- Today's video is brought to you by BetterHelp.
Hey, brother.
Okay, so here's a weird thing that's been like on my mind
for the past six hours.
Why is it that the Hogwarts founders
chose non-magical creatures to be each of their mascots?
I mean, really, it's like not that big of a deal
except for the fact that it's literally a school of magic
and they literally know about fantastic beasts
and one of the founders themselves
actually bred a basilisk
which basically now I'm forced the believe was by accident.
If anything, if I'm being honest,
it kind of feels like one of those situations
where I could see it being like a bet
between Salazar and Godric.
Hey, hey, Sal.
What happens if you put chicken eggs under a toad?
Just do it, do it, do it.
Oh my gosh, Helga, you gotta come see this!
Well, don't look directly at it, but like,
we'll get a light for a shadow or something.
Rowena, can you conjure up a basement for us?
No, not under the third floor corridor.
How would that make sense?
Obviously we do it in the girl's bathroom.
No, I can't do it.
We can't go in there.
Obviously you have to do it, and also Slytherin,
he says you need to mark the tap with a snake
so we don't forget what we put in there.
Five years later.
Holy crap, it got huge!
Should we kill it?
Yes, Slytherin, it does have to be.
Why? Because you can talk to snakes.
What do you mean I have this sword?
This sword could never kill it. It's huge!
Three days later.
Guys, I am going to level with you.
I don't think Salazar is coming back
and he might also be a statue.
Yeah, no, it didn't work.
Snake is still alive.
The good news is that we can count on it dying eventually.
And if anybody asks, we all got in a big fight and I won.
Massive aside aside though, more to the point,
the national animal for Scotland,
where Hogwarts supposedly is, is already a unicorn.
And not for nothing.
Unicorns literally already inhabit
the forest nearby the school.
I mean, seriously guys,
how are you letting the muggles out magic you right now?
At the very least,
these schools should have been called Unicornwarts.
Am I right?
We have not even started this video yet.
Roll the intro.
(upbeat music)
- Hey brother!
- In 2021, it is finally the time
that everyone is okay with talking about mental health,
which is why we're so excited that today's episode
is sponsored by BetterHelp.
Okay guys, real talk for a second.
Mental health is something to be taken very seriously
and this past year has not really been easy on anyone.
And I can tell you,
as someone who regularly sees a professional counselor,
that this process really does work.
Whether it's gaining a new sense of control
over the variables of your life
or dealing with a dramatic incident or anxiety,
lack of motivation, depression,
whatever you need, therapy can help.
If there's one thing that I cannot stress enough
it's that you should never feel bad
when you're dealing with what are normal human struggles.
And it is time to feel better
because you deserve to be happy.
BetterHelp is customized online therapy
that gives you a variety of different ways
to speak with your therapist
whether that's through a video call, live chat, or phone.
So it gives you the option to see someone on camera or not
depending on what your preference is.
It's also much more affordable than in-person therapy
and you can get started in under 48 hours.
BetterHelp sponsors this show
and Super Carlin Brothers viewers can get 10% off
when they go to BetterHelp.com/SUPER.
Again, that is 10% off when you head over
to BetterHelp.com/SUPER.
One last time, BetterHelp.com/SUPER for 10% off.
Link is in the description down below.
Okay, so maybe we got off track just a little bit,
but to be fair,
I think that there is an extremely good chance
that it was a perfect reenactment of what actually happened.
But let's start by going back to square one.
Put ourselves in the shoes of the founders.
Imagine it's the middle ages,
you're founding a wizarding school
with your closest buddies.
You've named each of the houses inside of that school
after you, the founders' last names,
Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw.
It goes without saying, we need animal mascots.
What are they?
Let's start with good old Godric.
Gryffindor is pretty easy.
I mean, it's like right there in the name, right? Door.
How symbolic, he's open to all students.
Okay, to be fair though, a door is still not magical,
so we're gonna have to go
with the lamer half of his name, a griffin,
which gets bonus points
for actually being a magical creature.
It's half eagle and half lion.
And then moving on, we've got Slytherin,
and who literally has slither in his name,
so snake feels pretty fitting.
But do you know what else slithers? Worms.
Though, to be fair, he can't talk to worms.
Well, he can talk to them.
They just can't talk back.
But to be even more fair, he has a gigantic basilisk,
so why not go with it?
It's magical.
Griffin, basilisk, we're batting a thousand.
Moving on, of course, we have Rowena Ravenclaw.
And what would be the most fitting animal mascot
for Rowena Ravenclaw?
Say it with me now.
A Griffin.
You know what, all of a sudden I'm starting to see
what maybe happened with Gryffindor
ultimately choosing lion.
It's obvious what happened, right?
Him and Rowena both wanted griffin
and spoke up at exactly the same time.
Rowena, you cannot have griffin.
It's literally half of my name.
Look, see, I wrote it down so you could see.
Yeah, but griffins are also half eagle, see? See?
No, I don't see.
What do you have to do with eagle?
Okay, fine.
You take half, I take half.
Fine, I guess.
I mean, lions are pretty cool, but to be clear,
does that mean you're going with eagles?
Yeah, 'cause they have claws,
and what's the second half of my name?
Claw.
I think those are called talons.
Lions have claws, but you can't have lion.
I already called dibs.
Okay, now that we've statistically offended
half of our audience let's move on.
Lastly, of course, we have Hufflepuff.
And if Slytherin gets snakes because snakes slither,
then shouldn't Hufflepuff get whatever huffs and puffs?
It makes sense to me,
which is why Hufflepuff's animal should clearly be wolves.
Let me tell you everything that I learned about wolves
when I was a kid.
They huff and they puff and they blow a bunch of houses down
until they get to the third pig's house,
which is made of stone.
Made of stone, just like the castle of Hogwarts.
Hog as in pig, warts as in gross.
I suppose, once again,
the issue with this particular selection though
is that wolves themselves are not magical,
but good news for us there happens to be
a rather magically themed wolf, werewolves.
Guys, guys, werewolves.
That's a bit dark.
No, no, no, you're missing the point entirely.
It sends the message that Hufflepuff house
will welcome anybody, despite any preexisting conditions.
Werewolf scars are nothing to be ashamed of.
They should be worn proudly like badges.
Badgers? Did you say? That's a good idea, badgers.
What? No, no, no.
I do not, I don't want badgers.
How about unicorns?
They're nice, right?
Actually Scotland sent an owl this morning
and it looks like they've called dibs on unicorns.
You know, we're running out of time.
I'm just gonna put you out for badgers.
That has nothing to do with my name!
Don't worry, neither does Ravenclaw's.
Eagles have claws!
No, they, you know, whatever.
In the end, Gryffindor wanted griffins,
but settled for half.
Ravenclaw didn't understand the assignment.
Hufflepuff had great intentions, but ran out of time
and everyone else agreed that snakes are cooler than worms.
Now honestly, there has never been
some kind of given explanation
for any of the specific selections for each of the houses.
And there's not really any explanation
that fits nicely for all four of them.
But that doesn't mean we didn't try.
The first and most obvious one to work with
was the symbolic representation of each of the animals
and whether or not it matched up nicely
with the house's ideals.
But this really only ends up working nicely
for Gryffindor and Hufflepuff.
Lions do, in fact, represent bravery, courage,
and chivalry, which is exactly what Gryffindor stands for.
And badgers represent hard work and loyalty,
which is exactly what Hufflepuff stands for.
But snakes don't exactly represent cunning,
ambition, or resourcefulness.
If anything, they're usually used to represent evil
or, in a more positive light, rebirth,
because they shed their skin.
That's why.
Now to be fair, Voldemort was evil
and, in a weird way, was rebirthed
and was a descendant of Slytherin.
And I don't think any of that was by coincidence.
(Voldemort laughs)
But those are not the specific qualities
known to look for in Slytherin house.
And that just leaves us with Ravenclaw and eagles
which represent just the whole mess of stuff
including truth, majesty, strength, courage,
wisdom, power, and freedom.
Sure, wisdom is in there,
but that group of traits could pretty easily apply
to Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff.
Moving on from that though,
you could also argue that each of the animals
represent where the specific founders hail from.
Bold Gryffindor is from wild more,
fair Ravenclaw is from glen,
sweet Hufflepuff is from valley broad,
and shrewd Slytherin is from fen.
In this case, eagles are very appropriate
as Rowena is from glen, AKA Scotland,
where eagles are the most common in Europe.
And a quick Google search reveals
they even use the word glen.
The golden eagle lives in the wild
open moorlands and mountains of Scotland,
favoring islands and remote glens.
That was my best impersonation of David Attenborough.
It wasn't very good.
- Boo.
- But it said glen, although moor is also in there,
which is where Gryffindor is from and, let's face it,
Gryffindor was always gonna pick
the cooler half of the griffin and go with lion,
which is why this line of reasoning doesn't hold up
because in case you are unaware,
lions don't live in England.
Badgers actually super do live in England,
which kind of surprised me because
they don't live anywhere near where we live,
but even strangelier is that snakes barely live in England.
There's like three of them total.
That's three species.
Not three individual snakes, for clarity.
There are like three species of snakes in all of England
and the Slytherin snake is specifically designed
to not look like any specific snakes,
so that doesn't help us at all.
But in case you were wondering,
the only venomous snake native to England is called an adder
and even that is only like barely dangerous to humans.
Moving on, though, you could also make the argument
that each animal is a representation of each element
associated with each house.
Earth for Hufflepuff, air for Ravenclaw,
water for Slytherin, and fire for Gryffindor.
And here again, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff make perfect sense.
Ravenclaw tower is the highest tower of the entire school
and eagles fly and don't have claws.
The Hufflepuff common room is under the school
and badgers burrow.
Slytherin is kind of there.
I mean, there are snakes that live in water
and the movement of a snake is kind of like water moving.
Fluid, that's the word I was looking for.
Fluid movement.
And the common room is in the dungeon
located under the lake, so we're almost there.
If they were gonna really commit to it though,
they would have been actually underwater.
Scuba masks.
But then there is Gryffindor,
which exists also in a tower in the sky
and lions, just like all other living creatures,
cannot exist in fire.
So then it occurred to us that maybe each founder
just had a special kind of relationship
with each of the animals they chose.
I mean, with this one, you have Slytherin
as the figurehead for it.
Like obviously Slytherin could speak to snakes,
so it's a really, really good fit.
But there's not any other explanation whatsoever
that any of the other founders
had a relationship with any of their animals.
Though I do love to think
that Helga spoke badgertongue, mouth. (hisses)
I just said, please come in, enjoy some tea and biscuits.
So again, moving on from that idea
to another one that I found very interesting,
which is each of the specific animal's
relationship with snakes, which is to say,
were the other three houses specifically chosen
because of how they interact with
or are known to either kill, hunt, defeat snakes?
This wouldn't exactly account
for why each specific founder chose their respective animal,
but it makes sense
from like a literary perspective for Harry Potter.
Slytherin's is pretty easy to explain.
Snakes are snakes.
Lions have been noted throughout history
especially in a particular statue
that is found not only at the Louvre,
but other prominent locations around the world
depicting a lion crushing a snake.
This is meant to represent good triumphing over evil.
Along the exact same lines,
if you've ever seen an image or a flag
depicting a eagle carrying a snake,
it means good triumphing over evil,
the eagle being the good, the snake being the bad,
in case that wasn't clear.
And that just leaves us with badgers,
which, can I just recommend,
go ahead and go Google badger versus snake.
Unless you love snakes,
in which case do not Google badger versus snake.
Badger, in this case, is really interesting
because probably the most famous badger worldwide
is the honey badger, which is specifically noted
for having a very high resistance
or tolerance to snake venom.
This would have been the icing on the snake,
except for the fact that Helga's badger
is not the honey badger.
And her badger is, unfortunately, weak to snake.
Gosh darn it.
That said, though, you know what makes up
a huge diet of these particular badgers?
Worms.
We were this close.
Get it? Because that's the width of a worm.
A really big worm
if I'm being honest. - That's a real big worm.
- That's kind of disgusting. - What kind of worms
are you fishing with?
- So that kind of leaves us with a couple of explanations
that do fit really nicely,
we just don't have any information to confirm them.
And that would be that the lion, snake, badger, and eagle
are all of the respective patronuses
or animagus forms for each of the founders.
As for the question as to why the animals themselves
are not specifically magical,
I think that there's a really good argument to be made
for the fact that the founders of Hogwarts
are effectively like the springboard
for all of wizarding communities.
Hogwarts is the first wizarding school
and the reason why they built a school
was to have a place for wizards to be able to come together.
And if that's the case, I also think it's very possible
that fantastic beasts themselves had just not been studied
or discovered or understood in any meaningful way yet,
especially when you consider the fact
that just in the past century,
Newt Scamander has been out there trying to build a catalog
of this very information.
But guys, I need to pass it off to you.
Which explanation do you like the best?
Is it possible they were choosing different animals
for entirely different reasons?
And if you could change the Hogwarts mascots
to anything else, what would they be?
Let us know in the towel section down below.
Also, by sheer coincidence,
we decided to make four t-shirts
that feature the four animals that we discussed
in this particular video today.
If you want to check them out,
they're available over at SuperCarlinBrothers.store.
Link is in the description down below.
But guys, as always, thank you so much for watching.
Be sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel
if you haven't already.
If you'd like to see why we think Ravenclaw house
has an eagle mascot instead of a raven specifically,
you can check out this video right here.
But otherwise, until next week, bye.