Timeline for Book or Rowling quote that there are **no** contemporary wizards without muggle ancestors?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 5, 2018 at 6:01 | comment | added | Conrad Bennish Jr | @QuestionAuthority just because a character is reliable doesn’t mean their every word is truth. In those statements he is either using the term to describe the point of view of others, or to describe the term as seen by the community. Not his own personal take on it. Also, I’ve marked my accepted answer and shown my thoughts on the one here. I’m not interested in dissecting every nuance of it or my question. If you desperately need to know more you’ll just have to live with it :) | |
| Sep 5, 2018 at 5:23 | comment | added | QuestionAuthority | @ConradBennishJr "But I'd discount basically all of those character statements as being pretty unreliable." Three of these statements are from Dumbledore | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 22:22 | comment | added | Conrad Bennish Jr | Pottermore definition added, this is a level of canon stated as acceptable in the original question. | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 21:35 | comment | added | Conrad Bennish Jr | Never have I seen so much unnecessary pedantry over such a simple question. I’ve edited my question accordingly. Hopefully it’s now understandable even to a chair. | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 16:31 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @ConradBennishJr Sorry, but Alex is right here. Words mean what they mean because people use them to mean that, and for no other reason. If a dictionary defines ‘chair’ as ‘the young of a cat’, that doesn’t mean people who use it to refer to the thing you sit on are wrong, nor that people who call the young of a cat a kitten are. There is no indication that pure-blood is intended to mean anything but ‘as unmixed with Muggle blood as is practically feasible’ in the books. If that’s what everyone means and understands it to mean, then that’s what it means. | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 3:16 | comment | added | Alex | @ConradBennishJr "3" was arbitrarily assigned by people to refer to a concept. If people instead decided to use "3" to refer to the concept of 2 then "3" would then mean 2, and 1+1 would in fact be 3. | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 3:13 | history | edited | Alex | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 37 characters in body
|
| Sep 4, 2018 at 3:06 | comment | added | Conrad Bennish Jr | Oh! Ok I see. 1+1=3 | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 3:00 | comment | added | Alex | @ConradBennishJr Words mean whatever people want them to mean, and therefore the meaning can change over time as people use them differently. | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 2:56 | history | edited | Alex | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 441 characters in body
|
| Sep 4, 2018 at 2:53 | comment | added | Conrad Bennish Jr | ummm not really, no. Pure-blood means absolutely no muggle ancestors. If people use it to mean very few muggle ancestors, that’s not the same thing. Something’s pure or it’s not. | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 2:52 | comment | added | Alex | @ConradBennishJr Well if that's how everyone uses the term, then that's essentially what it means. So in that sense then there are pure-bloods. | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 2:51 | history | edited | Alex | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 360 characters in body
|
| Sep 4, 2018 at 2:48 | comment | added | Conrad Bennish Jr | I'm not saying they're lying, I'm saying that your final point is correct: "the term pure-blood is probably used to mean "very pure" but not "perfectly pure"." | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 2:45 | history | edited | Alex | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 469 characters in body
|
| Sep 4, 2018 at 2:43 | comment | added | Alex | The only one making the claim about their own family is Umbridge. All the others are talking about other people's families, and the only one of them who would have a pure-blood bias is Kreacher. | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 2:38 | comment | added | Conrad Bennish Jr | Thanks for the answer! But I'd discount basically all of those character statements as being pretty unreliable. I was after an indication of actual 'purity' of blood, rather than just what families claim of their own bloodline. Claiming my grandma was a hippogriff doesn't make it so, after all! Also I'm aware Hagrid's quote doesn't appear in the book, hence I clarified it as 'film' for the quote :) | |
| Sep 4, 2018 at 2:22 | history | answered | Alex | CC BY-SA 4.0 |