Book Two Discoveries!

[antoshachekhonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 119124


Jim Ferer:
> JKR should have said "descendant."  The Heir of Gryffindor concept has
> been popular for a long time.  The Sword of Gryffindor is just one of
> the items that suggest it; the red and gold sparks that Harry shot out
> of his soon-to-be wand is another.
> 
> There's no proof for it, but the arguments are persuasive; but I've
> always had a problem with the theory on general principles. The wizard
> world intermarries a lot, and by averages there should be Heirs of
> Gryffindor all over the place.   You'd expect you could find, after a
> thousand years, people who were heirs of all four Founders at once. 
> Our world, the Muggle world, is a world where Ronald Reagan and Jimmy
> Carter were sixth cousins.  We're all more closely related than we think.
> 
> Even with the "intellectual" problems with it, I wouldn't be surprised
> whatsoever if the Heir of Gryffindor theory turned out true. 
> 
> Jim Ferer

Antosha:

I'm leery of the 'Heir of Gryffindor vs. Heir of Slytherin" setup mostly because it seems 
very... I don't know... unsubtle and schematic. White Hat vs. Black Hat. The world JKR is 
building up seems to beg more moral complexity than that.

I do want to point out, however, that while the WW may be (literally) littered with 
DESCENDANTS of the Founders, each would have at most a single HEIR. In the same way, 
Queen Victoria has many living descendants,  peers and royals all. But only one of them 
currently sits on the throne of England. Elizabeth II is Victoria's sole heir.

In CoS, it is made clear that Tom Riddle is not only Salazar Slytherin's HEIR, he is SS's only 
remaining DESCENDANT, which is pretty wild. Not terribly good breeding stock, that 
family. Though, given their disposition, this is perhaps not terribly surprising.