Hufflepuff House: Difference between revisions

[[File:SuperfluousElves.jpg|link=Erfworld|frame|Not every elf can be [[Our Elves Are Better|better.]]]]

 

 

Some settings are richly designed, with a complex social and political system where [[The Federation]] and [[The Empire]] compete for power. To spice things up, they will often include various "third side" factions to give the people in the wardrobe department something to do.

 

 

Hufflepuff House is often part of the [[Backstory]] of a new character for an episode; and if the character becomes popular enough their House will become patterned after them.

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Every ninja village that isn't the Leaf, Sound, or Sand is like this in ''[[Naruto]]''. Rain may become more important since {{spoiler|Pain took over}} and later {{spoiler|Konan, the de facto leader, pulled a [[Heel Face Turn]] in response to Nagato's [[Redemption Equals Death|last-minute redemption]]}}. Likewise, the Cloud village has had several characters introduced recently and its leader {{spoiler|decided to call a meeting of the Kages}}, which can mean a lot for the villages in general.

** The Mist village occupies an unusual space here. Ninjas from it show up rarely, and so far none of them (excluding Zabuza) have had a large effect on the plot of the series. But the ones that ''do'' show up are all sorts of awesome.

** This trend is ending even as we speak. Recent events have catapulted the other four main villages into the main story. Though they still aren't as important as Konoha.

* The [[EU]] in ''[[Code Geass]]'' is the largest of the three superpowers (the other two being Britannia and China), but much to the annoyance of the show's European fans, they don't really do anything other than get parts of it conquered by Britannia in series 2 - and the war mostly takes place off-screen.

** Perhaps to rectify this, Sunrise is making a sidestory set in the EU during the main series called ''Code Geass Gaiden: Akito of the Ruined Land''.

** Oddly, many other major characters (originally) hailed from the AEU, such as {{spoiler|both}} Lockon Stratos, Sumeragi Lee Noriega, Louise Halevy, Klaus Grad, Ian Vashti and Descartes Shaman. The thing is, none of them are actually ''working for'' the AEU by the time they show up.

* ''[[Bleach]]'' has this with many of the Shinigami divisions: 2 is the stealth and assassin squad, 4 is the medic and janitor squad, 9 is the primary security force, which traditionally looks after arts and culture, and heads the Seireitei News Magazine, 11 is [[Blood Knight|physical combat specialists]] and 12 is scientific research, but the other eight divisions have no known specialties as of late, and there are relatively few members that have been introduced.

** Based on Rukia's descriptions, the 13th squad seems to be the opposite of the 11th, focusing primarily on [[Functional Magic|Kido]]-based combat. Though this is simultaneously a case of [[All There in the Manual]], as most of the other squads have identities based on the personality of the members. For example, Squad 7 is characterised as having members who fight out of a passionate love of life, while Squad 3 is made of those who fight hardest in order to get the whole unpleasant business over with.

** The 1st Division seems to be the administration, since except for Commander Yamamoto and his lieutenant (who wears different clothes than the other lieutenants), not one shinigami of the 1st squad has ever been seen or mentioned.

* According to [[Word of God]] for ''[[Gundam Seed]]'', [[The Kingdom|Orb]] is ruled by a collective of five prominent families, who between themselves select a chief representative. Over the course of the two TV series and the spinoff manga ''[[Gundam SEED Astray]]'' we meet three of the families, the Attha, Seiran, and Sahaku. The other two are non-entities, even in critical moments such as when their allies in [[The Federation|the Earth Alliance]] start bulldozing Europe with a walking WMD. The Sahaku are a partial example, as their actions have zero impact on the anime, mattering only within the context of ''Astray''.

** Speaking of Earth Alliance, all of its members except the Atlantic Federation have pulled the short straw.

== Comic Books ==

* This is pretty much how the Indigo Lanterns operate in the [[Green Lantern]] cosmology. They're the lanterns of Compassion but little detail has gone into them and they rarely involve themselves with the other six Lantern Corps.

 

* Played with in a few ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fanfics where Harry's son Albus Severus is sorted into the Hufflepuff House. [http://scoradh.livejournal.com/123296.html Example here].

** Hufflepuff is not mentioned in ''[[My Immortal]]'' except for a throwaway line which casually states that "Vampire" is "sucking some blood from a Hufflepuff."

 

== Film ==

* The other Greek soldiers in ''[[300]]'' who weren't from Sparta. They do basically zip and leave frightened so the Spartans can die in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]].

* The other pirate lords from ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: At World's End''. Smoke-trails in the background imply a huge battle, but we never get to see any ships but the main characters'.

 

== Literature ==

** Hufflepuff has very little to do in the series. The only real member of distinction they have is Cedric Diggory, who is a sympathetic character and Hogwarts co-champion. They're also mentioned to have the second-most students stay to battle Voldermort.

* The (live) Southerlings in Garth Nix's ''[[Old Kingdom|Abhorsen]]'', who border on being a [[Mauve Shirt]] Army. They are refugees from the far southern countries who are seeking asylum in the Old Kingdom, even though they don't know about the magic that inhabits it. Their main features are their blue caps and scarves and their desperate need for protection, since {{spoiler|the bad guy's plan is to kill and resurrect a lot of them at once. Instant [[Zerg Rush]]. Avoiding this takes up a lot of the heroes' time.}} The reason they're even in the Old Kingdom is to give certain Ancelstierre officials political brownie points.

* ''[[Animorphs]]'', being a story about one front in an inter-planetary war, has several. The Leeran war was originally this, but the Animorphs were transported to their world and helped end that affair in short order. But there's also the Yeerk Peace Movement, a contingent of Yeerks who believe that infesting and controlling humans (or at least humans against their will) is wrong; the Anati system of planets, where the Andalites are planning to attack the Yeerks because they feel things are more urgent there and that Earth is likely lost; and the Rakkam Garroo conflict, another something-or-other that is distracting the Andalite fleet for three years so that the Animorphs are basically left to do everything themselves.

** There's also the Muntab Question, which more often than not ends up being "Where's Muntab?"

* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' broadens its view with each book, putting characters and factions under the microscope that might have first been mentioned in passing several books ago. By the fifth book, just about every major area and faction in Westeros has played some part. Outside of Westeros, there are still a number of countries, such as Yi Ti and Asshai, which are mentioned occasionally, but nothing of significance has happened there. Ultimately it's doubtful that every single place mentioned will be important.

* Similarly, in the first two books of ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'', the reader is led to assume this of all Ajahs but the Blue, Red and Brown : no mention of them in the glossaries, no relevant characters (Alanna and Alviarin are featured but have done nothing yet)... This isn't helped by the fact that at this point the reader has seen only (apparently) good Blues and bad Reds. The later books help rectify this.

* WindClan serves as this for ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' as they are neither the designated villains like ShadowClan,the protagonists like ThunderClan,or the neutral softy like RiverClan. In fact they weren't even in the first book,made almost no appearance in the third and fourth books, and a minor one in the fifth book. Only in the 2nd and 6th books are they important, otherwise before ''Starlight'' they were simply "ThunderClan's allies", then Tallstar died making them the focus one last time, but once Onestar took over WindClan just became RiverClan.

* ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' takes place in Oceania, one of three empires that each rule a third of the world. The other two empires are Eurasia and Eastasia. Eurasia and Eastasia are there only to have wars with each other and with Oceania, while [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder|repeatedly changing alliances.]] They are all even described as using political systems functionally identical to each other.

* ''The [[Tales of the Otori]]'' series features five "Great Clans": The Otori, the Tohan, the Seishuu, the Maruyama, and the Shirakawa. However, the only clans featured with any great frequency are the Otori, Tohan, and Maruyama, and even then the Tohan drop off the radar after the first book {{spoiler|when their ruling warlord is assassinated}}. Two principle characters hail from Seishuu and Shirakawa, but the clans themselves are not looked into.

** There's also the Tribe, an organization of ninja assassins comprised of four families: Kikuta, Muto, Kuroda, and Imai. Only the Kikuta and Muto families matter as most of the villains and heroes of the series hail from those two families, respectively.

** The Watcher's Council also fits. Other than being the background for two major characters (Giles and Wesley), the Council is a non-entity for most of the episodes of the series.

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'': For most of the series, the Minbari are dominated by the competing Warrior Caste and Religious Caste. The Worker Caste is almost entirely ignored (no political symbolism there...). Even when Delenn rebuilds her people's ruling council and gives the Worker Caste the majority, no members of the caste in question are given speaking parts, and while Delenn gives a stirring speech about how generically great their genericness is, the spotlight stays literally and figuratively on her throughout.

** Every colony except Caprica, Gemenon, Tauron, and Sagittaron. Picon is given some background importance, as it was the Headquarters of the Colonial Navy.

*** In fact, the colony corresponding to Libra was never even given a ''name'' on-screen until The Plan. We now know it's Libran. (RPG materials called it Libris.)

*** In 'The Plan', the last bit of the show released (showing the destruction of the colonies from the Cylon perspective), we see some lovely CGI shots of each colony as they are destroyed, and they all get their names said on screen.

** On the Cylon side, there are models Four and Five, the Simons and the Dorals, who have no "unique" members or much established personality/screen time, although 'The Plan' gave some more importance to Simon.

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' "There were once an alliance of four great races, the Asgard, the Nox, the Furlings, and the Ancients." The Asgard and the Ancients are important races in ''Stargate'' mythology who turn up often. The Nox made a couple of appearances in the early series but the Furlings never turned up apart from a short gag in episode 200. [[Word of God|According to the writers]] the Furlings only ever existed because they wanted four races, and will remain a [[Cryptic Background Reference]] (or even a [[Running Gag]]).

*** Nothing was known about the Gamma Quadrant until DS9 and nothing about the Delta Quadrant until one ship had the misfortune to have to travel through it. So until those series, the Alpha Quadrant races knew almost nothing about the rest of galaxy ''except'' the Beta Quadrant, which actually happens to contain most of the Klingon and Romulan Empires as well as part of the Federation.

** The dividing line between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants runs right through Earth's solar system.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Recent times, after Magic started consciously giving a greater amount of respect and focus to Magic's story and setting, the creative team ends up producing a tremendous amount of material from which to draw inspiration for mechanics, spells, and legendary creatures. A superfluous amount in fact, just so they'll draw have the most potential amount of information to draw from. Considering that most players only have a passing involvement in the story, most of it ends up rather Hufflepuffian to all but the hardest of hardcore story nuts.

* In ''[[BattleTech]]'' the Free Worlds League in essence did nothing for some thirty years of in-world time apart from a leadership change and slowly building up the universe's biggest economy and arms industry. {{spoiler|It turned out that during that time they were being subverted by an army of evil toaster-worshiping fanatics with an apocalyptic agenda, and nobody noticed because the rest of the state was so dull and peaceful.}}

** This is improved in the new skaven book, where smaller clans even get special characters. And clan mors have done things for quite some time now. In warhammer Cathay could qualify however as the only things it seems to exist for is to expand the ogrekingdoms background and give them giant katanas (cathayan longswords).

** Also, only a relatively small number of the thousand-odd Space Marine Chapters are referenced in canon, and an even smaller number fleshed out in any detail beyond a name and a colour scheme. However, this particular use is justified, as it allows players to create their own in-game chapters without having to worry about conflicting with canon. A similar situation exists in regards to Eldar Craftworlds and Imperial Guard regiments.

*** To elaborate a bit, GW favors certain chapters and regiments due to it being simplier for newer players. That's why you always see Cadian soldiers or Ultramarines on the respective army boxes, mostly due to them both being generic and not very biased. To be fair, Catachan Jungle Fighters get a lot of support from GW too, for those who don't want to play as Cadia, and they do sell metal models for other regiments too, such as Steel Legion, Valhallan Ice Warriors and Vostroya, while Death Korps of Krieg are widely available at Forge World. As for the Space Marines, they do have similar releases, since several other chapters have their own codexes with notable differences in their army lists. The Space Wolves are the best example here, but we also have the Blood Angels and the Dark Angels, who also have a lot of unique models to play with. Still, one is surprised how often GW goes with the Ultramarines for the chapter of choice for many starter campaigns and skirmishes, while they are just about as big as their hundreds and hundreds of successor chapters, which makes you wonder why they never even paint their models in that color scheme just to show off how they can look like painted.

*** However, this problem was greatly exacerbated when it was revealed that Matt Ward wrote the 5th Edition Space Marine codex. He basically admitted that he personally thought the Ultramarines were the best Space Marines ever, and wrote the entire codex to reflect that at the cost of virtually every other chapter. A lot 40k players reacted poorly to their favorite chapters being marginalized even further.

**** It seems that a supposedly impartial (enforced or otherwise) developer became susceptible to fanwank, at the worst possible time...

**** The fandom certainly did not rejoice when Ward decided to do this with every other subsequent Space Marine book he wrote (Namely Blood Angels and Grey Knights). To top it off he literally forced this trope on them by naming every bit of equipment after the aforementioned Space Marine Chapters (Blood Angels have named "Blood" versions of standard weapons, and Grey Knights got "Nemesis Force" versions of the items).

 

 

** Given Selphie's personality, one has to wonder if it's all a [[Cloudcuckooland]].

** It is heavily implied in-game that Trabia is Garden's Military Intelligence arm, and the general kookiness and secrecy of the students is either a side effect of dealing with information overload or is an act to keep people from prying into their business too much.

* Subverted and somewhat deconstructed in ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]''. Your heroes are members of the Dalmascan resistance trying to free the kingdom from the Archadians, and off in the distance somewhere the Archadians are worried about a war with the Rozzarrians. However, as the game progresses it becomes clear Rozzaria really is the bigger player in the plot, and the resistance is actually the Hufflepuff House. The only reason Archadia is paying any attention to the resistance and the heroes is because they can't fight a war on two fronts and don't want the Rozzarrians to use an attack by the resistance as pretext to intervene and go to war with Archadia, a war that would basically be the Ivalice equivalent of World War II. As a result, during the climax the big battle between the resistance and Archadia occurs and the heroes try to ''stop it'' and placate the faction leaders before Rozzarria makes its move.

* Yokuda in ''[[The Elder Scrolls]].'' Until ''Elder Scrolls IV'', Akavir fit this trope as well. And even then, the Akaviri are only involved in one quest.

**** In Mournhold expansion, Indoril gets a good bit more exposure for the chilling Knight Templars they are as Almalexia's honor guard. More background details on the Dres are revealed here, and a bit more in ''Oblivion'', but no Dres personalities are present.

* All of Etruria, the Western Isles, and perhaps the greater part of Sacae are entirely ignored in ''[[Fire Emblem]] Blazing Sword''.

** Sword of Seals came out first, but only in Japan. Blazing Sword is a prequel. Sword of Seals uses the entire world map it created, but Blazing Sword keeps the action more local. The fact that the rest of the world even exists in Blazing Sword is an [[The Artifact|artifact]] of the game that came before it.

* In ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'', [[Word of God]] has said there's a fifth, yellow ancient. Since the relationship between the ancients is rock-paper-scissors with a gun in the middle, it's interesting to wonder what a fifth does to the dynamic.

* In the ''[[Suikoden]]'' series, there are quite a few countries that seem to be Hufflepuff House, generally the homeland of foreign characters. Subverted in that they tend to become the primary setting of later games while what used to be [[The Federation]] and [[The Empire]] become Hufflepuff Houses.

* Ustio and Sapin are treated like this in ''[[Ace Combat Zero]]'' to Osea and Yuktobania. Especially strange in Ustio's case, as the player character is at the very least a mercenary hired by their government, and the first third or so of the war takes place there.

** The Orlesians and the [[The Empire|Tevinter Imperium]] both conquered [[The Kingdom|Ferelden]] at different points, and it is all but said that the Qunari will try to eventually. Antiva has [[Murder, Inc.|The Crows]]. Loghain won is position as a Lord freeing Ferelden from Orlesian rule, hating his former opressors so much. {{spoiler|he let his King and all but two Grey Wardens die}} partially to keep Orlsesain re-enforcements from comming back int the country.

** In the newly announced "Mark of the Assassin" DLC for [[Dragon Age II]], we'll finally get to see some of Orlais, and their often mentioned but never seen Chevaliers.

** Despite sending troops to Ostagar and a few in Lothering, the Chassind wilders are ignored entirely in Origins and, aside from a character in "Mark of the Assassin," completely absent from [[Dragon Age II]]. It's justified, though, as they're also stated to live in Ferelden's Kocari Wilds, where the Blight breaks out in Origins, while II takes place in another country, so their absence makes sense.

* ''[[Supreme Commander]]'': On maps shown in the mission briefings for the first game, there are several so called "neutral" planets, different groups of them even. This apparent neutrality is the ''only'' thing that anyone knows about any of these planets...

** Out of the playable races, plot-wise, the ''Burning Crusade'' races, the Draenei and Blood Elves, tend to be this. In the entirety of the plot afterward, they've contributed approximately nothing, although they're still somewhat popular (especially the Blood Elves, who sometimes top the list of most-selected race and are usually in the top three).

** Worgen and Goblins are treated similarly, with worgen becoming Night Elves in all but look outside of Gilneas, and goblins essentially just giving the Horde an excuse to look more industrial.

** As far as player-selected races, the trolls and dwarves tend to be this, being the least-selected races. The trolls became more popular in ''Cataclysm'' where their racial leader, Vol'jin actually gets to do stuff and they take back their islands from a [[Fake Ultimate Mook|level 10 traitor who kept replacing his severed head with a disguised coconut or something.]]

** The Umojans get their chance to shine in the backstory, where they're the secret allies of the Mengsk family and help Angus and Arcturus with their anti-Confederate war.

** Though not canon, the famous player-made campaign for the first game "The Antioch Chronicles" make the main Terran characters Kel-Morians (and through them the faction is a major antagonist).

** Kiith Soban gets a fairly major representative in [[Supporting Leader|Captain Soban]] in ''[[Homeworld]] 2'', who spends much of the game fighting Makaan's forces using guerilla tactics, while the player is off searching the galaxy for ancient artifacts.

* Several groups in ''[[Touhou]]'', including the Kappa, Higan, and the Human Village, possessing one or two representatives and not elaborated upon further. The Former District of Hell is beginning to get like this, centered on the residents of the Palace of Earth Spirits more than anywhere else down there. Makai, not seen for ''seven games'', is also like this but for [[Retcon|other reasons]].

* In [[Harry Potter Comics]], Rosie Weasley's neurotic indecision lands her in Hufflepuff House. Mostly to Ron's chagrin. Besides hard work, the Hufflepuff's are largely into singing about how adequate they are and putting on Christmas Pageants during Quidditch games.

* Of the nine major clans in ''[[Drowtales]]'', the Nal'Sarkoth, Illhar'dro and Jaal'Darya clans mostly fall into this, though there are indications that the Jaal'Darya may play a bigger role later on. The Nal'Sarkoth are only a partial example, since they play a large role in the ''Path to Power'' game on the site, and the Illhar'dro became much more important in chapters 33 and 34 when their home city of Nuqrah'shareh and the civil war there was focused on.

 

 

*** A distinction was made that since Ravenclaws are smart, they are also good-looking (see: statistically improbable number of temporary love interests are Ravenclaws), so Ravenclaw is the Love Interest House. Hufflepuffs, being generally shown as good-natured and friendly, are the Cannon Fodder House.

* The Second City Network parodies this in their [[YouTube]] video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Z5_wipT2o HOGWARTS: Which House Are You?].

'''Hufflepuff girl:''' I'm a Hufflepuff! }}

* In the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'', the country with the second highest number of active superheroes (after the United States, and not counting the People's Republic of China, whose "superheroes" are more akin to soldiers than to crimefighters) was Brazil. This was a well-established part of the background world, and yet no Brazilian heroes (or villains, for that matter) were ever presented with any detail past their names and what city in Brazil they protected.

* Six words: ''[[Winx Club]]'', season 3, Beta Academy. {{spoiler|Introduced as where Chimera comes from, never seen ''period''. Not the only major complaint about this season, though...}}

* ''[[Invader Zim]]'' has over a dozen alien species, planets and organisations floating around, but only humans and Irkens ever have significant time devoted to them.

* [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|Whatever mythical state]] ''[[The Simpsons]]'' takes place in has four towns/cities of note. There's Springfield, of course. Then there's Shelbyville, their rival town. Next we have Capital City, a large, modern metropolis which appears to be fairly close to Springfield and is better than it in nearly every way. And finally, there's Ogdenville, which gets mentioned fairly often but which we know next to nothing about. Our only information about the place is that Springfielders neither hate it like they do Shelbyville, nor envy it as they do Capital City.

** It's also one of the three towns which were conned into getting a monorail before Springfield was. We don't know what became of that, but considering the fate of Springfield and North Haverbrook's monorails, it probably didn't end well.

** Not to mention Australia.

* The origin of the term Third World is this trope. The first two "worlds" being the contenders of the Cold War.

* The 2010 British General Election is an illustration of this. Since the Liberal Democrats are not perceived as overly... political... (and seem to be lacking in most defining characteristics, good or bad), the electorate and media are giving serious thought to what they would be like in power, for a change.

** The daft thing being that of the two parties that formed the Lib Dems, the Liberal Party had been around hundreds of years longer than the Labour Party.

**** While some view the BNP as ridiculous, they at least enjoy some exposure due to the fact that some of their opinions do resonate with the British public.

**** To be honest, the idea that the BNP has a strong "silent majority" is just propaganda. Since the election, they have slid into oblivion. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

* All of the political parties in the US besides Republican, Democratic, and whatever third party has the current media favorite loony.

** The Progressive Party with [[Theodore Roosevelt]] behind it did beat the Republican Party one time. It didn't beat the Democrat party though.

** There is a bitter joke among American Democratic Party members to the effect that 'Green' stands for '''G'''et '''R'''epublicans '''E'''lected '''E'''very '''N'''ovemeber.

* [[Wales]] is this to the rest of Great Britain, and most of the Midwest states that make up [[Flyover Country]] are considered this to the rest of the US.

* The University of Pennsylvania recently held a campaign where each one of their four schools was assigned a corresponding Hogwarts House. Penn's Nursing School, with the smallest student body and least amount of advertising, corresponded to Hufflepuff.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Cast Filler Tropes]]

[[Category:Politics Tropes]]