I don't remember exactly what happened in OotP, but was Mrs. Figg even there when the Dementers were? I've always thought what JKR meant by saying Mrs. Figg lied about seeing the Dementers was that she didn't see them, not that she couldn't.

 

...you'd have 4p. And last time you said you'd be rich if you had a pound every time you'd quoted it.

Not everyone takes JK's barrage of Word of God announcements as being fully canon, seeing they'd have to be incredibly obsessive to remember each and every one of the bloody things, let alone putting in the time to try and work out the slew of plot holes this adds to the already oversized collection.

Oh, and Filch can see Peeves. Muggles can't.

 

I personally believe that a Muggleborn is someone with non-magical parents and grandparents, a halfblood is someone with a magical parent and at least one non-magical grandparent, and a pureblood is someone with magical grandparents and parents.

That way, if a muggle born married another muggle born, they'd give birth to a half blood because they have both Muggle and Magical blood in them. If that person then marries another halblood they'd have a pureblood child. If that person marries a muggleborn though, they'd have a half blood child.;

To put it simply:

Muggle grandparents and parents: Muggleborn

1-3 Muggle Grandparents, 1-2 Magical Parents: Halfblood

Magical grandparents, Magical Parents: Pureblood

 

I'm not sure if a true Pureblood would accept any system where the descendants of Muggles can ever be thought of as more than Muggles. The whole basis of the system/prejudice is that a magical person who comes from Muggle roots is no better than a Muggle.

 

Wasn't Rowling just going by the Nurember Laws? Just replace the word "Jew" with "muggle" and "white" or "Aryan" with "Pureblood".

 

I could have sworn that having six fingers was a dominant trait. But it fairly rare.

 

It wouldn't be nearly as rare if people with the trait had children who had it, who had children themselves. Somehow, I doubt that these people get much play.

A dominant gene will simply prevail so long as those carrying it reproduce. If the phenotypical manifestation of a genes dominance causes most people to avoid mating with that person, then it won't prevail.

That's why I believe that contrary to Rowling's misunderstanding of genetics, being a squib is the result of a dominant mutation of an otherwise recessive gene.

All wizards (and witches) would therefore have to have the recessive, homozygous pair: mm

If, when the sperm and egg combine, a the squib mutation occurs, the immediate family tree would look like this: Father (mm) + Mother (mm) = Baby (Mm). Mm is a heterozygous gene combining dominant squib mutation (M) with recessive wizard gene (m). This would occur vary rarely.

Now, if that squib and a wizard got together, they would have a 50% chance of producing another squib, and a 50% chance of producing a wizard. Since, in the wizarding world, being a squib is VERY noticable, and highly disadvantageous, they will be shunned like the plague with regards to breeding, I.e., they will almost invariably never be allowed to reproduce with a wizard or witch.

If that squib gets together with another squib (both have Mm), then the chance of producing another squib goes up to 75%, but they still have a 25% chance of producing a wizard. Therefore, if they had 4 children, 3 would likely be squibs, and one would go to Hogwarts. However, unlike the squib+wizard pair, two squibs have the potential to create what might be termed an "ultra-squib" - MM (25% chance) pair in their genes, and no descendant of theirs will ever be a wizard or witch. The two children who are lucky enough to have the Mm pair, could have magical descendants.

Now, lets say a squib marrys a muggle Pure muggles have no magical or squib gene, so I'll just assume that the full gene from the squib parent gets inheirited. 10 generations later, there are potentially thousands of these "muggles" who each, unknowingly, carry a squib gene (Mm). One of them meets up with another "muggle" who is also unknowingly carrying a squib gene. They both have Mm, which means that like the squib+squib pairing, they have a 25% chance of producing an "ultra-squib" (MM), 50% chance of producing a normal squib like them (Mm), and a 25% chance of producing a "muggleborn" wizard.

I believe that Petunia carrys the Mm, or possibly MM, and that both of her parents carried the Mm. Lily was lucky, she was that 25% chance winner of the mm.

Now, if this were all true, then pureblood supremacy would be totally baseless: all wizards have mm, so its not like you could accidentally produce a squib by marrying a muggle or muggleborn. You would only accidentally produce it through totally uncontrollable factors of genetic mutation.

On the other hand, if what Rowling says is true, and the magic gene is Dominant, then pureblood supremacy DOES have basis in fact. If we say that the squib mutation is recessive, then ALL wizards would have either MM (pure wizard), Mm (still wizard, but potential to create a squib), or mM (same as Mm). Thus, it would be in wizard's interests to maintain as many of those MMs as possible and not let the muggleborns (who might have Mm or mM) into the family - you'd have a 25% chance of producing a squib! If, after a number of generations, each with a fairly large family (4 or more), you still haven't produced any squibs, then you can be fairly sure that you're MM, and safe, so long as you marry someone from another one of those long lines that bread out all but the MMs. I.e., pureblood paranoia about muggleborns would be justified.

 

Or, we could agree that any science behind Potterverse magic is so absurd that it's not worth delving into, and anyone that needs such a justification in their story is

1) Barking up the wrong tree anyway
2) Ought to ignore canon and go with a different justification entirely.

 

RE Rin

Rin, you dont count muggles in your numbers. I am genetic and therefor think, that you have to introduce at least muggle gene "0". Dominant to m (that is mutation of itself) and dominant/codominant to M. There are other wariants (including other magical mutations), but I agree, that squibs are one of ways to cary m gene into muggle population. Othere way is, that there are still muggles cariing old wariant of m gene from first mutation 0>m. The answer to why it seams, that purblood (halfblood)/muggle marrige produce so many halfbloods is that even in recesive state 0/m, m works as "atractant" for openminded wizards and witches (so Meropes obsession with Tom Riddle had biological reason). M and even 0 gene can also bee semiletal, if mother is magical (and reducing rate of nonmagical birth by witches even more).

 

Arne,

I'm not sure I follow.

I'm just saying (and so does Rowling), that wizards and squibs carry one of two variants of a magic gene. A pure muggle would not have either variant of this gene. Thus, if a magical (be they wizard or squib) mates with a muggle, then their offspring would either receive the gene in full or not receive it at all. Rowling claims that the gene is resiliant, so I'm inclined to believe that if a pure muggle mated with a wizard or a squib, then their offspring would always receive the gene.

A halfblood is no different from a pureblood, as far as being a wizard is concerned. Someone is either a wizard, or they are not a wizard. There're no half-wizards. Half-blood simply means "any wizard who has one of more muggle grandparents". This follows almost exactly the definition of Jewishness that the Nazis used. If you were 1/4th or 1/2 Jewish (one or two Jewish grandparents), then you were a mischling (half-blood). You were considered Jewish if you had 3 or more Jewish grandparents.

 

-There is 40 students/year at Hogwarts during Harry Potter times, maybe after 2 successive wars the birth rate decreased? So, for ex, during the marauders time there was sixty to eighty students a year?
-Then, all magical children in GB don't go to Hogwarts, what of the home-schooled? What of the children of the most traditionnalist who go to Durmstrang or whatever other "pureblood school"?
-What if Hogwarts wasn't the only british magical school?

Then again, i highly doubt the life expectancy of the wizards is equal to the muggle's. Dumbledor, Grindelwald, Marchbanks...

Hell, Voldemort is oldest than my grandparents, and he looks waaaaaaay more healthy, even in his snake form.

So yeah, 3k wizards in GB seems pretty low to me :/


(Rofl, i got side-tracked, necro-posting for the first message, i win :/)

 

3. Hogwarts is the only British magical school.
2. All UK magical children get an invite, there's no indication of people being home schooled, it's unlikely (given that not even Draco Malfoy went there) that any significant number of UK children go to Durmstrang. Like, maybe one every few years.
1. There's no indication that this is the case, no evidence to suggest that the birth rate used to be higher (e.g. no mention of empty dorm rooms in Gryffindor tower. Note that when Sirius went after Wormtail in PoA he knew exactly which room to go to - the 3rd year male one. One, singular.)

And yeah, it's known that wizards generally live longer than Muggles.

However, if you take the average life expenctancy to be ~140 (random guess, but we know Dumbledore lived to ~150, and that Marshbanks was older than him, and that nowhere is it stated that there is a connection between longevity and magical skill):

40*140 = 5600.

A bit higher than 3000, sure, but still pretty small.

Of course, this is just one method of counting the population. If you consider the World Cup, to have a stadium of that size full with these kind of population figures would mean that pretty much the entire wizarding world was there - and we know they weren't, as not even many of Harry's classmates could get tickets.

Of course. all this discussion is a bit silly from an out-of-book point of view, because we know that Rowling treats wizarding numbers with little respect, picking whatever numbers she finds best to convey an atmosphere. The Quidditch World Cup would be dull with a population of ~3000, so to give it a feel similar to Muggle competitions of a similar scale, she ups the numbers to whatever feels right.

But then if she wants to give the wizarding world (and Hogwarts) a feeling of a small community where everyone knows each other, she gives it a figure like 3000.

And then if she wants to make parallels between the wizarding world and Muggle one she gives them similar institutions, such as banks, high streets, organised government, newspapers, and so on - even though a population of 3000 could not support all of these things.

In short, wizarding numbers are a means to an end for JKR, which is why they're so fucked up.

 

Not that i doubt your word, but can i get a link, i'm interested to know if it was said in the books or later.

I doubt every children who receives a later go to Hogwarts, there must be a certain number of muggleborns who refuses, bacause of their religion or their carriere in the muggle world.
And Lucy thought to sand Draco to Durmstrang (said in 4 i think), it was Narcissa who wanted to keep Drakey-poo at arms reach.

First, we speak of Hogwarts, moving stair cases, come-and-go room, an hidden chamber with a thousand years old basilisk in the girl bathroom and so on. It is reasonable to think that there is more than one room/year, just that they are hidden.
And maybe the dorms have a sign or else to indicate who slept where.

It's all extrapolation ofc, but it's a possible scenario.

 

Certainly, it is possible that every so often someone refuses. But, in the event of someone refusing, they're not going to be part of the magical population, and so have no impact on this discussion.

And yet, as you say, he didn't go. This is pretty much as Pureblood fanatical as you get. If the family most fanatical about "Purebloodism" didn't consider it enough of a reason to send their kid to Durmstrang, I doubt others will.

I've actually misremembered the quote, but it still provides partial evidence (from JKR's site):

A possible scenario with no evidence. It's also possible that there are a secret race of purple putty people living in India who cast magic with their penises, but that doesn't mean we discuss it seriously - unless there is something to make us think it is true.

 

Thanks for the quote, and, indeed there is no evidence for the scenario, but i enjoyed the discussion so it's not a total loss \o/

 

And in yet another example of Rowling's careless use of numbers, not even Dumbledore's age is well-constrained. Rowling said he was about 150 in an interview, IIRC, but after DH came out, her website listed his birth date as 1881. This would be the same source that listed his death year as 1996, which is clearly wrong.

Canon is of course no help on this issue - one of the very few people with any temporal link to the era is Auntie Muriel (107 y.o. in DH), who was "listening at the door" when Bathilda Bagshot was describing Ariana's funeral to Muriel's mother. It's comfortable to imagine that she was a child when she did this, but indeed she could have been any age - even elderly, depending on how long her mother lived and when Bathilda told the story. ::sigh::