CHAPDISC: HBP10, The House of Gaunt

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 148521

a_svirn:
Brilliant synopsis and questions, lealess! This said I don't think I 
agree with your conclusions on No. 4. 


 > 4. Considering they are the heirs of Slytherin, why are the 
Gaunts so
> far outside the Wizarding world? It does not seem likely the Gaunts
> married into any other pureblood families. 

a_svirn:
What else could the Gaunts have been doing for about a millennium if 
not marrying into pureblood families? It's not like there is any 
other method to stay pureblood. You'd run out of cousins in three 
generations in you confine yourself exclusively to your own family. 
The very fact that they managed to last this long proves that they 
married into other families once in a while. Not that these other 
families weren't their distant cousins too, though. If the Black 
Family Chart is any indication, they all are related to some degree. 


>Gaunt himself may have been
> prepared to let the Slytherin bloodline die with Merope and Morfin.

a_svirn:
Well, it's not that he was "prepared", I guess. It's just that he 
couldn't have much of a choice. His family fortunes were in a total 
wreck, his son was a half-wit, and he probably rated his daughter's 
intellect not much higher. Can you imagine anyone who would want an 
alliance with such a family? Besides, he was too proud. Rather than 
be a third-rate member of a wizarding community he preferred to live 
in a world of his own. A perfectly pathetic world, but one where he 
was a lord and master. Even though it was his own children he was 
lording over. 

> The Gaunts even seem to be unaware of the Wizarding world's laws. 

a_svirn:
This is not an uncommon attitudes among purebloods. The only 
difference is that the Malfoys, say, or the Blacks could afford it 
(usually), while the Gaunts, alas, were not as well-connected as 
these magnates. Obviously they used to, and the habits still 
lingered, though. 

> With this degree of separation, how did the Gaunts come to possess
> wands, or make their living? 
>How did Merope learn the magic she used
> once her father and brother were gone?

a_svirn:
How do we know that they were this separated? There is nothing in 
the books to suggest that she never studied in Hogwarts. Or did I 
miss something? I haven't got a book right now. 

> 8. Who teaches morality in the wizarding world in the absence of
> parents, if not teachers? Dumbledore has in Harry a virtual orphan,
> like Tom Jr. was, a person raised with a dearth of love and with
> ineffective parental guidance. But Dumbledore, when faced with an
> opportunity to reinforce the message of a teacher who gave a 
detention
> based on disrespect or to address a lesson in privacy based on
> Pensieve misuse, sidesteps the issue. Dumbledore says he has told
> Harry the truth, but he hasn't told him the complete truth; for
> example, he didn't tell him that Snape was the eavesdropper at the
> Hog's Head. Dumbledore trusts Harry to know right from wrong, 
based on
> years of observation – but observation alone did not work with Tom 
Jr.
> It seems that Rowling is concluding, through Dumbledore, that 
people
> are born with a "blood"-derived moral sense. Voldemort was 
descended
> from the debased Gaunts and the selfish Riddle Sr.; they were bad, 
and
> he is therefore evil. Harry was descended from Lily and James 
Potter;
> they were good, and Dumbledore can therefore trust Harry to be 
good,
> even if Harry was raised without love. It becomes pointless to 
teach
> moral lessons. All Dumbledore has to do is sit back and observe how
> people show their moral character. Is this, in fact, the 
assumption on
> which Dumbledore operates? 

a_svirn:
I wouldn't say that. But  Rowling said (through Dumbledore) that 
Harry is special. So I guess, his specialness is supposed to explain 
the special treatment. Come to think of it, Voldemort is also 
special