Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.
In today’s video we’re discussing the life of a certain Hogwarts Founder.
Let’s get in to it.
If you think about the greatest founder of Hogwarts, who comes to mind?
If you value overall magical abilities, you might be tempted to choose Salazar Slytherin.
Afterall, he created a secret, enchanted chamber right under the noses of the 3 other, original
teachers at the school… and none of them ever found out.
But if you are fascinated by the legacy of wizards who triumphed over dark sorcerers,
you’d likely suggest Godric Gryffindor.
The students who enrolled in his house were among the strongest wizards in all of Europe.
And in the 20th century, Gryffindors students were responsible for defeating not just Grindelwald,
but also the far more terrifying dark wizard, Tom Riddle.
I’d imagine, even a few of you, would throw out Rowena Ravenclaw as your choice.
Unlike the other founders, Rowena wasn’t interested in courage or pure-blood… she
chose her students based on their intelligence.
The greatest wandmaker in the world, the man responsible for giving both Lord Voldemort
and Harry Potter the tools they needed to duel, Garrick Ollivander, was actually a graduate
of Rowena’s house.
But I’m willing to claim that Helga Hufflepuff, the fourth and last founder of Hogwarts, might
actually have been greater than all the rest.
Why?
Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today when we look at her life and legacy.
Just like the other founders of Hogwarts, Helga Hufflepuff represented a unique part
of the British isles.
Godric Gryffindor was born in the West Country of England, Rowena Ravenclaw in a narrow valley
within the Scottish Countryside, and Salazar Slytherin in Ireland (although that last part
is often contested).
But Helga, just like one of the most unique indigenous creatures in Britain, the green,
Welsh dragons, hailed from Wales.
Although the ancient records of her hometown have been lost, we know that Helga was raised
far away from the urban trading centers that bordered England, and instead grew up deep
within the Welsh countryside, amidst its flowing creeks and low-rolling hills.
Considering how great of an influence the birthplace of Hogwarts other founders played
in their roles as teachers, it’s surprising to note that Helga Hufflepuff’s Welsh heritage
might have merely been a footnote for the highly regarded witch.
Gryffindor, despite his reputation as one of the most noble sorcerers of his time, had
a particularly bad habit of eagerly jumping into duels.
That trait….
Courage in the face of possible death… was the very thing the Sorting Hat searched for
when selecting students for Godric’s house.
And historians have often cited Gryffindor’s English heritage, and his life in the small
town that would eventually bear his name, Godric’s Hollow, as the landscape that molded
his bravery.
Even Slytherin, who was rumored to move about quite often… first starting in Ireland,
and eventually making his way to Gryffindor’s village…
was shaped by his home.
Having faced the sharp-tongued jeers of muggles who feared the magical community, Slytherin
developed a deep hatred for any non-magical being.
This prejudice, of course, later got him kicked out of Hogwarts, but it is another trait that
historians have attached to the landscape he was raised in.
When we think of Helga Hufflepuff, her greatest attribute was her fair and kind heart.
When we talk about her time as a teacher at Hogwarts, we’ll dive into what Helga’s
fairness actually meant (in terms of her students).
Although we know Helga’s birthplace, it’s impossible to know her actual birthdate.
Like the other founders of Hogwarts… and pretty much anyone else from the Wizarding
world at the time… surviving parchment records are hard to come by.
The best we can do is look at the founding date of Hogwarts, and deduce how old Helga
must have been at the time.
Now… we know that Hogwarts was established in the year 993, just a few years short of
the turn of the millennium.
Certainly, Helga Hufflepuff was born at least a few decades before, but it’s deciphering
exactly how long prior that gets tricky.
Since we know that Helga, Godric, Salazar, and Rowena are often cited as being close
friends, then they must have been similar in age.
And… since most are rumored to have died in the 11th or 12th century, it’s likely
that Helga was in her 30’s or 40’s during the first few semesters, which would make
her birth date sometime around 960 CE.
As a co-founder of Hogwarts, Hufflepuff must have been among the greatest witches of her
era.
When we look at her particular skills, we find that she excelled at one of the lesser
celebrated magical disciplines: food charms.
Although you might be quick to dismiss this artform, you’d be wrong to do so.
Hufflepuff’s ability to create massive feasts and decadent desserts with her wand wouldn’t
help in a battle against a dark wizard.
That’s a fair point, certainly.
But food-charms are one of the most important parts of daily wizarding life.
If you think about it carefully, you’d realize that the magical community’s ability to
quickly, efficiently, and hygienically prepare food throughout the middle ages was something
that clearly separated it from the Muggle world.
Non-magical users often suffered various diseases, and even plagues, throughout much of early
history.
Some sicknesses were caused by spoiled food, while other ailments were spread to food stores
by diseased vermin.
It wasn’t until the advent of modern medicine, during the 20th century, … and the technological
revolution that spawned refrigeration… that food-related illnesses stopped being a leading
cause of death among children and adults aged 18-50.
But throughout all of those centuries, the wizarding community was mostly unaffected.
Of course, even during Helga’s time, healing magic was quite adept at curing mundane diseases,
like the flu or common cold.
So even if a wizard contracted a food-related illness, it’s likely that they would be
able to treat it with a few swings of their wand.
But that doesn’t take away from a simple fact…
Hufflepuff pushed food-charms far beyond what they were before her, and likely saved lives
doing so.
Her fellow co-founders obviously valued her magical contributions, when they deemed Hufflepuff
wise enough to help join them in creating Hogwarts.
And it was during her time at Hogwarts that Helga’s vision for the future created a
legacy that helped more wizards than any of her peers, and is the main reason you’d
be right to call her the greatest of them all.
As we mentioned earlier, part of the rights given to each founder was how exactly to pick
students for their respective houses.
Just as each founder excelled in a particular magical discipline, they each desired their
pupils who reflected that.
Godric valued courage, Salazar favored pure-bloods, and Rowena accepted the most intelligent students.
But Helga was different.
She allowed anyone in.
She didn’t hold any bias against her students, and she didn’t allow any of her preconceived
notions of a young boy or girl to get in the way of how a formal magical education could
transform their future.
And in that way, Helga touched the lives of thousands of wizards who would have otherwise
been rejected by the other houses.
At most, Helga simply wanted good, honest children who would work hard and remain loyal
to their friends.
Even though the other houses produced far more famous graduates, it’s hard to imagine
any of them producing a greater message than Helga.
Hogwarts was a school, after all, and not a factory for pumping out heroic wizards or
evil dark sorcerers.
If we simply analyze Helga Hufflepuff at face value, as a teacher and school founder, then
her methods just don’t seem like they can be beat.
After founding the school, years passed as Helga taught fresh new faces every fall.
But, just as Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw would eventually come to understand,
Helga started to feel like one of her co-founders was meddling in dark magic.
In time, Salazar Slytherin would approach the other founders, and request that they
change their admittance standards.
Salazar, still deeply scarred by the torment he likely suffered at the hands of Muggles,
wanted to bar half-bloods and muggle-borns from enrolling in Hogwarts.
But the other founders refused to cede to Slytherin’s demands.
And knowing how staunch an egalitarian Hufflepuff turned out to be, it’s likely that she was
the one leading the charge against Salazar.
Eventually, Slyterhin left the school, and the remaining three headmasters carried on
without him.
Fortunately for Helga, the rest of her life was uneventful, and the small schism with
Salazar was the last large confrontation she had to suffer.
She passed sometime in the 11th or 12th century, although this date too, has been lost in time.
When we look at the legacy of Helga Hufflepuff’s education philosophy, and the school that
bore her name, it’s easy to see that in some ways, she truly was ahead of her peers.
Most of the graduates of House Hufflepuff were level-headed, reasonable young men and
women.
Although many of them never became powerful duelists or dark wizards, like the graduates
of Gryffindor or Slytherin, the Hufflepuff alumni shouldn’t be ashamed of themselves.
Some of them, like Artemisia Lufkin and Grogan Stump, both former ministers for magic, went
onto better the Wizarding World in conventional, but meaningful, ways.
And that’s it for this video!
If you want to know the history of the other 3 founders I’ve made videos on them as well.
As always, please LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE to the channel if you enjoy the content.
Until next time
Remember
Imperfect understanding is often more dangerous than ignorance