Narcissa / Divorce / Kill Or Not? / Returning With Slytherins?/ Myers-Briggs

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 185620

> Kemper replied:
> > 
> > Phineas refers to Hermione as 'The Mudblood' in The Prince's Tale
> Snape cuts him off and commands, "Do not use that word!"  
> 
> Carol responds:
> 
> Maybe Phineas Nigellus is just the product of his own generation and
> upbringing. He reminds me of people in the South who routinely used
> the "N" word, refined to "Nigra" by about the 1950s, because it was
> the word they had been taught.

Magpie:
I've heard that argument more than once for Phineas, but there's no 
indication that "Mudblood" was ever anything but a slur, or that it 
used to be more common than it is now in the WW, which is not a 
metaphor for any one place.

I would think somebody using the n-word because that's what they were 
taught was taught that a race of people were inferior and accepted 
that teaching as the truth. That would make Phineas no different than 
any other non-Muggleborn who used the term. I would guess 
that "Muggle-born" was already in use by his time, and I can't 
believe he thought a word that referred to their blood as being mud 
wouldn't know exactly what kind of put-down it was. The fact that he 
also says "filthy Half-blood" seems to imply he still associates 
Muggle-tainted blood as dirty, even if he doesn't care to argue about 
it with Snape. Given the rest of the themes of the book "Pure-Blood 
snob" is tied to some truly sinister bigotry.

I think he's simply wiley, amusing, clever and a bigot.

-m