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How often are the Houses' symbols mentioned in the books?

Scanning the internet for quotes from the first three books, that have the words "Badger" and "Eagle", the only mention of either animal, in a context related to the Hogwarts Houses, seems to be in The Philosopher's Stone, when Harry gets the letter with Hogwarts' seal.

Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter 'H'.

I'm quite sure that the Gryffindor lion and Slytherin snake are mentioned relatively often, but what about the other two Houses? Are they mentioned at least once a book (so their symbolic animals stay in reader's minds) or are fans reliant on having to go back to the first book to confirm?

Or is it like Dumbledore's glasses, which I asked about in this earlier question, which seem to have its gold frames, mentioned just once, in the first book, by implication, not in a direct statement.

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  • How do you want to count this? Any mention of the symbols? Only mentions where they are specified as the symbols? Mentions of any individual symbol? Only mentions of all of them? Etc.
    – Alex
    Apr 5, 2020 at 1:28
  • @Alex - I expanded the question to be more precise about what I'm asking... ... Mainly a Hufflepuff + Ravenclaw focus.
    – Malady
    Apr 5, 2020 at 3:12
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    This all seems pretty clear to me
    – Valorum
    Apr 5, 2020 at 9:05
  • Whilst clear this is slightly broad in my opinion. A question per House would make more sense to me.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Apr 5, 2020 at 10:11
  • 2
    @TheLethalCarrot - Not really necessary.
    – Valorum
    Apr 5, 2020 at 10:15

1 Answer 1

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I have tabulated every mention of the Lion, Eagle, Badger and Snake/Serpent in the context of their respective house symbols at Hogwarts (Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin) or where used as the personal symbols of one of the four Founders.

I have excluded mentions of snakes and serpents used solely in the context of Voldermort's 'dark mark' or as general adornments to objects owned by the evil (baths, doorhandles, etc)

In short, all of the house emblems are explicitly referenced in the first book, then periodically mentioned throughout the book series. Slytherin's serpent gets the most overall mentions (eighteen, and appearances in every book) Gryffindor's lion comes second (fifteen, mentioned in every book bar one), Ravenclaw's eagle (thirteen mentions, but a big concentration of references in one book, otherwise it would be at the bottom of the pile and not mentioned in three books), followed by Hufflepuff's badger (six, and not mentioned in three books).

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For those who're interested in that sort of thing, I've uploaded the raw quotes here. Please feel free to point out all of the ones that I've missed in the comments below.

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  • So, I was right-ish. If you forgot about the other houses, you'd likely need to go to another book. ... Maybe add some commentary on the data? No reason to not give this the green ✔, but I'll wait the usual time.
    – Malady
    Apr 5, 2020 at 11:13

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