Explain This Passage

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 180804

> RL:
> > 1. Do you have specific textural support for the statement "The
> > definition of half blood as defined by JKR is that if you have ONE
> > grandparent who is NOT a witch or wizard then you are > a
> > half-blood." Is there something in the novel that talks of
> > grandparents in the definition, or are you quoting JKR's public
> > commentary?

>  Susan McGee:
> Some time when I was not posting to this list the definition of 
canon
> changed. My position is that if JKR says it (in an interview or
> wherever) is that it's canon. I am in the minority. I am quoting
> JKR's comments not published in Books 1 - 7.

zgirnius:
Interview canon is canon, in the sense that is allowed to discuss 
these comments on this list (unlike, say, the movies, or fanfiction), 
as I understand it. But the rules do not insist that individual 
members, in their posts, must treat these statements as somehow of 
equal weight or validity to what is written in the books and their 
understanding of it. 

Among other excellent reasons individual members may have to dismiss 
interviews as 'less', they are mutually contradictory. Snape in love 
is a horrible idea, quoth our authoress. She also likes Snape (even 
if she does want to slap him), because he possesses the two traits 
she most admires in a person - courage and the ability to love deeply.
They can also contradict what is in the books. Grindelwald was alive 
as of the start of DH, the death of a Secret Keeper does not preserve 
the secret in the condition it was in when he died as suggested on 
the website, it makes everyone who knows itsD a Secret Keeper, for 
two examples.

> Susan:
> But, I will suggest that the comment by Tom Riddle about them "both
> being half bloods" is a statement that supports JKR's canon comments
> outside the book.

zgirnius:
I completely agree. Dumbledore also implies Harry is a half-blood, in 
his discussion of the prophecy in OotP. Furthermore, the definition 
some list members seem to be assuming (two parents, one pureblood, 
one Muggle) is not in the books either. The term half-blood is not 
defined at all, we simply have a list of characters so identified, 
from whose genealogy we may endeavor to deduce a definition:
Snape: Mother's blood status unknown (witch, I would guess 
pureblood), Father Muggle
Riddle: Mother pureblood, Father Muggle
Harry: Mother Muggleborn, Father pureblood

My own guess is that half-blood is quite possibly used by people in 
the Potterverse who really care about these designations to denote 
any wizard known to have both pureblood and Muggle ancestry, in 
whatever degree. After all, we have no other word for such people in 
canon (interview OR books). So Harry's kids, e.g., might still be 
considered half-blood, with two Muggle great-grandparents (the 
Evanses), and six pureblood ones (the Potters, the Weasleys, and the 
Prewitts). People who care, would probably find them 
more 'acceptable' than, say, a Snape, whose mother had the poor taste 
to marry a Muggle - at least Harry's kids will not be tainted by 
acquaintance with the odd ideas of their straying blood-traitor 
grandfather, James Potter, and their "Muggle" grandmother Lily, 
whereas Snape was actually raised by a Muggle and his witch wife in 
a "Muggle dunghill". <g> But I don't know that there is a different 
term for describing them, as they are not purebloods.