halfbloods? Truth vs Beliefs

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 93068

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "astratrf" <astratrf at a...> wrote:

> 
> Now me (Astra, who hopes she's doing this right!):
> Is there, anywhere in the books, movies or interviews with JKR, a 
> better way of defining magical parentage than just pureblood, 
> half-blood or muggleborn?  Riddle's parents were  a witch and a 
> muggle; Harry's were both wizard folk, though his mother was 
> muggleborn.  I would think there would/should be a separate 
> term to reflect this difference. Of course, to the elitist, anything
> but pureblood is "second-class", but we're mostly reasonable folk 
> here, yes?   Maybe we could create our own terms where they would be 
> helpful.  ...
> -Astra

bboy_mn:

First purity of blood is in the eye of the beholder. To some, I
speculate, if you have 5 generations of pure blood, you are a
pureblood, to others it takes 10 generations, to others still, any
muggle blood in your direct lineage and you are scum.

Harry is a fullblood, but not a pureblood. Both Harry's parents are
magical, which means he is a full blooded magical person, but he does
not have a long lineage of ALL full blooded magical people, and is
therefore, not a pureblood. 

But by other standards, he is the son of a muggle-born and that makes
him half muggle.

By another standard still, you are either magical or you are not. If
you are a truly magical person, then by virtue of that fact, you are a
full-blooded magical person regardless of ancestry. That is to say,
there is no way to be half magic; you're either magic or you aren't.

Which one is true? Well, truth is in the eye of the beholder. They are
all true based on the belief system of the individual who is defining
truth at any given moment. 

The reason we have certain inconsistencies in the
pureblood/half-blood/muggle-blood debate is that it is indeed a belief
system and not an absolute fact. In other words, how you are viewed by
any given person is not so much based on your manor of birth, but on
that purson's beliefs.

Restated ad nausium, in one person's view, Harry is a full-blood, to
another, he is a half-blood, and to a the next, he is a scum-blood.
There is no absolute truth in this matter.

A final note on the Sorting Hat, I'm not so sure the Sorting Hat
reflect any prejudice. Given that there is evidence or at least
indicators that non-purebloods, by some definition, do get into
Slythrin House, I have to believe that the Sorting Hat makes
judgements base more on conscious and sub-conscious personality traits
that on ancestry.

Of course, that's just a thought.

bboy_mn