Originally posted by Locutus
As Imran said, one of the absolutely key themes in the Harry Potter series is that of discrimination and prejudice. Not only is this obvious from reading the books, Rowling has been very outspoken on this issue in interviews and on her website and the like. The constructs of 'pure-bloods', 'half-bloods', 'muggle-borns' etc are merely inventions of certain people who consider these terms important (see Rowling's website), just as the Nazis created an elaborate system to separate Aryans from other 'races' and to decide who is and isn't a Jew based on ancestry. There is absolutely no evidence that these distinctions actually exist in the HP world, that magical ability is in any way based on bloodline (although obviously there is some kind of correlation since some families produce far more wizards than others). The entire premise you've based your essay on (including the timeline of interbreeding) is merely the self-proclaimed pure-blood's point of view.
As Imran said, one of the absolutely key themes in the Harry Potter series is that of discrimination and prejudice. Not only is this obvious from reading the books, Rowling has been very outspoken on this issue in interviews and on her website and the like. The constructs of 'pure-bloods', 'half-bloods', 'muggle-borns' etc are merely inventions of certain people who consider these terms important (see Rowling's website), just as the Nazis created an elaborate system to separate Aryans from other 'races' and to decide who is and isn't a Jew based on ancestry. There is absolutely no evidence that these distinctions actually exist in the HP world, that magical ability is in any way based on bloodline (although obviously there is some kind of correlation since some families produce far more wizards than others). The entire premise you've based your essay on (including the timeline of interbreeding) is merely the self-proclaimed pure-blood's point of view.
Comment