[HPforGrownups] Re: Spinner's End

[Kathryn Jones]

No: HPFGUIDX 156728

houyhnhnm102 wrote:

> houyhnhnm:
> 
> Let's see?  What other wizarding families go in for Roman 
> emperors' names?
> 
> There's Lucius Malfoy, but then his father had the un-Roman 
> name of Abraxas.  Then there are the Belbys, with a Marcus 
> and a Flavius (a Damocles, too, admittedly).
snip
> Many people were so attached to that idea that Snape 
> was an aristocratic pureblood that when that notion was 
> canon-shafted in HBP, they switched to believing the 
> Princes were the wizarding aristocrats (Snape Manor 
> became Prince Manor).  If that's so, why haven't we 
> heard of them anywhere before.

   KJ writes:

     I think that you are right in thinking that the Princes were not 
necessarily aristocrats. That wasn't really where I was going anyway. 
The character of Snape was put together to make us believe that he was a 
pure-blood, and very similar to Malfoy. His name was chosen to also 
suggest a pure-blood heritage. Sometimes the purest blooded families are 
quite poor and low class as was demonstrated by Riddle's family. Can't 
get much lower than that. I am wondering why we have a half-blood bad 
guy with a muggle name (Tom), a half-blood good guy with a muggle name 
(Harry) and an ambiguous half-blood with a wizarding name(Severus). JKR 
had a reason to confuse this issue of heritage. The whole issue of 
seeing what appears to be an abusive muggle husband with a witch wife is 
made more confusing by naming the son, if that is what he is, after what 
is most likely the wizarding half of the family. Severus is not a muggle 
name. Was Snape taught to hate his muggle heritage as Riddle came to do? 
Harry, also hates his muggle relatives. I find the comparisons between 
these three perplexing.
KJ