deathtocapslock | Pottermore stuff

Oh, nuts. I haven't had time to do much in HP for a long time but I'd always assumed I'd be able to pick things up again quickly, find a site with all of the new Pottermore material, so I could discover if Rowling has improved or finally re-read her own canon, or if she's still just making it up as she goes along. Rats.

She isn't even consistent in her Pottermore material - she has Ollivander as a half-blood, but then goes on to claim the Ollivanders appear in a list of old pureblood families from the 1930s.

OK, there can be a work-around: If the current Ollivander isn't that old, and the wand he remembers selling to Voldemort, the one with Fawkes' feather in its core, wasn't sold to 11-year old Tom but to a stranger named Voldemort who showed up from nowhere.

She isn't even consistent in her Pottermore material ...

My fascination with Rowling and the source/nature of her incompetence continues.

I mean, I gather 'The Casual Vacancy' was mediocre-to-bad, but *maybe* there were grounds for that one she did under a nome de plume, uhm, The Cuckoo's Calling, showing that her writing has improved, as it got better reviews. (Although the reviews were all written either when the author was thought to be a total novice or otherwise after she was revealed to be OMG WHO CAN POSSIBLY CRITICISE J ROWLING!!!!! So an argument for bias either way.)

If her more recent writing *had* improved ... but her Pottermore stuff was still inconsistent ... then that strengthens my impression that, by the time she was writing DH, she just didn't care about things like plot continuity or accuracy in her HP work. If the more recent book(s) shows that she is (now) capable of better writing/thinking.

she has Ollivander as a half-blood, but then goes on to claim the Ollivanders appear in a list of old pureblood families from the 1930s.

Can't the current Ollivander simply be the first half-blood in a long line of pure-bloods? If the Potters up to James were all pure-bloods - just for the sake of an example, I don't know what they were in canon - then Harry would have been the first Potter half-blood, right?

(Although I've always hated Rowling's sloppy bloodline distinctions, classifying both Harry and Tom Riddle Jr. as 'half-bloods'. I much prefer fanfic author Dr. T's classifications - Harry was a 'full blood' - both parents magical, but not X generations back; Riddle was a half-blood - one parent muggle, one wizard.)

Can't the current Ollivander simply be the first half-blood in a long line of pure-bloods?

It all depends on Voldemort's wand. If the yew-and-phoenix-feather wand was the same one orphan boy Tom Riddle bought in 1938 then no, it does not work, because the current Ollivander remembers selling him that one. It only works if when Voldemort returned from his travels with his new identity he decided to get a new wand. And of course it means that the Ollivander Harry met in 1991 was under 60, yet he is described as an old man.

I used a pureblood/full-blood/half-blood distinction in my story "Girls' Night at the Hog's Head" a few years back. A pureblood is a descendant of two magical families, like Draco; a full-blood is a child of two magical individuals, like Harry; a half-blood is a child of a magical individual and a non-magical individual, like Severus. Great minds...

I also came up with a couple of Old English terms for muggleborns: earthblood and mouldblood. Both referred to the land or the soil, in the sense that (1) the vast majority of muggleborns were peasants (because the vast majority of the population were peasants), who were of course considered inferior and dirty, and (2) there was an idea that muggleborns' magic had sprung spontaneously from the earth. "Mouldblood" was corrupted into "mudblood" mainly because of the rhyme, even though "mould" and "mud" are not the same word.

Ravenclaw language nerd. What can I say?

Great minds ...

Heh. :-)

Greater than Rowling, anyway. Classing both Riddle and Harry as equivalent 'half-bloods' just doesn't make sense to me. Harry had two magical parents; Riddle only one. In Rowling's world surely the blood bigots would see a huge difference between them? It's sort of blooming obvious!

But I'm of a mathematical mind - Wizard + Witch does not equal Muggle + Witch. Rowling gave her "oh, maths!" excuses any number of times.

I also came up with a couple of Old English terms for muggleborns ...

More than Rowling did - "Dirty blood, see. Common blood." - and I think that's the closest she got to the etymology of the term.

Ravenclaw language nerd. What can I say?

That you're smarter than Rowling? :-)

Blood bigotry in the Potterverse seems to be a simple matter of “All-wizard blood is best, some-wizard blood is okay, no-wizard is blood worst,” which, one would think, would lead to mathematical distinctions like “quadroons” and “octoroons.” But somehow it doesn’t. Everyone is merged into the relatively acceptable category of half-blood.

For my own headcanon, I’ve seized on James Potter’s “because he exists,” to say that the Potters and others like them had no problem with muggleborns but objected to wizard-muggle miscegenation. Nobody does anything wrong to produce a muggleborn. Muggles just do what comes naturally and sometimes a magical child appears. (This ignores JKR’s post-canon claim that all muggleborns have wizard blood in their background, a position I reject.) But the very existence of a true half-blood means that some witch or wizard has been sufficiently degraded to mate with a muggle. James Potter isn’t gaining anything by marrying a witch from nowhere with no family connections, but he isn’t degrading himself, as he would be if he married Petunia instead of Lily. This is non-canonical (The Potters are good Gryffie liberals, right? No bigotry of any kind, okay?) but does not actually conflict with canon.

Obscure bit of language trivia: In Louisiana in the mid 20th Century, mixed-race people who were “one degree whiter than octoroons” (i.e. 1/16 black) were called Griffes. I have no idea why. I got it from John Gunther’s Inside U.S.A., published in 1947. Fascinating book. (I trust nobody imagines that by quoting a book from 1947 I am approving of what it reports.)

JKR has given it all very little thought - if any. Whoever writes the material for Pottermore for her has a different theory about how literal claims to being pure blooded are.

'Whoever writes the material for Pottermore'?

It's (supposed to be) Rowling, isn't it?

Has there ever been anything at all saying otherwise? I thought all of these various bits and pieces were all heralded as FROM OUR BELOVED JO YOU LUCKY LUCKY PEOPLE.

She has given it her seal of approval, but I very strongly doubt that it is all written by her, she probably just gave someone else her old notes to work with.

I have similar doubts about Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows being by her as well. Half Blood Prince resembles high grade fanfiction and Deathly Hallows is a shocking mess that bears no resemblance to the rest of the series, so I think they were both ghost written. And that they should sack the ghosts, since they didn't do a very good job.

Does anyone know if the new info about the Hufflepuff common room being concealed with booby trapped barrels is really on Pottermore or not? You can take a quiz to be sorted into a house, but can't access the other three common rooms as far as I could see.

James isn't gaining anything by marryng a witch from nowhere...? Well, not a family alliance, true. There are several things to be gained in such an alliance, however (besides however deep his interest in the witch herself was).

One, automatic liberal credentials in certain circles. (One of my first fics had Severus considering selling Voldemort on the idea that drugging the widowed Lily--subtly--into marrying Severus would provide perfect cover for Severus to spy.)

Two, a man marrying a clear social and economic inferior might well hope and assume he would be treated by his wife with deference and humble gratitude.

And three, a Muggleborn witch is guranteed to have no family who could effectively object or interfere if they had concerns about how the husband was treating his bride. Heck, they probably don't even (nor would she) have the knowledge to negotiate a favorable contract....

One wonders whether the WW (and James Potter in particular) remembers Chaucer and Bocaccio, and the story of Pacient Griselda....

Interesting idea on Purebloods vs. Fullbloods, and perhaps that would also explain the Weasleys.....

Lily is also a favorite of Slughorn's, which might count for something if James had managed to make a bad impression somehow,j or even just gotten to the point where Slughorn had lost any initial enthusiasm he'd had for trying to collect him (bright, handsome, good family - perfect collector's item) and was now indifferent toward him.

If James had ever decided he needed help from Slughorn and his network, anyway. He probably didn't. But we're given to believe that Lily was generally well thought of by others as well, and so James might have found that "reforming" for his sixth and seventh years and dating Lily suddenly improved his reputation, since his own "popularity" didn't seem to involve more than three people actually liking him. The new positive attention had to have flattered his ego. Not a family connection, no, but definite social benefits. Add that to no pesky in-laws trying to stay for Christmas or give him advice or chastise him, and what a perfect setup!

The "Fullbloods" idea makes perfect sense, and fills an important gap in the WW. Molly sure speaks out strongly against Muggle things, from technology to medicine to things like walking around in their own train station in large numbers, but never says anything against Muggle-born Hermione except for the time she thinks Hermione's callously social climbing. Less willing to give Hermione the benefit of the doubt given her unfortunate upbringing, but not prejudiced against the girl in general. Even Draco might think less of Harry's mother, but doesn't go around saying Slytherin's monster will kill Harry for being impure, e.g.

But the very existence of a true half-blood means that some witch or wizard has been sufficiently degraded to mate with a muggle.

That makes perfect sense in a society that places such a divide/distinction between wizard and muggle. Oh, the muggle born would still be seen as socially inferior to a pureblood, but still 'one of us', and not a muggle animal, or mated with one. Interesting!

Now I'm queasity contemplating another distinction--akk three cases I can think of, of literatl half-bloods, it was a witch who mated with/married a Muggle (Merope/Tom=>Tiom, Eileen/Tobias=>Severus, ?/?=>Seamus Finnegan).

Now I'm crossing this with Arsinoes de Blassenville's "Department of Unintended Consequences."

If a wizard mates with a Muggle woman, but doesn't (withing the WW) marry her/claime her offspring, the resulting child is classed as a Muggleborn. (Dean Thomas).

So maybe casual liasons between wizards and Muggles are generally winked at, so long as the wizard doesn't go so far as to marry his inferior...?

I'm American; I;m thinking about how many lighter-skinned children were born to slave mothers....

No prob, usually, just so long as they weren't acknowledged by their fathers. And so long as their white mistresses didn't go on to bear dark-skinned children....

If a wizard mates with a Muggle woman, but doesn't (withing the WW) marry her/claime her offspring, the resulting child is classed as a Muggleborn. (Dean Thomas).

I'm not sure you have enough cases to establish that. Dean's father ran off, didn't claim Dean, sure, but he didn't return to the wizarding world either. No-one knew the identity of Dean's father:

“Muggle-born, eh?” asked the first man.

“Not sure ,” said Dean. “My dad left my mum when I was a kid. I’ve got no
proof he was a wizard, though.”

Are there other cases of wizards siring children with muggles but not claiming them?

This is ages later to answer this, however, this is something JKR spoke of on her original webpage (not Pottermore).

Dean's father never actually left them. He was killed by Voldy when he refused to join him. They just never knew it. Presumably, he had hidden his marriage so well from the wizarding world that no one knew to inform them.

Fortunately, that also meant the connection was well enough hidden that Voldy didn't know about their existence to go after them.

Yes, that's why we have the infamous one-drop rule--so white masters could legitimately enslave their mixed-race children and grandchildren. It's been many years since I've read Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I remember a bit where a highly intelligent "octoroon" complained about how it frustrated his his brave, noble, Gryffindorish seven-eighths Anglo-Saxon blood to be treated like a common black. (Again, quoting a 19th century novel does NOT mean I approve.) One might imagine Tom Riddle would have claimed the same, if he had ever actually experienced any oppression for being a half-blood or a supposed muggleborn. We have no evidence, of course, that Tommy ever had that problem.

OK, apparently there is a Pottermore wiki where you can find all the material. At least now.

Pottermore contradicts the series and JKR's interviews all the time. Pottermore says that the windows in the Slytherin common room look out into the depths of the lake...! When did it ever say that in the series? Even Harry would have noticed something like this.

Edited 2013-12-03 17:48 (UTC)

IF it says anything then it would be in bk2 when Harry visits the Slytherin common room.

I cannot tell you whether I've been influenced by fanfic or not, but it seems I vaguely recall something about the greenish light? Of course, that could be caused by green lampshades like on certain desk lamps?

As to whether Harry would notice? Well..... he managed to not know the name of a fellow 5th year student (Theodore Nott) despite 5 years of at least potions class with him. Bit oblivious of Harry.

In DH he tells the Snatchers that the light in the Slytherin common room is greenish because it is under the lake. I thought it meant the light came through skylights at the top, but apparently the Slytherin common room is an aquarium. I hope no explosions ever crack the glass.

Were they warned against quoting at all (which seems... not in the spirit of the law, which includes a fair use exemption), or quoting in full or quoting the majority of any specific Pottermore post? If a particular Pottermore post is fairly long, we could probably get away with quoting a sentence or two for the purposes of commentary/criticism under the fair use exemption (if there's one sentence where the specific wording seems so important that you really want to quote it), but I wouldn't push it by quoting anything longer. If a post is only a few sentences long total, maybe a three-word phrase or so. Basically something that isn't even close to being the whole thing.

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