ELkins#8&9 / wizarding lifespan&fertility /

Mon Dec 9 06:05:17 UTC 2002

No: HPFGUIDX 47984

Elkins wrote:

<< Sort of like 'taking someone out behind the chemical sheds,' I 
guess. >>

Should I have recognized that expression? (Altho' I think I get the 
idea from your usage.)

<< Yet Voldemort truly does seem to trust him. So what convinced him 
that Crouch Jr. really was so utterly and unquestioningly devoted to 
his service?" (snip) "Yeah, Crouch Jr. had his father screaming and 
writhing down there on the floor, all right," >>

A horrible thought in connection with the recent discussion that 
Dumbledore has persuaded Snape that Snape will win his way back 
into Voldemort's trust by bringing him Dumblehead's head on a platter 
(CHOP: Cranium of Headmaster On a Platter).

<< I mean, is there any reason that we should assume that Winky was 
*not* sharing his bed?">>

Because House Elves are *ugly*.

Oh, you argue that only Muggle-raised folk think so.

<< I mean, you have to figure, don't you, that the elves probably 
fill the Nanny role in those households? >>

I don't figure anything of the kind, primarily because there is 
nothing of the kind in the tradition of house elves, brownies, 
dobbies, all those names: they do the *housework*, sometimes even 
cooking, sometime shoe-making, during the night, *unseen* by the 
humans of the household. And the House Elves of Hogwarts do their 
work sufficiently unseen by the humans there that Hermione would 
never have learned their were House Elves at Hogwarts if Hearly 
Headless Nick hadn't *told* her.

In addition, there *is* a matter of size: it wouldn't be long before 
a human child was too big for a House Elf to pick up and cradle in 
its arms. I believe that families rich enough to have House Elves are 
rich enough to hire grandmotherly witches as nannies.

<< One final reason for thinking that perhaps Crouch Sr. wasn't the 
model of fidelity to his late wife's memory -- or indeed, that 
perhaps he had *never* been much of a model of marital fidelity." >>

Oh, Merlin's ba-beard! Those Crouches are in a social class where 
sexual fidelity in marriage *doesn't matter*, as long as the wife 
doesn't bring in any wrong-fathered offspring or be caught with a 
low-class lover! If Mrs Crouch whined and threw things just because 
her husband had affairs, she was even more manipulative and coercive 
and all that than I had thought when she was depicted coercing him 
into rescuing Junior.

<< The ones who get down in the trenches of the actual day-to-day 
dirty work of mothering, whose sacrifices entail *living* for their 
children, rather than just dying for them. *That* role," says Elkins. 
"Is filled by the house elves. Who are grotesque and faintly 
ludicrous. >>

Whose role was being filled by JKR herself at the time she wrote 
Book 1 and envisioned the whole plot of the septology.

<< an adult with no children and a rather marked (some might even say 
pathological)aversion to domestic activities, >> like me << often 
finds herself wondering to what extent she might suffer from a bad 
case of internalized misogyny >> 

How can it possibly be misogyny for a woman to refuse to do loathsome 
and unpleasant slave labor, which no one really wants to do (no woman 
who can afford to hire servants chooses to do the hideous slave labor 
herself rather than hiring servants, except Barbara Ehrenreich), and 
which is traditionally assigned to women only because women have 
traditionally been kept in the position of slaves. It's misogyny for 
men to refuse to do it and stick the women with it, and I suppose 
Barbara Ehrenreich is right that it's racism for women with money to 
hire uneducated illegal immigrants to do it, but I'm pretty sure that 
the Barbara Ehrenreich position is misogyny directed at herself: It 
is wrong for me to evade suffering, because I am a woman and it is 
woman's duty to suffer.  

chthonia9 wrote:

<< It appears that in their youth, (up to their 30s - Sirius, Snape 
etc), wizards age similarly to Muggles." >>

ats_fhc3 <the.gremlin at v...> replied: 

<< Actually, it's been discussed, a long time ago, that the reason 
why Snape, Sirius, Lupin, and Peter look older than they really are, 
is because in their short lives, they have been through so much 
stress and tragedy and grief.   >>

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/41510

which I copy here out of sheer niceness:

<< I am a *bad Catlady* for forgetting to include this in my previous 
post.

I have mentioned before my theory of wizarding age, according to 
which wizarding folk age the same as Muggles until age 20 (nice round 
number) or 21 (magically important number) and then half the rate of 
Muggles.

I mentioned it on FictionAlley Park and the extraordinarily brilliant 
and insightful Minerva McTabby explained her theory, which is harder 
to compute than mine but seems more accurate:

Minerva McTabby wrote:

<< wizarding folk mature the same as Muggles until their mid-20s. 
>From then, they age at one-third the rate of Muggles until around 
the age of 100. After that, they age at half the rate of Muggles. 
And it's as rare for wizard folk to reach the age of 200 as it is 
for Muggles to reach 100. >>

My examples and her examples:

mine: Dumbledore in Cos flashback = 100 // 100 - 20 = 80. 
// 80 / 2 = 40. // 40 + 20 = 60. // Dumbledore as auburn-haired 
Transfiguation professor appeared to be 60 to a Muggle. 

hers: Albus Dumbledore in the diary in CoS, aged 100. 
100 - 25 = 75 
75 / 3 = 25 
25 + 25 = 50 
He appears around 50 to Harry through Tom's memories. 

mine: Dumbledore at 150. // 150 - 20 = 130 // 130 / 2 = 65. 
//65 + 20 = 85.

hers: Dumbledore, aged 150 - if he's been aging at half the Muggle 
rate for the past 50 years, that adds 25 years to his appearance in 
the 1940s flashback, making him look about 75 in canon. 

mine: McGonagall = 70. // 70 - 20 = 50. // 50 / 2 = 25. 
// 25 + 20 = 45. // McGonagall appears to be 45 to a Muggle, 
therefore casting Maggie Smith requires willing suspension of 
disbelief. 

hers: McGonagall, aged 70. 
70 - 25 = 45 
45 / 3 = 15 
15 + 25 = 40 
Fits in with image of McG in the drawings by JKR. >>

The drawings by JKR are in this Y!Group's PHOTOS section, 
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/lst with the label 
"Harry Potter and Me"

The "previous post" is 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/41509 
subject: Re: wizard education/birth dearth, baby boom/inheriting magic

ats_fhc3 <the.gremlin at v...> continued:

<< However, the families we have seen pretty much only have one 
child. >>

Only one child AT A TIME. My calculations give me the idea that 
witches might well have the change of life around age 70, maybe 
even 80, and Minerva's give me the idea that witches might have the 
change of life closer to 90 than 80.

If a woman had her first child at age 25 and her second at age 50 and 
her third at age 75, she would likely never have two children living 
at home at the same time, never mind being Hogwarts students at the 
same time.

Sseriously overstressed TBAY Eileen wrote:

<< Who invented Dead Sexy Mrs. Lestrange? >>

JKR. That dark-haired woman who sits in the loathsome witness as if 
it were a throne IS dead sexy. I had noticed it (and gotten the 
feeling that schoolboy Severus have therefore been kind of scared of 
his schoolgirl friend, but certainty not willing to admit that to 
anyone, especially himself).

Eileen, I read all this post and I admired the way you expressed 
yourself, but I also groaned at the thought that if the TBAYers are 
going to make me read the SAME TRANSCRIPTS over and over in order to 
look for little changes that express their opinions, I will NEVER get 
to bed tonight, sort of like I never got to bed last night,  except 
that I have to go to work tomorrow!