[HPforGrownups] Lily and james house, and the word mudblood

[Laura Ingalls Huntley]

No: HPFGUIDX 41775

Annechan:
>About Lily and James's house, I think they're both Gryffindor, but there's
>nothing that really proves it. And I'm seriously doubting that during
>the same year (Lily and James' last year), the whole staff would let
>Gryffindor take every important position. Dumbledore was a Gryffindor
>headmaster, and with the head boy as James and the head girl as Lily, who were both Gryffindors too.... Is there a rule >about not letting both head girl and
head boy be from the same house? 

Why should there be?  I mean, I guess it would be more..fair, in some ways, but in other ways -- it would be really unfair, wouldn't it?  If you were the best female student in the school, but then the best male student was also in your house -- who would get kicked out of being Head Boy/Girl?? I mean, I *am* assuming that the Head Boy distinction is based on mostly academic merit -- but if two people in the same house have worked the hardest and *deserve* to be Head Boy and Girl -- why should someone less qualified get the position just for the sake of diversifing?  *That*, IMO, would be unforgivably unfair.  


Annechan:
>So if Lily was a Gryffindor, and James a Slytherin, it could explain why
>they can both be head students. Snape could hate James, because he was a
>Slytherin who was friends with a Gryffindor.

Lily and James were both in Gryffindor. I'm too lazy to find the articles myself, but the Lexicon (and it's usually safe to assume that the research done for the Lexicon is immpecable) lists James and Lily (and Hagrid) as Gryffindor alumni.  This information is attributed to a Scholastic interview...in which I *think* JKR is asked which house Lily and James are in and JKR says something like "Gryffindor, naturally."

Also in an interview, JKR tells us that James was the Gryffindor Chaser in his day (although this position is changed to Seeker in the CTWMNBN). 




Annechan:
>But it's also possible that Lily was not as old as James (and therefore not
>included in the Marauders' gang)... And so they could both 
>be head students at Gryffindor but not the same year.  

*If* they were not in the same year -- which, personally, I don't believe -- I think I would assume that Lily is older than James.  Not really sure why, actually -- just a hunch.


Annechan:
>A point about the word "mudblood"... Is there a polite equivalent to
>that word? I mean, "nigger" is not a really polite word, and you can't
>use it to say "my friend is a nigger, we're going to Africa next week in
>order to visit his other friends-niggers."

^_~ I believe the correct term is "muggle-born".


Annechan:
>And what about Voldemort's priority? Is it better to be a "mudblood" or
>to be "muggle"? How many generations do you have to have behind you to be
>called a "pure" wizard? 


Who knows?  I'm sure some people take the whole "one-drop" approach -- and others might only have a problem with wizards born *directly* from Muggles (Hermione).  Of course, Voldemort himself isn't "pure" at all -- he's a halfblood in the literal sense. But he also refers to *Harry* as a half-blood as well -- although *technically* he would only be -- um...I don't know.  Half of his grandparents *were* muggles, you see...Hmmm.  It's sort of hard to quantify (the way the Nazis did with race) because of the Hermione and Lily factors...Wizards coming from two muggles.

laura


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