My Gryffindor identity crisis

我的格兰芬多身份危机

译者:小初初

 

Being sorted into Gryffindor felt a bit like sending away for one of those DNA analysis kits and finding out that I was 80% Viking; like I had fundamentally misunderstood the very bones of myself.

被归类到格兰芬多，我感觉有点像是用一个DNA分析工具发现自己有80%的维京人血统，从根本上误解了自己的骨骼一样。

 

With no science or Sorting behind it, I had always identified as a Ravenclaw. I’m the person who excelled in school and coasted off that one prize for First in English ever since; the voracious reader who would really struggle to correctly identify more than 10 flags. Both brazenly brainy and secretly petrified that one day someone might discover that I have never, not once, spelled “guard” correctly the first time around. It’s important that people think I’m smart, so they remain a bit scared, and never find out that I have no idea whether Germany has a sea border. Let’s put it another way: Hermione would have seen through me in a heartbeat. As would the Sorting Hat.

由于没有科学依据和分类，我一直认为自己是拉文克劳。我是一个在学校里表现出色的人，我就获得过英语一等奖；一个狂热的读者，真的很难正确地识别出10面以上的旗帜。但我暗地里害怕有一天有人会发现我从来没有，不是一次，而是第一次就拼写正确“警卫”。重要的是人们认为我很聪明，所以他们仍然有点敬佩，从来没有发现我不知道德国是否有一个海上边界。换一种说法：赫敏会立刻看穿我。分院帽也是。

 

And so: Gryffindor. What does it even mean as a classification?

所以，格兰芬多。这样一个分类意味着什么？

 

Once upon a Wizarding World, Gryffindor was considered elite. Hung about with gold and scarlet (undeniably the superior colour combination). Emblazoned with that proud lion. Gryffindors are associated with bravery and courage and daring and nerve, which sounds brilliant up top - but as any good Ravenclaw would point out, thesaurus in hand, all those words are pretty much synonyms, and shouldn’t 25% of the magically-endowed population have more than one dominant character trait?

曾经在魔法界，格兰芬多被认为是精英。金色和猩红色（无可否认是上乘的颜色组合）上饰有那只骄傲的狮子。格兰芬多与勇敢、勇气、大胆和气魄联系在一起，这听起来很有趣——但正如任何一个好的拉文克劳所指出的，所有这些词都几乎是同义词，可占有魔法界25%的神奇种群不应该有不止一个显性特征吗？

 

It’s very hard to objectively consider your own bravery, unless you are a firefighter. My life is not rife with danger. There have been no recent situations of mortal peril into which I have contemplated whether or not to thrust myself. Sometimes I get the train at rush hour (brave). Sometimes I leave the house for ten minutes to buy an ice cream when a package delivery is due (brave, reckless). I like to think that I would save my cat from a burning building, but until I’ve truly faced the flames I don’t really know whether I’d behave like Harry-in-the-Fiendfyre or err on the side of Snape-with-his-robes-ablaze.

大部分人很难客观地考虑你自己的勇气，除非你是一名消防员。我的生活并不充满危险。我没有想到最近会有致命的危险，我曾想过是否要把自己推入其中。有时我在高峰时间乘火车（勇敢地）。有时我离开家十分钟去买一个冰激凌当快递到了的时候（勇敢，鲁莽）。我曾想象我会把我的猫从着火的大楼里救出来，但在我真正面对火焰之前，我真的不知道我是会表现得像哈利，还是会在斯内普身上穿着燃烧的袍子。

 

The Sorting Hat doesn’t sing about it, of course, but Gryffindors have been externally judged to have other, less favourable characteristics. Notable Slytherin, Severus Snape, considered certain Gryffindors to be self-righteous and arrogant, with no regard for rules. They’re the sort of qualities that go hand in hand with ignorant bravery, running headlong into battle safe in the knowledge that you’ll likely be saved from harm by the power of privilege and/or the love of your parents and/or the superior wit and talent of your friends.

当然，分院帽并不能说明这一点，但外界认为格兰芬多还有其他缺点。著名的斯莱特林，西弗勒斯.斯内普，认为某些格兰芬多是自以为是和傲慢，不遵守规则。这是一种与无知的勇敢相当的问题，总是一头扎进战场，因为你知道你很可能会被特权或父母的爱或朋友的高明智慧和才能所拯救。

 

If forced to sit down and think about it (a Ravenclaw would never have to be forced), I have to confess some serious similarities to the most famous of the Gryffindors circa Order of the Phoenix, during which Harry is, yes, brave, but also a tiny whiny Mandrake of a human, hurt and strung out and sore in a very identifiable muddled Millennial Muggle way. Ron is often guilty of the same kind of hurt, jealous effrontery; Hagrid too. It’s not what I’d like to see in the Mirror of Erised, but it’s not an inaccurate reflection of behaviours and vulnerabilities I’ve been guilty of.

如果被迫坐下来想一想（拉文克劳永远也不必被迫），我不得不承认自己一些与最著名的格兰芬多和凤凰社的相似之处，在这期间，哈利，是的，勇敢，但也是一个有缺点的人，总是干扰麻瓜的受伤和疼痛。罗恩经常犯下同样的错误——嫉妒；海格也是。这不是我想在厄里斯魔镜里看到的，但这并不是对我所犯下的行为和弱点的反映。

 

Gryffindors distinguish themselves by being highly motivated by a crisis. There’s a reason they made up the backbone of Dumbledore’s Army: because it was necessary. If we’d encountered the Hogwarts crew during peacetime, I’ve no doubt that Ron and Harry and their posse of lionhearted pals would have spent all the years of their schooling playing Gobstones and Quidditch lakeside, with nary a care given to personal development or career progression. I identify with that.

格兰芬多人总是与众不同。他们成为邓布利多军的骨干是有原因的：因为这是必要的。如果我们在和平时期遇到霍格沃茨的学生，我毫不怀疑罗恩和哈利以及他们的狮院朋友们会在学校的所有时间里玩魁地奇，而不关心个人发展或职业发展。我十分同意这种观点。

 

Ultimately, the way in which Gryffindors most frequently set themselves apart isn’t bravery, but loyalty. Harry’s a flawed hero, but he’s defined by steadfastness, from pulling Godric’s sword from the Sorting Hat in the Basilisk’s lair to easily laying down his life along with a seventh of Voldemort’s soul. Dumbledore’s formidable intellect is only thwarted when matters of the heart interfere, as in the case of his sister, Grindelwald, and Harry himself. And Hermione, who could probably have recited Hogwarts: A History from memory by the time she sat under the hat and went the way of the lion, is a Gryffindor because she prioritises loyalty over learning, and when push comes to shove chooses to go camping on a desolate hillside rather than attend school.

归根结底，格兰芬多最常让自己与众不同的方式不是勇敢，而是忠诚。哈利是一个有缺陷的英雄，但他的坚定，从蛇怪巢穴的分院帽中拔出戈德里克的剑，到轻易地为了毁坏伏地魔的魂器献出自己的生命。邓布利多令人敬畏的才智只有在心灵的问题出现干扰时才会受挫，他的妹妹和哈利本人就是这样。赫敏很可能已经背诵了《霍格沃茨：一段校史》，她是一个格兰芬多，因为她把忠诚放在学习之上，当遇到困难时，她选择在荒凉的山坡上露营，而不是上学。

 

And then there is Mr Longbottom, another interesting leonine-leaning case study, because his brand of bravery wasn’t one readily noticeable at the outset. Uncertain and odd, he took a while to lean into boldness, first by standing up to his friends, then by standing up to his enemies, and finally by beheading a snake with a sword. He was proof that courage and daring aren’t necessarily evident from the first but might grow in you, quietly, like Gillyweed in a dark lake. He is cut from Creevey-cloth: awkward and annoying and anything but a hero, until struck by a monster after risking death to sit by the bedside of a friend, or lifeless in a school hall after fighting in a doomed army.

接下来是隆巴顿，另一个有趣的莱昂宁式案例研究，因为他的勇敢在一开始并不引人注目。奇怪的是，他花了一段时间才变得大胆起来，先是站在朋友面前，然后是站在敌人面前，最后是用剑杀了一条蛇。他证明了勇气不一定从一开始就显而易见，但可能会在你体内悄然成长，就像暗湖中的鳃草。直到被一个怪物击中后，冒着死亡的危险坐在一个朋友的床边，或是在一支注定要失败的军队战斗后在学校大厅里失去生命。

 

So, while I have no doubt that Gryffindors are often bullish, somewhat arrogant, and rather too convinced of their own importance, I’m OK with professing my allegiance. Partly because the common room really does sound great, partly because I look good in red, and partly because loyalty is a character trait worth being proud of; but mainly because if it’s good enough for Hermione and Professor McGonagall and little Dennis Creevey, then it’s certainly good enough for me.

所以，虽然我毫不怀疑格兰芬多经常是乐观的，而且有点傲慢，而且过于相信自己的重要性，但我可以表示我的忠诚。一部分是因为公共休息室听起来真的很棒，一部分是因为我穿红色很好看，一部分是因为忠诚是值得骄傲的性格特征；但主要是因为如果它对赫敏、麦格教授和小丹尼斯·克里维足够好，那么它对我来说肯定足够好。

 

the common room公共休息室

dominant character trait显性特征

Dumbledore’s Army邓布利多军

 

原文：Scarlett Cayford

译者:小初初