Why Gryffindor is the worst house
sorry to offend anyone, but I told this to several people in RL and they liked it, so...
Gryffindor is the most popular of the houses. At most online Harry Potter clubs, 60%-90% of people are Gryffindors. If you ask any of your friends what house they'd like to be in in Hogwarts, chances are they'd pick Gryffindor.
So anyways, here's the goods:
Four wizards in four parallel universes are walking down a path. A dragon is up ahead of them, about a kilometer away.
What would each of them do?
Well, the Slytherin is fairly obvious... He'd befriend the dragon and attempt to take over the world, or at least the surrounding countryside. Whether it would work or not is a different story.
The Hufflepuff most likely would be to walk the long way around, probably wasting much time, but getting away without a scratch. If it was a particularily kindhearted one, he'd conjure up some Dragon-warning signs.
The Ravenclaw would spend several hours copying down the Dragon's behavioural patterns to a notebook. He could then publish them, furthuring the noble study of Dragonology (yeah, right :-). The point is, he would find out when the Dragon went away to Take a crap/Feed its children/go to bed/etc. Then, he would run by. Scratchless, possibly with some added knowledge about the dragon.
Finally, the Gryffindor. The most obvious of the bunch, the Grffindor would charge the dragon, spells flying, and get the snot beat out of him.
So, my point: Gryffindors are the most foolish of the pack. I'm tired of people talking about how noble and righteous they are. IMHO, cowardliness is better than foolishness. Or about even.
Also, I'm tired of people decrying Slytherin for being so evil. Sure, most of the Slytherins Are evil, but still. In theory, Slytherin is for ambitious people, who place their needs above others. If you really think about it, most people do place themselves above others... If you really truely cared more about others than yourself, you'd have sold your computer to get money to donate to poor people in war-torn third-world countries.
However, in the context of the book, I like the houses the way they are. But I think if people start applying the principles out of the book, they should think long and hard before labeling themselves "Gryffindor".
BTW, Guess what house I consider myself in. That's right, it starts with an R:-)