Half-Blood, Pureblood, Muggle-Born

[Jennifer Boggess Ramon]

No: HPFGUIDX 36020

At 2:31 AM +0000 3/3/02, saintbacchus wrote:
>Boggles:
><<
>Er, Tom Riddle and Harry for two. Hagrid and Madame Maxime
>probably count, unless the average giant can do magic.
>>>
>
>I'm pretty sure Harry is considered pure blood; I believe
>the pedegree only has to go back one generation.

That doesn't jibe either with Ron's comment that "most" wizards are 
now half-bloods, since the combination of a wizard and a Muggle isn't 
_that_ common, or Ernie Macmillan's defensive reaction to Harry in 
CoS 11, when he tells Harry that he's wizard born for "nine 
generations, and my blood's as pure as anyone's."  Riddle refers to 
Potter as a half-blood, like himself, in the Chamber itself.  So, 
clearly having Muggle grandparents is enough to be a half-blood.  I 
suspect, given Ernie's response, that the general rule for those 
wizards who care about such things is the one-eighth rule - one 
Muggle or Muggle-born great-grandparent is sufficient to make one a 
half-blood.

That would jibe with Draco's (and, by his implication, the Death 
Eaters's) not drawing a distinction between Muggles and Muggle-borns 
in GoF 9 - all Muggle blood, no wizard blood at all in either case, 
so the child of a Muggle-born witch and a pureblood wizard (Harry) is 
just as much a halfblood as the child of a pureblood witch and a 
Muggle father (Tom Riddle or Seamus).

The Malfoys themselves probably hold to the one-drop rule - any 
detectable Muggle ancestry and you're a half-blood, not a pureblood 
wizard.  However, Malfoy doesn't seem to mind associating with 
half-bloods as long as they know their place; he only asks in PS/SS 5 
whether Harry's parents were wizards, not what their full pedigrees 
were, and he seems to be, if not trying to make friends, at least 
trying to make Harry's acquaintance.

>I wasn't going to count Hagrid and Madame Maxime, but now
>that you mention it, they're halfsies of quite a different
>kind. ^_^

I'm not at all convinced that it's that different at all.  The whole 
issue of duality, of being "half-and-half" shows up over and over in 
the books - half-blood, werewolf, half-giant, double agent, Animagus 
. . . .


At 4:34 AM -0500 3/3/02, Amy Z wrote:
>Well, there are two schools of thought on this list about what constitutes a
>"halfblood": the status-of-parents school a halfblood is someone with one
>Muggle, one magical parent) and the sum-total-of-ancestors school (two
>Muggle grandparents make one a halfblood).  Harry's parents were both
>magical, unlike Seamus's and Riddle's.

Yes, but barring the "Petunia is a Squib and at least one of the 
Evanses was a wizard/witch" theories, Harry still has two Muggle 
grandparents and qualifies under the ancestors-theory.  I can't make 
the simple status-of-parents version fit either with Riddle's 
comment, Ron's, or Ernie's, above.

On the other hand, the wizarding community need have no more a 
consistent definition than we have from them now.  Perhaps to some 
wizards, simply being on magical parentage on both sides is enough, 
while others hold to the one-drop rule, and others keep to seven or 
nine generations.  That would be in keeping with some of the 
arguments about who is or isn't black or Native American in the 
Muggle world; why should the wizards be more consistent?


-- 
  - Boggles, aka J. C. B. Ramon			boggles at earthlink.net
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