At the start of each school year, new Hogwarts students place the Sorting Hat on their heads and are assigned to one of four houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Slytherin. But it may come as a surprise to hear that the Jedi sort their new members into distinct groups, too, showing Star Wars and Harry Potter have more in common than just Chosen Ones.
First appearing in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones with the Bear Clan, the Jedi Initiate clans are groups of younglings who live, learn and train together during their early years at the Jedi Temple. Similar to the Hogwarts houses, Jedi Initiate clans are a youngling's family growing up in the temple. Unlike Hogwarts, though, Jedi don't get a fancy song from a magical hat to sort them. Instead, Star Wars Legends sourcebook The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force explains that the fosterers who ran the Jedi nurseries placed Initiates in the clan best suited to their traits. While the new canon hasn't explained how exactly younglings are sorted into clans, it's safe to assume that younglings are still assigned to clans upon first arriving at the temple.
As for their options, there are more than four Jedi Initiate clans into which one might be sorted, making the Star Wars version a bit more complex than Harry Potter's. While not every Jedi Initiate clan name is known, quite a few have been mentioned in canon, including Bear Clan, which Master Yoda was training when Obi-Wan came searching for the missing planet of Kamino in Attack of the Clones; the Heliost, Thranta and Hawkbat Clans, which were introduced in Claudia Gray's canon novel Dooku: Jedi Lost. Count Dooku and his childhood best friend Sifo-Diyas grew up together in the Hawkbat Clan, while the former's Padawan, Qui-Gon Jinn, hailed from the Heliost Clan.
Jedi Initiate clans served as the first and only true foundation of "family" Jedi had due to the Jedi Code forbidding attachment. In a similar vein, the Hogwarts houses serve as the students' family during their time at Hogwarts. Lifelong bonds can form between members of their respective Jedi clans or Hogwarts houses and remain even years after leaving either. Best friends Dooku and Sifo-Diyas are a clear example of this in Star Wars, while the famous Potter trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione remained close after leaving Hogwarts.
Training and group activities were an important part of life both in the Jedi Initiate clans and in Hogwarts. Like the professors of Hogwarts, Jedi Masters would instruct the clans in the ways of the Jedi and basic lightsaber combat. Jedi clans would typically hold dueling tournaments to showcase the Initiates' skills to potential masters. The Quidditch matches of Hogwarts, though more for sport over training, brought the Hogwarts houses together in similar competition against each other. Both Jedi and wizards had to properly train and grow together in order to compete and possibly win the tournaments, with Initiates who proved themselves talented gaining favor in the eyes of potential masters looking to take on a Padawan. Hogwarts Quidditch players who won the Quidditch Cup, in comparison, brought glory to their house and could potentially play the sport professionally after Hogwarts.
There's also the matter of their weapons: lightsabers and wands. In Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 5, Episode 6, "The Gathering," Ahsoka Tano and Master Yoda take an unnamed clan of younglings to the planet Illum. Ahsoka explains that the clan is ready to take part in "The Gathering," a Jedi ritual where younglings claim their lightsaber crystals. When the members of a clan reach a certain age, they travel to the sacred planet of Illum to take part in the ritual. The way that a Jedi youngling bonds to their lightsaber crystal is even similar to how wizards in Harry Potter are chosen by their wands. No two wands, and no two lightsabers, are the same.
And just as Hogwarts students eventually graduate and go beyond the school, Jedi younglings leave their clans to become Padawans. Once a Jedi youngling became a Padawan under the tutelage of a Jedi Knight or Master, they were no longer under the jurisdiction of their clan or its teachers. Hogwarts students faced something similar as they grew up and took on their sixth year N.E.W.T. classes. Unlike prior years, N.E.W.T. class attendance was based off the O.W.L. exam results of the prior year. In this way, Jedi Initiates and Hogwarts students each move on from their original families to learn more advanced knowledge and become full-fledged adults in their respective worlds.
Jedi Initiate clans and Hogwarts houses serve as the foundation for their respective members. Everything a Jedi or wizard learns going forward stems from their house or clan, and the friendships they make and the mentors they learn from are all determined by where they are sorted. This is just one of the many similarities wizards and Jedi share, making it so that, even galaxies apart, Harry Potter and Star Wars have a shocking amount in common.
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