mad_maudlin: (Default)
mad_maudlin ([personal profile] mad_maudlin) wrote in [personal profile] prillalar 2004-03-10 05:25 pm (UTC)

I'm a little unclear on the definition of pureblood anyhow. Sometimes it seems to mean old wizarding families, like the Blacks. But other times, simply someone whose parents are both wizards, like Harry, whose mother was Muggle-born.

Actually, Dumbeldore refers to Harry as a half-blood in OotP. So the only criteria can't be that both parents are magical.*

JKR hasn't given us very good clues about the definition, tho. We know that certain families count as purebloods: the Weasleys, the Malfoys, the Blacks, the Longbottoms and the Crouches come to him. We know that Harry, whose mother was Muggle-born, and Seamus, whose father was a Muggle, are halfbloods. When Ernie Macmillan thinks Harry's going to sic a basilisk on him in CoS, he insists his family is magical unto nine generations, apparently to confirm his "pureblood" status. I believe it's sort of implied that the Diggories are purebloods, and Krum has to be to attend Durmstrang—but Hagrid says in GoF that Harry winning the tournament would prove that "you don't have to be pureblood to do it," with the odd implication that Fleur the quarter-Veela is also classified as "pureblood," but that Hagrid the half-giant is not. Then again, even racists have their preferences: it's more acceptable in the US for a white person to date or marry an Asian or Latino than a black, so perhaps there's an analogy there among wizards.

Of course, in all truth most words don't have precise and carefuly definitions, especially a word that seems to carry as much social and cultural baggage in wizarding society as "pureblood." It's easier to talk about connotations than denotations: a pureblood wizard has a long and uninterrupted magical heritage, and if it's not entirely human, it's at least an acceptable sort of non-human. No limits on how far back the bloodline has to go, but certainly the longer the better; still, so far we haven't heard any purer-than-thou posturing going on. Further, a pureblood witch or wizard is assumed to belong to a certain social and political set, with certain (conservative) values, which helps explain the low standing of the Weasleys.

*It's not possible to have two wizard parents without magical assistance. Normally one of them has to be a witch. ;-)

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