Also, and this is just an aside, but “the protagonist who is too special for the sorting hat” is a bit of a trope in young adult literature at this point. Is this the first real instance of it? 1957. That’s a while ago! I don’t even know if the “sorting hat” trope was established enough to subvert at the time.
"Fans are slans."
I’m willing to believe the phrase “trope” wasn’t invented in 1957 if that’s what you are saying. But surely they had the idea of popular little trends in contemporary literature.
The must have known they were writing pulp sci-fi. At least when they got their copies they could feel the texture!
Nope. Just within science fiction, early issues of Galaxy had many editorials denouncing/mocking science fiction stories with overused tropes, such as Western transposed to space, or babies being killed as aberrant after a nuclear war because they have ten fingers and toe.