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sortinghatchats · 4 years

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Sorting The Get Down

For those who are new to the sortinghatchats system, check out our basics post. But to sum it up: the way we play this game, your “primary” House is WHY you do things and your “secondary” House is HOW.

We just really like defining our terms, okay. It makes us happy.

“If making something of myself means losing myself, then what am I making?”

Ezekiel “Zeke” “Books” Figuero.

For someone who appears so pulled between two people– Shao and Mylene– it seems like Zeke ought to be a loyalist house like Hufflepuff or Slytherin. However, despite the existence of these two pretty faces, it’s not the people who Zeke is torn between-- the story. He's torn between the realities that Mylene and Shao respectively adhere to. Shao believes in the music; Mylene believes in more practical things.

Tellingly, when Zeke brings up how he feels pulled apart, it’s more often “Mylene/Shao was right” rather than anything about what they mean to him. The thing that most drives his decisions and his desires is what he thinks is true, real, and right. Who he loves plays second fiddle to what he believes.

Zeke’s a Gryffindor primary, and a “burned” one, who wants very badly to be sure, to act and not regret, but who continually doubts his own instincts and ambitions. Throughout the series, Zeke tries to borrow the surety of the people around him who he trusts– primarily Mylene and Shao, but occasionally others.

Mylene and her uncle believe (and try to convince Zeke) that if you play the game, you can come out on top– do well in school, take the internship, nod and smile and dance when you need to. The world is not exactly fair, but it’s winnable. Zeke tries to live in their world, but the dishonesty he feels it requires rankles him to his very Gryffindor core.

Zeke is a Gryffindor secondary, as well as a primary, and it’s this secondary that makes even minor deceit so unappealing to him. Zeke is honest, blunt, and–when he’s “on”–blazingly inspirational to the people around him. Whether Shao, who would follow Zeke into a burning building, or the crowds that flock to his words, Zeke is a poet who hands people a part of himself and changes them in the giving.

That’s what burns in the poem his teacher tries to get him to read. That’s what first brings him to Shao’s attention, spitting words at him even with a knife to his throat. That’s what gets Zeke the internship, after his tardiness– waiting in the lobby, refusing to be moved, and his direct, unapologetic words to Mr. Gunns. It’s also what loses him the position, when he finds he can no longer stomach it. Finally and fully fed up, he tries believing in Shao’s reality instead for awhile– quitting the firm, leaving his aunt’s home. When Zeke believes something, however briefly, he goes all in.

Amusingly, if Shao had gotten Zeke’s opportunity there– interning in Manhattan– and believed it was real, he could have done it. Zeke’s Gryffindor Secondary wouldn’t let him live the lie, or the game– look at his final speech to Mr. Gunns. But Shao would have done it, Hufflepuff Secondary grinding away, if someone had convinced him it was real and given him that chance. But that’s not the story Shao believes in– and no one was ever going to give Shao that type of chance.

Shao believes in the music, the art, the word. The Get Down matters to him and when Zeke’s in his orbit he sees what Shao sees– the power of creation, emotion, and freedom at their fingertips.

“When I get up on stage and say what I gotta say, I know who I am, and right now y’all are pushing me to be who you want me to be and nobody’s asking what I wanna be.” - Zeke

But in the finale, Zeke finally breaks from Shao’s reality as well. It’s not that he doubts Shao’s affection, loyalty, or talent– Zeke, upon Boo-boo’s arrest, finally and fully loses faith in Shao’s world and the “story” his friend tells. Despite his promises to Shao about family and brotherhood, Zeke can walk away from him with an angry set of his shoulders and his head held high. Shao is living in what Zeke sees as a damaging fantasy, and no loyalty or love will bind Zeke into going down with him.

Zeke, who begins the story as a burned Gryffindor, unmoored, grows into a man who wants to hope. He is looking for a way out and up and he is offered two of them– the internship through Mylene’s uncle, and Shao’s Get Down.

“See, downtown, at my internship, or at Yale, I’m the lucky orphan child whose fate depends on being one of the good negroes, and never losing my cool or saying what I actually think, or, God forbid, being me. On the mic, I’m the master of my destiny. And I love it.” - Zeke

In the end, Zeke arguably choose a middling path: a top-tier college acceptance earned not through connections and handshakes, but through the strength and honesty of his essay about the Get Down, the streets, and Shao. Whatever else they have left between them, that is something Shao gave him– the certainty that the words matter– and something that Mylene gave him– forcing him to admit he wanted out.

Awkward, careful, and earnest, with a mind that goes a mile a minute, Ra-ra is a Gryffindor Primary who hasn’t, until the end of the series, found a path that yanks properly at his heartstrings. Meeting the Zulus was a transformative experience for him– finally finding someone else putting into words something that resonates with his emotional and generous moral instincts. He is delighted and immediately invested. Ra-ra doesn’t have Zeke’s “burned” quiet desperation, but he’s been unmoored and undirected and now he’s found something to believe in.

His Ravenclaw secondary keeps him upright, making him the planner of the group, giving him a way to focus his frenetic energy, and leaving him freaked out by spontaneity. Ra-ra tries to communicate through concepts he already knows– like when he uses the Force to convince the Zulus to ally with them. In his hands, working with what he already knows is what works best.

His secondary sets him apart from the reactive, spontaneous kids who make up the rest of the Get Down Brothers. He and Shao alone among them aren’t flexible Slytherin secondaries or formidable Gryffindor secondaries– it makes sense that they’re the ones who go to Annie’s with the plan,

Boo-boo, in contrast, doesn’t mind making it up as he goes along. A very young Slytherin/Slytherin, he goes after what he wants and feels guiltless about what he might have to do to get there.

The baby of the family and too comfortable to have seen many real consequences come his way, the first time anything really stops Boo-boo in his tracks is when Dizzee almost dies on stage. Boo-boo is briefly shocked right back into his priorities– his brother, not money or fame or pretty girls. He sits scribbling by Dizzee’s bedside until his big brother feels better enough to stand.

I’m very curious who this kid would have grown up to be (Season 2 where are you). His priorities, when it really comes down to it, are himself and the people he loves– unlike Shao, our other Slytherin, and one with a lot less self-love, whose priorities are only the people he loves, not ever himself.

In turns terrified, furious, and numb, Shao is a Slytherin who’s spent his life abandoned, used, abused, and betrayed. It’s unsurprising and entirely sensible that he’d end up a “burned” Slytherin– a Slytherin primary who tries hard to love no one, fearing the kind of hurt that comes from caring and losing. In the empty, burned-out places his Slytherin’s loyalties should lie, Shao has built himself a Gryffindor model– it is this model that drives most of his actions, lighting the fire beneath his art– first his tagging, and then his DJing. These things matter because they matter, and Shao values a fearless, emotional, all-in investment to his dreams.

Under the shout of Shao’s Gryffindor model and the aching murmur of his burned Slytherin, Shao’s Hufflepuff Secondary is what actually gets the work done. When he wants something or values something, he puts his nose to the grindstone and just does what needs to happen– whether surviving Annie’s industry, working his way up to earn Flash’s respect and mentorship, and learning the DJ trade. The kid doesn’t seem to sleep– and it’s one of the things that in parts baffles, delights, and enrages him about Zeke, who can create and inspire where Shao just grinds away until something beautiful happens. Zeke’s Gryffindor Secondary, charismatic, blunt, and arresting, seems like magic to Shao.

Similarly, Shao’s Gryffindor primary model sees a kindred spirit in Zeke, whose Gryffindor Primary keeps flirting with the idea of not being burnt and maybe believing in things outside just the practical. Shao, who clings to the surety and fire of his model, can’t understand how Zeke can stand wavering and splitting his attention. For Shao, his Gryffindor model is a comfort and a guiding light. If music is the answer, then it’s the answer. But Zeke, who is at times alternately caught up in Shao’s world of art, music, and brotherhood or pulled toward the practicalities and worldly ambitions of Manhattan and Mylene’s dreams, doesn’t believe that the way Shao thinks he should.

Complicating that is Shao’s slowly warming Slytherin– Zeke tells him they’re family and Shao starts to believe him, something that only makes Shao more confused about Zeke’s shifting priorities as the kid painstakingly makes up his heart and mind. On the surface, these two look similar– Gryffindors in love with the music– but when shit really hits the fan it’s not why either of them are here.

Shao lives in his Gryffindor model so well he at time almost seems to really be one. The importance of the Get Down to him borders on religious, obsessive, and transcendent. It’s at the heart of his motivations for the majority of the plot, and is one of the main ways he bonds with burned Gryffindor Zeke. They love the music, they value the art, and it lights them both up in ways they’ve rarely experienced in their lives and that they treasure now. Even as his clenched-fist heart slowly unspools for Zeke and the brothers, most of the time Shao’s Gryffindor is still the loudest thing in the room. The music is so vital to who Shao is that it obfuscates his true sorting for much of the story.

But when Annie came to threaten Shao in the finale, she didn’t use the music. She didn’t even threaten his life. She threatened his family and, even abandoned, even with Zeke’s angry words ringing in his ears, Shao caves in a heartbeat for the sake of his brothers.

“If you’re an alien, you’ve got to be an alien.”

Dizzee shares Zeke’s primary, a burned Gryffindor, who holds himself back from being his whole and true self. Like Zeke, who has been repressing his ambitions in a hopeless world, Dizzee has been repressing a part of himself. As a Gryffindor who runs on his faith in himself and his instincts, feeling unwelcome and alien in his world hurts Dizzee just as the unfairnesses of Zeke’s childhood losses have hurt Zeke’s trust in the world and in himself.

Dizzee’s avatar of Rumi highlights Dizzee’s feelings of exclusion and danger–he is the alien in a top hat, who is always dressed for an opera but knows they will never let him in the door, who knows they are afraid of him and will kill him for that fear.

Both of their paths are one of turmoil, healing, and acceptance of themselves in worlds that have never made space for them. Zeke found himself pulled between Mylene and Shao’s worlds, looking for a place he could feel like he belonged. Eventually, Zeke forged a path that didn’t follow either of their dreams for him– his story is one of a Gryffindor learning once again to trust himself. Similarly, after his near death experience, Dizzee realizes it’s time to stop denying he’s an “alien” and sets out to live his life unfettered by all the things he thought he was supposed to pretend to be. He’s at his brightest in the painting scene with Thor– he is an alien! he’s ready for his first opera!

While quiet for a “classic” Gryffindor secondary (Zeke, who can whip out a speech that stops the hearts of everyone who hears it, is a more classic example), Dizzee shares that secondary’s need to “live” their beliefs and their inspirational, sometimes-otherworldly shine. His “shouting” comes in the form of his tagging– as he says, Mayor Koch will know his name when the train goes by.

A Ravenclaw Primary, Mylene asks her mother, her uncle, Jackie, her agent, etc, for advice and life lessons but only takes on the lessons that she weighs and agrees with. She’s certain, but she thinks, first, and she will follow her own decisions even when they disagree with what her heart wants most. Yolanda tells her it might be unkind to ask Zeke to wait for her, so she considers that notion, finds it valid, and brings it up to discuss to him. She takes carefully into account the opinions, facts, and beliefs of the people around her and applies them to her life as she finds right. Less instinctive than Gryffindor Zeke, once she’s devoted to a cause or a dream she is just as immovable.

Mylene is at her best when she is doing something she loves. It is her rendition of her adored Misty Holloway’s number that first sets her on the road to greatness. A Hufflepuff secondary, her persistence, compassion, and loyal connections build her success throughout the series. She changes Jackie’s life during that first recording session, refusing to give up or back away, demanding his best with a delightfully Puff mix of patience, compassion, and stubbornness.

Similarly, the culmination of her power in the story is the scene in the producer’s office where she threatens to walk away and forces him to cave. Not only has she finally come to terms with her value and her talent, but she also knows that if she walks so will all the people in the room who have come to believe in her– for her. Her power comes from her own work and dedication, but also from the respect she garners from those who cross her path.

While Zeke is trying to come to terms with who he is and what he wants, Mylene is learning to trust her own value. A Ravenclaw who considers the facts in front of her carefully, her validation comes from outside– Jackie’s assessments, her successes, Zeke’s faith, writing “I am the One” with Jackie’s friends in the hotel room. However, once that value has been communicated to her– and once she’s been convinced– it is an unwavering truth for her. Whether performing after Misty’s impromtu show, in front of her father’s horrified face, or nearly walking out of the producer’s office, she comes to know her own worth and that certainty gives her world-changing power.

Mylene’s uncle is a Slytherin Primary, like Shao, devoted to his family loved ones even when they can’t or don’t love him back– his brother, Mylene’s mother, and Mylene, who does not know he’s truly her father. He’s content, in his way, to serve, support, and adore them from the sidelines. His devotion is unwavering and he expects little from them in return.

His Slytherin primary’s loyalties are widespread and deeply driven. Mylene and her family are closest to his heart, but he’s genuinely taken the whole of his part of the Bronx under his wing. Some of this comes from his enjoyment of power, authority, and respect, but his affection and loyalty to “his people” is strong and true.

While he’d love to see himself as a Hufflepuff secondary, working through respect, reputation, and connections, those attempts often fall through for him. What he is a clever and flexible opportunist– a Slytherin Secondary who’s happy to transform and step up to any situation in his path. He embodies the same house combo as Boo-boo, but is far older and more experienced, with far more selfless ambitions and wider, steadying responsibilities.

tl;dr

Ezekiel “Books” Figuero - Burned Gryffindor Primary/Gryffindor Secondary“Dizzee” Kipling - Burned Gryffindor Primary/Gryffindor Secondary“Ra-ra” Kipling - Gryffindor Primary/Ravenclaw Secondary“Boo-boo” Kipling - Slytherin Primary/Slytherin SecondaryFrancisco Cruz - Slytherin Primary/Slytherin Secondary Mylene Cruz - Ravenclaw Primary/Hufflepuff SecondaryShaolin Fantastic - Burned Slytherin Primary/Hufflepuff Secondary

#sortinghatchats #sorting hat chats #the get down

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