Non-British views on purebloods (Was: My take on the Half-blood Prince)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 106079

"ericoppen" wrote:
One thing that I haven't seen (pardon me if this has come up; my e-
mail is slightly on-the-fritz, so I'm a bit behind on this group) is 
the possibility that the Half-Blood Prince might be Viktor Krum.
 
Krum's last name itself provides a clue---it is the name of the Khan 
whose Turkic people founded the Bulgarian nation.  They were absorbed
by their Slavic-speaking subjects, but retained the name and 
continued to identify in many ways with the original, non-Slavic 
Bulgars.  
 
AFAIK modern Bulgarian names mostly sound pretty Slavic, and I don't 
think I've ever heard of a modern Bulgarian named "Krum" (however, I 
am not an expert on this, nor do I play one on TV, so I'm open to 
correction) and we know that Herself doesn't pick names at random.  
Hence, calling a Bulgarian character by the name of a half-legendary 
prince, founder of his nation, that is not used in contemporary 
Bulgaria ought to be a big fat Clue.  
 
We also know nothing about Viktor Krum's ancestry---it would be a 
hoot if he _was_ descended from Bulgarian royalty somehow, wouldn't 
it?  For that matter, we don't know that non-British wizards worry 
too much about blood purity---for all we know, they might take the 
position that "if you can cast spells/do magic, you're a wizard; if 
not, you're a (you should pardon the expression) _Muggle!_"  <snip>

Carol responds:
While I find your remarks on Bulgarian royalty intriguing and don't
want to discount the possibility that the HBP might be Viktor Krum
(despite his having no known connection to CoS), I want to mention
that the non-British wizards we've seen are all DEs who do care about
the pureblood ideology. The Lestrange brothers, who attended Hogwarts
and were part of a Slytherin (pro-pureblood?) gang, probably can't be
considered non-British, but their name suggests a recent French
origin. (As you say, JKR is generally careful about names and theirs
does not sound British.) They're definitely purebloods since Bellatrix
(Rodolphus Lestrange's wife) is still on the Black Family tapestry.
The progression from Slytherin to Voldemort supporter, especially
coupled with a marriage to Bellatrix Black by one of them and the
torturing of the Longbottoms by both of them, strongly suggests a
fanatical belief in the superiority of purebloods over Muggleborns or
half-bloods that *could* reflect the views of the French wizarding
"aristocracy" as well as those of the Slytherin faction of British
purebloods. 

The name of Antonin Dolohov, a particularly vicious Death Eater,
sounds Slavic or Russian--possibly he attended Durmstrang in his
youth. (My apologies to people who have discussed this earlier; my
point is that he appears to be a non-British advocate of Voldemort's
pureblood ideology.) Igor Karkaroff, the runaway headmaster of
Durmstrang, is almost certainly Slavic, though he seems to be Hogwarts
educated. The important point, though, is that besides teaching the
Dark Arts to his students, he didn't admit Muggleborns to Durmstrang.
(I'm not sure where the quote is--it has to be in GOF somewhere. Maybe
Geoff knows where it is.) How Karkaroff and other Durmstrang teachers
(he's the only one we've seen) feel about half-bloods (as opposed to
Muggleborns) is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty,
but it seems logical that they would oppose "mixed marriages" and view
their offspring as inferior to pureblood children. Karkaroff's
coddling of Viktor Krum doen't prove that Viktor isn't a half-blood,
but it *suggests* that, aside from being a highly gifted Quidditch
player and the Durmstrang school champion, he's probably a pureblood.

On a side note, Viktor has come away amazingly untainted by this
"pampered prince" treatment, but I'm still worried about him. He
Crucio'd Cedric after being Imperio'd by Crouch!Moody and he's been
taught the Dark Arts, apparently including the Unforgiveable Curses,
at Durmstrang. I hope he's not being set up for a fall--and I don't
mean from a broom.

BTW, if your e-mail is down, you can always access the posts on site.

Carol, who has skipped four whole days of posts in a desperate effort
to catch up at last