Thank you so much for posting this. I've always said "Muggle" is a much nastier term than "Mudblood," for two reasons.
1) "Muggle" is structurally identical to two real world slurs, "nigger" and "faggot." All three words are two syllables, with a short vowel in the first syllable, a double G in the middle, and a gutteral in the second syllable.
2) "Mudblood" is not just silly sounding (in fact, when I first read it, I thought, "What a dumb-sounding word! Am I actually supposed to consider that an insult?"); I can also think of several ways in which it qualifies as a compliment:
a) Little kids love to play with mud, including "eating" mud pies and modeling with clay.
b) "Muddy" blood has to be thicker and richer than ordinary blood, thus more capable of carrying nutrients to the body's cells.
c) Mud has been used since the beginning of civilization to create many necessary and beautiful things: bricks, adobe houses, clay pots, vases, eating dishes and utensils, and sculptures.
d) In mud (dirt mixed with water) grow almost all the plants on Earth: the trees that provide the oxygen we breathe, not to mention furniture and houses, and the crops people grow to eat, feed to their livestock, and make clothing. Without mud, most life on Earth would cease to exist. Certainly humans would die out. Magic's no good without food.
So when you call somebody a "Mudblood," you're telling them they have something in their blood that has been an essential component of all the civilizations in history, something necessary to human life itself. That's not an insult. It's the highest of compliments.
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timeasmymeasure
Why "Mudblood" is a compliment
Date: 2010-12-20 01:42 am (UTC)1) "Muggle" is structurally identical to two real world slurs, "nigger" and "faggot." All three words are two syllables, with a short vowel in the first syllable, a double G in the middle, and a gutteral in the second syllable.
2) "Mudblood" is not just silly sounding (in fact, when I first read it, I thought, "What a dumb-sounding word! Am I actually supposed to consider that an insult?"); I can also think of several ways in which it qualifies as a compliment:
a) Little kids love to play with mud, including "eating" mud pies and modeling with clay.
b) "Muddy" blood has to be thicker and richer than ordinary blood, thus more capable of carrying nutrients to the body's cells.
c) Mud has been used since the beginning of civilization to create many necessary and beautiful things: bricks, adobe houses, clay pots, vases, eating dishes and utensils, and sculptures.
d) In mud (dirt mixed with water) grow almost all the plants on Earth: the trees that provide the oxygen we breathe, not to mention furniture and houses, and the crops people grow to eat, feed to their livestock, and make clothing. Without mud, most life on Earth would cease to exist. Certainly humans would die out. Magic's no good without food.
So when you call somebody a "Mudblood," you're telling them they have something in their blood that has been an essential component of all the civilizations in history, something necessary to human life itself. That's not an insult. It's the highest of compliments.