Life and Harry Potter

[nishatalitha]

I came to uni today to go to student job search and print out copies of my CV and stuff like that when I ran into (not literally) the HGHS head girl of my 7th form year. She was sitting near the pharmacy waiting for Angus, her boyfriend, who was at a meeting. So I stopped and we chatted for a while. A girl who was going ot move in with them (also from my year of HGHS) has moved back to Hamilton to be with her long-term boyfriend, so they haven't moved yet, so their old address is still the same.

We'll be doing the WWI paper next semester together, it appears. She's got enough points to graduate, but wants to bring up her grade average so she can do honours next year. It was a brief catch up, but good to see her. Someone remind me to invite her to my 21st when the time comes.

Spoilers.

I very much enjoyed OotP, particularly all the background information in it. I wasn't so thrilled with the main character development, or the plot line, but the background. Mmmm. That I liked. Main things that I liked:

1) Aunt Petunia. She finally seems more than the two dimensional character we've seen so far. I don't necessarily like her now, but I do respect her. Blood is thicker than water, and all that, but it takes strength to stand up to someone (Vernon) who can't stand the thought of the wizarding world; and I mean both when they took Harry in, and in OotP, when she refuses to chuck Harry out on the streets. There seems to be hidden depths to her, and I'm currently of the mind that Vernon Dursley isn't good enough for her. But then, I'm suddenly discovering that I'm biased.

2) Which leads me to blood magic. It's played with a little. Not as much as I do in When the Bells Chime or it's prequal (I think I called that Before the Bells *shrugs*), but it's still nice to see it in place, because for centuries, that's been the most obvious way to gain power through magic. Death magic tends to have been used more in books and history for the gaining of magical power (especially for the bad guys), but that's not entirely how I see it. Spilling your own blood willingly seems to me to have more power than killing someone who didn't want to die. So, we finally know most of the details of why Harry has to stay at the Dursleys for a few weeks every summer. And voluntarily sacrificing one's life to save someone else has to be one of the most powerful types of magic around.

3) Family relationships amongst the purebloods. I'm still not entirely sure that J. K. Rowling has thought all the population statistics through properly, because there doesn't seem to be enough people at Hogwarts to carry on the family lines without severe inbreeding problems, but it's nice to have seen some attention paid to this fact. The family tree of Sirius' was most interesting. And it was like: 'Of course! Duh. He's Sirius Black! Of course his family is evil!'. I can only assume that we didn't think of that before because Sirius is the only memeber of the Black family that we had met, and he's a reasonably nice guy, even if he is prone to taking stupid risks. But yes. The family tree didn't seem quite as complicated as some of the family relationships I have in some stories, but then who would want it to be?

4) Harry. He's grown up some. Or at least - he's acting like a 15 year old git. Which he is. But it's nice to see something from him other than casual acceptance of what's going on. Or something like that, anyways. Not that he always accepted things casually, but so far, his temper hasn't been too bad, and it was nice to see a change in behaviour.

5) Umbridge. She was absolutely brilliant. And she didn't realise that rules only work if people actually obey them. Lots of people have said stuff about her, so I can't be bothered repeating it, and I want to get out of here and eat my apple because I'm hungry.

I brought a new crossstitch recently. It's of a dragon, and it's the first really decent dragon that I've seen and liked in crossstitch. It'll be a while before I can start it though, so hopefully I'll get to start it before the end of the year. I need to get some more threads so that I can do the leaves on the crossstitch that I'm stitching for mum. I finished the lettering, so NO MORE METALLICS!!! I hate working with metalllics. Worth it, with how they look, but they're awful to use.

Comments

[cactus-cat.livejournal.com]

Is your new dragon good enough for possible basis for a tattoo? ;)

Dragon

[nishatalitha.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I wouldn't use it as one, but I can show it to you an' you want. I think I want a dragon to be in flight, or with wings outstretched, and neither of those are happening on crossstitch.

Re: Dragon

[cactus-cat.livejournal.com]

Show it to me? Do you have a scanner? Digital camera? URL? I'd like to see it.

Population...

[darthsappho.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... It looks like there are probably about 40 students in each year of Hogwarts. To pick a number out of thin air, say 30 purebloods? And say, an average lifespan of 100 years? Which gives us about 2500 pureblood Hogwarts graduates alive at any one time. And there are at least two other schools, probably more if it wasn't explicitly stated otherwise. I think it's safe to assume that there are thousands of pureblood families, which should be quite enough to avoid serious inbreeding problems.

But yes, I doubt Ms Rowling has given it much thought.

Re: Population...

[nishatalitha.livejournal.com]

I don't know if there would be 30 purebloods in each year. Admittedly, Gryffindor might be the exception to the rule, but out of the students there (in Harry's year), Ron, Harry and Neville are definately pureblood. Dean is from a muggle family, as is Hermione, and Seamus is half/half. We don't know much about Lavender and Parvati, and I don't remember any of the books ever saying if they're from muggle families or not, but I would guess that Lavender is fromo a muggle family (she had a pet rabbit - Binky - and for some reason I think a wizarding child would have a more... interesting pet) and I wouldn't have a clue about Parvati.

We don't know of any other schools within Great Britain. We know about Beaubaxtons and Durmstrang, but they are both on the European continent, and I think there has been a mention of the Unseen University in the United States at some point in one of the books. Or I could be getting mixed up with Terry Pratchet for some reason. Seriously, though, maudlinrose and my collaborative Alliteration Arc aside, we have no evidence for any other schools in Britian. As well as no evidence of teritary education - or primary school for that matter.

Large families might be a partial solution for the population problem, but considering what we know of families so far, they don't tend towards the large side. The Weasleys are considered an anomaly.

Even so, assuming that your calculations are correct, and ignoring any reasons why members of the population might refuse to marry and have children, I still don't think there would be enough people from wizarding families to keep the blood pure without inbreeding problems.

Re: Population...

[cactus-cat.livejournal.com]

Surely there must be other schools, in America and probably Australia - otherwise there would most likely be Australian and American students at Hogwarts, the only English-speaking school we have confirmed...? Following that reasoning, there would probably be another school or two in Asia, unless the Asian Wizards go to Beauxbatons and Durmstrang as they are closer.

Re: Population...

[darthsappho.livejournal.com]

I'm asumming most wizards are pureblood, and randomly occuring wizards from muggle families like Hermione and Dean are relatively rare (about the same as squibs, probably). Trying to persecute mudbloods would be somewhat foolish if they outnumbered you. And it seems clear that most wizards have very little contact with muggles, so even wizards who have no theoretical objection to marrying muggles are much more likely to marry other wizards.

Yes, Hogwarts is almost certainly the only British school, but there would be some interbreeding with foreign wizards. I don't recall a mention of the Unseen University, and I think it would have leapt out at me.

Small families are better, since that means more different families.

Historically, most people have lived in rather small communities. If we think of wizarding Britain as being a large village of a few hundred families, which gets a steady influx of new blood from other villages/countries (and the occasional unpublicised muggle - not all purebloods are as pure as they claim), I think there are probably historical analogues which have survived perfectly well without showing undue signs of inbreeding.