Multigeneration Familes in the WW

[jenanydot]

No: HPFGUIDX 173764

"prep0strus" <prep0strus at ...> wrote:
>
> I've noticed that there rarely appears to be more than two
generations in any family alive at any point in JKR's books.  The
Tonks family is an exception - for a very short time, until that
anomoly is corrected.
>  I think we can also expect and hope for the generation we meet in
the epilogue to be able to meet their Gran and Gramps Weasely.  But in
the actual books, I have a hard time recalling grandparent
interactions - barring Neville, raised by his grandmother, after being
effectively orphaned.
>
> Have there been theories as to why this is?  Does it simply expand
the world too much?  I understand that Harry needs to be alone, which
is why somehow all 4 of his grandparents need to be dead before he is
> born (which seems very unusual, seeing as how Lily & James were not
> exceptionally old when they had him), but it might've been fun to
meet Arthur Weasely's crazy father or some such thing.
>
> Adults appear to be adults, with no one more venerable to turn to
> within their familes.  I hope it's a tradition that breaks with the
> newest generation.


I think I've always been under the assumption that a great many of the
older generation perished in the first war.  Of course, we do know
that Ron at least remembers one of his grandfathers (the one who gave
him the wizarding chess set).  I suppose there's a chance that more
older relatives are still alive, and we just never see them.

There's also the chance that some of those older relatives were
involved in the dark side...we know that the Weasleys are related to
the Blacks, and the Prewetts married into them.  While I find it hard
to imagine anyone in Arthur's immediate family being against
Muggleborns, we really don't know anything about Molly's family except
that her brothers were in the Order.  Anyone before that seems as
though they could be fair game.

There is at least one case of a "three generation" interaction in the
Weasleys; Aunt Muriel is pretty clearly Molly's aunt, which would make
her part of Molly and Arthur's parents' generation.

~Mandy