[HPforGrownups] Squib!Harry in the WW (was:Re: The Scar)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 160348

Jim:
> JKR doesn't imply wizard / muggle marriages; she just says so.
>
> "It's a disgusting thing to call someone," said Ron, wiping his sweaty
> brow with a shaking hand. "Dirty blood, see. Common blood. It's
> ridiculous. Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway. If we
> hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out."
> (Chamber of Secrets, pg. 115 American)
>
> Other examples are too numerous to list.
>
> I submit that Ron's gotten the word from JKR to make this speech. "How
> come I have to do all this backstory exposition, Ms. Rowling?"
> " Somebody has to do it, and you're Harry and Hermione's guide to the
> wizard world for at least the first two books."
> "Oh, all right, but remember you promised I can play on the Quidditch
> team."
>
> Prejudice against half-bloods and Muggle-borns is a major issue in the
> entire Harry Potter  story; wizard purity and "ethnic" bigotry is a
> big part of the Death Eater credo.
>
> Betsy, you seem to be denying a major theme of all JKR's work. Yes,
> there is  a lot of separation and misunderstanding between the worlds
> (I once wrote a fic about a loving Muggle father whose child gets the
> letter and the anguish it give him), but Muggle-wizard marriages are
> common and necessary for the wizard world to survive.  Without them,
> the wizard world would fade, like so many other excessively insular
> groups.  It's been argued that the wizard world is suffering from low
> birth rates even with Muggle intermarriage.

Magpie:
I don't think Ron's speech indicates anything about how common it is for 
Wizards to marry actual Muggles are.  He says if they hadn't married Muggles 
at some point they'd have died out (though his family are all Pureblood.). 
The word in question is Mudblood which refers to Wizards with Muggleblood, 
so I think when Ron talks about marrying Muggles he's also referring to 
marrying Muggleborns when he says most Wizards are half-bloods.  They don't 
need to marry actual Muggles to become Half-bloods.

Regardless, Betsy isn't denying that these marriages are possible.  I 
believe she's mentioned the ones we see in canon.  But just as one can't 
ignore they happen one also can't ignore that the way the books are set up 
JKR isn't really prepared to make them work with the two partners as equals. 
Even Ron's speech doesn't deny that--Muggles are better than dying out--I 
believe this is the same book where Ron mentions a relative who's an 
accountant his family doesn't talk about (not being Magical). I think the 
Muggle/Magical interactions we see in the books makes Betsy's point valid.

And speaking of non-Magical folk and the non-prejudice Wizards:

Jim Ferrer:
That testimony wasn't contradicted by anybody in a powerful wizarding body. 
If it's anything like our courts, uncontradicted testimony stands. I believe 
nobody contradicted Mr. Figg because they knew she
spoke the truth, unlike Idiot!Fudge, who just plain didn't want to hear 
anything that might be favorable to Harry.

Magpie:
I disagree. I think the text suggests strongly that Mrs Figg can't literally 
see Dementors at all, and JKR has confirmed this.  I think she isn't 
contradicted because nobody knows whether she can see Dementors or not 
because nobody knows or cares that much about Squibs.  I don't think Fudge 
is an idiot for not knowing this about Squibs--I think that probably makes 
him a normal Wizard.

-m