Blood vs Heritage (was: Voldemort & muggle hating)

[Linda]

No: HPFGUIDX 60800



> bboy_mn:
> 
> Well, I guess maybe I'm just splitting hairs, but while Harry 
isn't a
> Pureblood, he is a FULL blood.

               <snip, snip, snip>


 The distinction that has to be made
> is between a person and his heritage. Harry is a full blooded 
magical
> person (son of a witch and wizard), but has muggle heritage. 
Seamus is
> a half blooded magical person (now more confusion) who is all 
magical;
> that is, he is fully capable magical person.


 Me(Linda):

      Actually, this subject has never really confused me. Let's 
forget about the WW for a minute and focus on us muggles.

      The USA has been called a melting pot. We are a nation of 
immigrants. Few Americans whose families have lived in the US for 
more than two or three generations have a "pure" heritage. Certainly 
examples can be found, but it is becoming rarer and rarer with each 
succeding generation. My grandparents had to elope in 1928 because 
their parents wouldn't allow the marriage. My grandmother 
was "purely" of French/Canadian descent(two generations removed) and 
my grandfather was half French/Canadian and half German. Doesn't 
seem to be a big deal by today's standards does it? My mother-in-
law, on the other hand is "pure blood" Italian. She came to the US 
from Italy with her father when she was five years old. However, see 
how quickly the "pure" bloodline disappears. My husband's father was 
half Greek and half Italian. After one generation that blood line is 
already divided into two seperate heritages. I'm not even going to 
go into my kids as there are a couple more ancestral nationalities 
on my mothers side, but suffice to say that they are truely multi-
national in their ancestry.

      Now, I realize that the muggle/wizard situation is not nearly 
that complicated at the onset. We only have two groups: muggles and 
magic. The complications arise once you start to factor in the 
amount of times unions have taken place between the two. I think 
this was the whole point. It depends on the character's pov. To 
Lucius Malfoy and the others that hold his views, a half-blood is 
anyone who can trace their ancestry to a muggle at any point in 
their family's past generations. That pretty much means most of the 
WW as the books are written. Additionally, to those who are even 
more extreme in their views, if a witch/wizard is born to two muggle 
parents they are still a muggle-no matter how powerful their magical 
talents may be. To the more enlightened of the WW a half-blood is a 
wizard who has one muggle parent and one wizard parent. Period. End 
of discussion as far as they are concerned.

     IMO, by having different characters refer to the same character 
in different ways, JKR is trying to make a point. Prejudice, and the 
terminology that goes with it, is illogical and therefore 
impractical at best.

     I don't know if I made it more confusing or helped clear some 
of the clouds away but I hope I helped at least a little.


  -Linda