Over the past few days, I read a lot of feedback on how I portrayed Ravenclaw. After thinking it over, I realized I'd presented things in the wrong order.
Ravenclaw is certainly wise. I originally wanted to use Helena's recollections to show Ravenclaw's defining quality: openness.
It is an openness born of wisdom. Wisdom sees enough, and sees far enough, to make room for other paths. This isn't Hufflepuff's kind and united acceptance, but an openness to differing opinions and directions.
That's why the Sorting Hat says that anyone with wisdom can find kindred spirits in Ravenclaw.
Unlike Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw is a House built on sharper disagreements. Differences gradually emerge until people part ways. But everyone uses their own wisdom to find their own path. Openness lets Ravenclaw make room for those on different paths; wisdom means those people won't be easily persuaded to change course.
While finishing the extra for my last book, I was thinking about Luna and realized that Ravenclaw really should have bad people in it. If it's meant to hold a whole lot of wizards with ideas of their own, it shouldn't be a place where everyone gets along. It should be more like the Hundred Schools of Thought contending during the Spring and Autumn period.
It should have just as many groups, good and bad, fighting for what they pursue and sending those they clash with to Azkaban.
And Ravenclaw House exists precisely to let people with ambitions challenge and exchange ideas with one another, so their wisdom can produce even more brilliant knowledge.
So it inevitably has people like Lockhart, who pursues fame and fortune, and Rita, who pursues authority. They really are using their wisdom to chase what matters to them. After all, not every idea to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period was a gem.
It's just as inevitable that some Ravenclaws would think they're wrong and belong in Azkaban. Isn't that exactly what Ravenclaw should be like?
Because of its openness, Ravenclaw has Lockhart and Rita. But it also has Millicent Bagnold, the Minister for Magic who kept fighting Voldemort until victory.
Would every Ravenclaw be proud of Rita or Lockhart? Of course not. Ravenclaw's openness lets in people whose actions and opinions differ wildly, but that also means plenty of people within the House will reject one another.
That openness can even let them unite when they collectively oppose something, as with the Goblet of Fire's choice of Champion. It doesn't stop them from wanting to send one another to Azkaban afterward.
And Professor Flitwick, as Head of House, undoubtedly embodies that openness—though perhaps that's only because the original books say so little about him.
So with openness as the guiding principle, I started writing all sorts of oddballs into Ravenclaw. For now, though, it seems I pushed it too far. I even need to explain it separately, because I couldn't lay out the idea at the start.
But I think this is what Ravenclaw should be: a House that pursues wisdom and knowledge, that dares to hit its own members hard and take on students from other Houses too. I love my teachers, but I love truth more.
Chasing good grades? High marks? Unity and harmony? All well and good, but that's too small a vision... Some of Ravenclaw is like that, but it can't be all Ravenclaw is.
They should dare to debate the future of the wizarding world, consider the future of wizards, seek reason amid chaos, say no, and, once they've settled on their convictions and goals, use every means to prove their point—including, but not limited to, sending other students to Azkaban, Ravenclaws included.
Yes. That's Ravenclaw.