Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff: four houses, somewhat alike in dignity, in fair Hogwarts as J.K. Rowling had laid her scene. However, after countless years of fandom, the Harry Potter world has come to sort of revile the folks assigned to Hufflepuff. Call them Hufflehaters, if you will. And yet, Academy Award winner and star of the Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Eddie Redmayne, thinks that idea is bad, and that everyone should feel bad for ever doing it. His reasons come to light in the PSA provided below.
MTV was the platform brave enough to carry this message disguised as a public service announcement, which is nothing short of a Huffle-puff piece of propaganda. In it, Redmayne extolls the virtues of the house that many have called "boring" or "beige" as hard working, loyal friends who do the right thing for "the greater good." While that's all well and good, can you really call Hufflepuff the best house in the Harry Potter universe?
While hard work and the virtue of loyalty are the big sticking points for Hufflepuffs, they certainly aren't exclusive to that house. Hell, Harry, Ron, and Hermione embodied those qualities themselves in spades. Did they have spats? Sure they did. But did they come together in the end, and piece everything together to defeat Voldemort at the Battle of Hogwarts? By Merlin's beard, they did! And they did it because through their rule breaking, hard working research, and general heroism, this powerful trio saved the wizarding world in a a way no other house could lay claim to. 10 points to Gryffindor!
To bolster his claim, Eddie Redmayne throws out some famous Hufflepuffs that he happens to know, besides himself and his character, Newt Scamander. Unfortunately, the only other examples Redmayne has to offer are Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Cedric Diggory. While Diggory truly was a Hufflepuff, and did get some heroic deeds on the big screen as he and Harry fought to win the Triwizard Tournament, The Rock was clearly a mis-sort. Fight it all you want, no Hufflepuff has muscles like that, and unless there's a ton of deleted material we're missing, they certainly haven't kicked that much ass. Meanwhile, here's some more Gryffindor highlights, courtesy of Neville "BAMF" Longbottom saving the day, by destroying Nagini, thus allowing Harry to defeat Voldemort.
Ok, so Hufflepuff DOES also have much adoration from J.K. Rowling herself, as well as the addition of the extremely brave Nymphadora Tonk, in their canon, so that definitely counts for a lot of points. But at the end of the day, there's just too little evidence to really claim that Hufflepuff is the best house in Harry Potter world. Sorry Mr. Redmayne, but there needs to be a lot more data entered into this equation in order for this to work.
Now's probably a good time to mention that Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them opens in early showings on Thursday night. With four more films to come after, perhaps Newt Scamander may prove the Hufflepuffs as the best house after all. Though considering Albus Dumbledore is going to grow in importance throughout those films, we're not so sure, as again - Gryffindor saves the day.
