Can you solve the sorting hat riddle? - Dan Katz and Alex Rosenthal

An albatross delivered your invitation, you’ve acquired your wand,

ridden the enchanted zeppelin, made some fast friends,

and are finally ready for the adventure you’ve dreamed of your entire life:

your first day at Magnificent Marigold’s Magical Macademy.

But before you can learn your first spell

you must get through the most nerve-wracking moment of the year:

the sorting ceremony.

When you put on the sorting hat, you hear a voice.

“Ah, you’re an interesting one.

Every year I choose one student for a special challenge, and I choose you.

The Magical Macademy had 8 founders,

and they established our four houses two by two by two by two.

I alone know which witches founded which.

But there was once a mysterious fifth house,

lost to time but full of secrets and powerful artifacts.

MMMMMM?

If you can tell me who founded each house, I’ll sort you into whichever you want.

However, if you can also tell me the name of the secret 5th house,

I’ll let you sort into it,

and you’ll inherit everything you discover.

“The two founders of each house wore different colored hats

with non-matching symbols.

No founder started more than one house.

Of Funflame and Imaginez, one was a founder of Gianteye

and the other of Longmous.

And of Miraculo and Rimbleby,

one established Longmous and the other Meramaid.

Finally, Septimus didn’t found Vidopnir.”

So… who founded what, and what’s the name of the secret house?

Pause the video now to figure it out for yourself!

Answer in 3

Answer in 2

Answer in 1

The hardest part of solving this logic puzzle is knowing where to start.

No rule by itself is enough to assign a founder to his or her house,

so the next best thing

would be to combine a pair of rules to learn something.

4 and 5 are good candidates to try that with,

because they contain a lot of constraints and both mention Longmous.

Miraculo and Rimbleby’s hats both have moons,

which means that no matter who ends up in Longmous,

moons will be accounted for.

That means Imaginez, who also has moons, can’t have founded Longmous,

so she’s in Gianteye and Funflame founded Longmous.

Miraculo’s hat is red, so he can’t be there,

so he must be in Meramaid and Rimbleby in Longmous.

Halfway there!

Now we can place Septimus––

rule 6 keeps him out of Vidopnir, and his yellow hat out of Gianteye,

so he must be in Meramaid.

Of the founders left, Deepmire and Hypnotum both have stars.

So each must go into a different house,

taking up the remaining space in Gianteye and leaving one spot open in Vidopnir,

which Tremenda must fill.

Tremenda’s blue hat keeps Deepmire out of Vidopnir,

so we can easily place her and, finally, Hypnotum.

Now that those founders are sorted,

we can start to search for the secret house.

If you don’t have it yet, here are a few hints:

Pause the video now if you want to figure it out yourself!

One good strategy for a puzzle like this

is to look for patterns or unusual pieces of information.

First of all, there’s the school’s obsession with the letter M,

right down to its motto, which translates from Latin to “M is a magic letter.”

Curiously, every founder has exactly one M in their name,

and each M is in a different position.

That means that the M’s can put them in order, 1 through 8.

We know we needed to solve the logic puzzle before finding the secret house,

so there must be something critical

about the connection between the founders and their houses.

Here’s where a pattern emerges: every founder and house

have exactly the same number of letters.

This allows the founders to line up with their houses quite nicely.

The first letters don’t spell anything,

but let’s look at the M’s in the names again and the letters they line up with:

M, I, N, O, T, A, U, R.

You shout out “MINOTAUR” to a stunned dining hall,

and a secret passage grinds open.

The wonders of house Minotaur are yours if you want them.

But being the first and only resident of the secret house

would come at a high price: loneliness.

So which will it be: riches or friendship?