/Slytherin secondary.

Stephen Franklin, I think, is a true Gryffindor primary -- his faith in what is right is instinctual and unshakeable, and he doesn't believe in cultural relativity or anything else that could change what is Right. I'm pretty sure there's a model overlaying that, maybe even a Ravenclaw model which has adopted a Hufflepuff model? By which I mean that, as an educated doctor, Franklin believes in a logically adopted model where the community is tantamount and all people are equally valid and one needs to work on understanding them -- he says as much at the beginning of "Believers" -- but what he actually truly believes, and lives, is something different, and much more rigid. So, yeah, a kind of three layer cake for Franklin's primary, with Gryffindor on the bottom, then Ravenclaw, then Hufflepuff. Secondary -- it comes down to either a genuine Ravenclaw or a Slytherin who has adopted a Ravenclaw model/performs Ravenclaw very well. Not Hufflepuff, because his workaholic-ness and intolerance of error smacks of a "only you can save mankind" attitude which I think is inimical to Hufflepuff secondaries. And he's too flexible for a Gryffindor -- underground clinic, or the mission to Mars, wouldn't suit a Gryffindor secondary so well. So I think he's a Slytherin secondary, who spends a lot of time performing Ravenclaw, which is very natural to him, but can also go "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" in Gryffindor fashion, or put his head down and work like a Hufflepuff. Conclusion: Gryffindor primary/Slytherin secondary, but both with some interesting layers.

Jeffrey Sinclair is a Ravenclaw primary, I think -- admittedly mostly because I feel like he feels so adrift after the experience with the Minbari during the war because the world doesn't make SENSE anymore, and that would bother a Ravenclaw primary way more than anyone else (see the discussion of the burned/fallen Ravenclaw primary here). I'm not sure what primary truth he's adopted / what model he follows as a Ravenclaw primary, maybe Hufflepuff? (That would be one of the differences between him and Sheridan as commander, I think.) And as for secondary, I definitely think that's where he is a Gryffindor -- he leads by charismatic speeches, and goes charging in rather a lot. Conclusion: Ravenclaw primary/Gryffindor secondary (which is the same combination I arrived at for G'Kar, and that feels about right, actually.)

Marcus Cole is a Ravenclaw primary, too -- he seems to have thought a lot about the universe and reached some unorthodox conclusions, having constructed his truth from odds and ends, including courtly love ideas, apparently. And I think he, too, is a Gryffindor secondary (although with a witty Ravenclaw performance layered over). I mean, his approach to tough situations seems to be: 1) beat people up, 2) let people beat HIM up as diversion, 3) sacrifice himself. Can't think of much more Gryffindor than that. Conclusion: Ravenclaw primary / Gryffindor secondary.

Susan Ivanova, I think, is a Slytherin primary. I definitely think she's a loyalist, and I feel like she had the least qualms over breaking with Earth Alliance when the time came. I mean, she also didn't have a lot left to lose, personally, but I don't get the sense that she had any idealistic attachment to EarthGov. Her secondary is very much Gryffindor, though. Which is the same combination I picked for Delenn, but Delenn has a lot of subtler models and performance experience layered over hers, while Ivanova, I feel, is pretty much unvarnished: my way or the highway. Conclusion: Slytherin primary /Gryffindor secondary.

Finally, John Sheridan. One of the things I noticed when I rewatched the show a couple of years back was that Sheridan is SO not a spontaneous person -- he doesn't instinctively adapt to a new situation, he has to practice his stirring speeches beforehand, etc. I think he's a Ravenclaw secondary, actually. A clever and ruthless one who's picked up a lot of tricks over the years and can deploy them very skillfully, but he does fall back on things that have worked before, which feels like a very Ravenclaw approach. He tries to perform Gryffindor as part of his military role, but he's not nearly as good at it as Sinclair, who was the real thing, although he is definitely the better military strategist. And I think he's a Slytherin primary, because when people he loves are in trouble, he will take leave of duty (and common sense, too) to go try to rescue them, because they matter more than anything else (I'm thinking of his father, and of following Anna into the obvious trap of Z'ha'dum). Conclusion: Slytherin primary / Ravenclaw secondary.

Do folks agree? Arguments for other options and/or additional nuance are very welcome! As are thoughts about characters I didn't get to, like Na'Toth or Talia or Zach or anyone else. It might also be fun to try sorting B5 characters in any other ways (MBTI! enneagram! daemons! (however that would work on a space station...), Westeros Great Houses, etc. etc.) if others are as inclined towards this form of fannish entertainment as I am :)