[the_old_crowd] Re: Thoughts on HBP

[Wendy]

Ginger:
>I don't think that the prince is a current role.  It will most likely 
>be an historical figure (GG, SS,...) or a "prince" as a figure of 
>speech. 

Wendy:

Right now, I'm also speculating that the HPB is an historical person, rather than someone Harry will actually meet. My current "theory" (using the term loosely, as there's no canon one way or another to support it) is that the HPB was a member of actual Muggle royalty, back around the time that Hogwarts was founded. His father was the ruler (of Britain, or perhaps somewhere else), and was married to a witch (although he didn't know she was one when he married her). I think that this child attended Hogwarts, but in this case, the mixing of the Muggle and Wizarding worlds was *not* a success, and it led to a further breakdown between the two worlds. Perhaps (because this was the child of a powerful Muggle father, whom was not happy about his child being magical), there was some incident (perhaps an attack on the Wizarding World) which drove Slytherin to believe that Muggle-borns couldn't be trusted, or "confirmed" that suspicion he'd had all along. So, what's really important about the HPB isn't so much that his presence created trouble between the wizarding and Muggle worlds, but that it started (or exacerbated)the rift between the pureblood wizards, and those who had Muggle blood (or were supportive of welcoming Muggle-borns into the community). The irony here is that both Salazar and Gryffindor would have been "right" - Salazar would be right in saying that Muggleborns posed a danger to the community, but Godric would *also* have been right in saying that it's not right to exclude them based on their birth. I like this because it (for me) puts both of them in a more sympathetic light, rather than having Slytherin be little more than the embodiment of bigotry. He had good reason to turn against Muggleborns at the time, even though that still doesn't make his attitude "right." 

In the current day, this will become important because Harry will have to understand the events that led to this rift (between pureblood and not), because I suspect that part of what he will do, before the series ends, is help to bring the whole of the wizarding world back together in a way they have not been since the time of Godric and Salazar. (After getting rid of all those meanie Death Eaters, that is). :D

:-)
Wendy

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]