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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   21609 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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This is a tiny nitpick, but, er...

Half-blood?

Is Harry even half-blood, by wizarding standards? His father James was a pure-blood from a good old wizarding family. His mother Lily was muggle-born, but was a wizard herself. Harry is the child of two wizards and therefore is surely pure-blood?

My rough understanding of the terms was that pure-blood means two wizarding parents, half-blood means one wizard parent and one muggle, and muggle-born means two muggle parents. Wiki tells me that the term is more restrictive than that and having any non-magical ancestors in your immediate family background removes you from pure-blood status, but as it notes itself, almost all wizards have at least a few non-wizard ancestors around somewhere. Is the muggle-born Lily too close for Harry to count?

The Malfoys are snobbish and old-fashioned and I'd imagine that, from their perspective, James Potter did something at best scandalous by marrying a muggle-born, so they can still dislike Harry. The Malfoys are, in canon, horrible people prepared to hate even pure-blood families if they think they're too sympathetic to muggles. The Weasley family is pure-blood, but they are poor and they don't act with decorum, so the Malfoys hate them too. One gets the impression sometimes that the Malfoys just hate everyone outside their ingroup, and blood status is just an excuse.

Still, I notice that in Philosopher's Stone, when Malfoy first meets Harry, he is polite at first and tries to invite Harry into his own, 'superior' social circle:

Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the middle one at once: it was the pale boy from Madam Malkin’s robe shop. He was looking at Harry with a lot more interest than he’d shown back in Diagon Alley.

“Is it true?” he said. “They’re saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment. So it’s you, is it?”

“Yes,” said Harry. He was looking at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards.

“Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle,” said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking. “And my name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.”

Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Draco Malfoy looked at him.

“Think my name’s funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford.”

He turned back to Harry. “You’ll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”

He held out his hand to shake Harry’s, but Harry didn’t take it.

“I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks,” he said coolly.

Draco Malfoy didn’t go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.

“I’d be careful if I were you, Potter,” he said slowly. “Unless you’re a bit politer you’ll go the same way as your parents. They didn’t know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it’ll rub off on you.”

Harry then stands up for Ron and this appears to sour their whole relationship, but the point is that Malfoy knew who Harry was, presumably therefore knew of Harry's ancestry, and yet clearly made this invitation for Harry to hang out with him and enter his company. He does this while also verbally attacking the Weasleys, whose blood is impeccably pure, so I think there's more to the Malfoys' mindset than just "pure blood good, muggle blood bad". It's all wrapped up with class, wealth, behaviour and deportment, and so on.

Dumbledore calls Harry a half-blood in Order of the Phoenix:

"He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him," said Dumbledore. "And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but four times so far -- something that neither your parents, nor Neville's parents, ever achieved."

Okay, good catch. I didn't remember that line.

The wiki article claims that to be pure-blooded, no parents nor grandparent can be Muggle, Squib, or Muggle-born. The last term indicates two Muggle parents, not just one. (and note that "Squib" means this isn't just about blood). Harry, thus, with a muggle-born mother, is not pure-blood, nor will his children be regardless of mother.

As for Draco attempting to befriend him... Harry Potter's a legend, "The Boy Who Lived". Malfoy is, quite reasonably for a Slytherin, attempting to enlist him on his side. Overlooking his parentage is just realpolitik.

My impression is that isn't really a formal definition of the term. It's not as if there are laws that label people in one category or the other. In practice I suspect that there are central cases of pure-bloodedness (i.e. both sides of the family are magical nobility going back to generations), and central cases of muggle-ness (just as obvious), and that everywhere in the middle there's some room for negotiation.

Harry has good breeding on his father's side, but his mother's is questionable. James Potter was presumably seen as slumming it or as being a little scandalous, by the standard of the old families, by marrying a muggle-born. However, if Harry behaves well, wins the respect of the old families, and also marries well, that could be overlooked - especially if there is political advantage in having Harry on-side, since he is generally perceived as a hero. His mother's muggle-born status is probably not enough by itself to use against him, if he moves well in pure-blood circles, but if he does not behave well (as he does not canonically), then you start whispering about how that muggle blood on his mother's side is telling.

In practice I suspect a lot about blood purity is post hoc - if your ancestry is mixed (and almost all wizards' ancestry is mixed; 100% pure-bloods are a small, incestuous elite, and muggle-borns are rare), it's up to what you or those judging you choose to emphasise.

My impression is that isn't really a formal definition of the term.

I agree. The Harry Potter series is more about plot and relationships than about world-building. Which is fine, it would be extremely difficult to construct a magic school story which is entertaining, lengthy, and takes place in a detailed and consistent universe. Perhaps Bran Sanderson could pull it off.

Sanderson could have never made Harry Potter. His magic systems are tight and limited in scope by necessity. He could make a magic school story, but it would be much more like an engineering academy or military school, where people try to push magic to its limits, than it would be the whimsical Hogwarts.

Sanderson could have never made Harry Potter. His magic systems are tight and limited in scope by necessity. He could make a magic school story, but it would be much more like an engineering academy or military school, where people try to push magic to its limits, than it would be the whimsical Hogwarts.

I basically agree with this. And different people have different preferences, of course. I myself enjoyed Harry Potter but I did find some of the magical contrivances to be annoying, especially time travel.

I honestly think the Sanderson approach is overrated. You do not have to write a novel series as if you're writing an RPG sourcebook. Vampire: the Masquerade needs to define exactly how vampire powers work; Interview with the Vampire does not.

I'd agree that Harry Potter as a series would be improved if the magic was less obviously ad hoc, and if there were less in the way of magical powers that appear only once, could obviously solve whatever problems the heroes run into in the future, and yet are rapidly forgotten, but I suppose I think that's more of a plotting issue than a worldbuilding issue. We don't need to know exactly how the magic works for the sake of the story.

I honestly think the Sanderson approach is overrated.

I think it's a matter of taste, basically how nerdy the reader is.

I'd agree that Harry Potter as a series would be improved if the magic was less obviously ad hoc, and if there were less in the way of magical powers that appear only once, could obviously solve whatever problems the heroes run into in the future, and yet are rapidly forgotten

For me, it's definitely a negative, with time travel being the worst offender. That being said, another poster pointed out that in many ways, Harry Potter really is about world building, it's a beautiful world, you just have to squint a bit.

I myself prefer the Honor Harrington series.

That being said, another poster pointed out that in many ways, Harry Potter really is about world building, it's a beautiful world, you just have to squint a bit.

Wasn't that me?

Wasn't that me?

Yes, I thought that was an insightful comment. I should have linked it but I was too lazy.

In that case, thank you for the compliment!

The Weasley family is pure-blood, but they are

... silly Irish stereotypes. "My father told me all the Weasleys Irish have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

I picked up on that too, and I'm looking forward to discussing it with a Harry Potter fan friend tomorrow.

But if all it takes is one wizard-wizard generation to wash the bloodline clean, it really seems confusing to consistently get mad about. Hermione's a Mudblood, but she marries pureblood Ron, so her kids aren't, and... that's good enough for the blood purists? Whatever harm the purists think Mudbloods are inflicting on the wizarding world, they "assimilate" by the standards of blood purity in a single generation, so it's purely temporary.

Now if you told me this was just incomplete JKR worldbuilding, I'd believe it, but if we're trying to make this all make sense, it seems like the number of Muggles in your bloodline over time is what they'd be worried about.

As per here, I suspect that in practice it's somewhat inconsistent, and depends on whether it is advantageous in a given context to emphasise one's ancestry.

I think the relevant part here, in narrative terms, is that Malfoy clearly attempted to be friends with Harry. As it happens Harry immediately cottoned on to Malfoy being a jerk, but from Malfoy's perspective, he knew that Harry was a hero, that it would be politically and practically useful to have Harry on-side, and that Harry, though with good wizard ancestry (esp. on his father's side), was raised by muggles and therefore ignorant.

The passage I quoted is the first time Malfoy knows he's talking to Harry, but as it mentions, they had met earlier in the robes shop, though at this point Malfoy didn't know who Harry was.

In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.

“Hello,” said the boy, “Hogwarts, too?”

“Yes,” said Harry.

“My father’s next door buying my books and mother’s up the street looking at wands,” said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. “Then I’m going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don’t see why first years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”

Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.

“Have you got your own broom?” the boy went on.

“No,” said Harry.

“Play Quidditch at all?”

“No,” Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.

“I do — Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you’ll be in yet?”

“No,” said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.

“Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I’ll be in Slytherin, all our family have been — imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”

“Mmm,” said Harry, wishing he could say something a bit more interesting.

“I say, look at that man!” said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn’t come in.

“That’s Hagrid,” said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn’t. “He works at Hogwarts.”

“Oh,” said the boy, “I’ve heard of him. He’s a sort of servant, isn’t he?”

“He’s the gamekeeper,” said Harry. He was liking the boy less and less every second.

“Yes, exactly. I heard he’s a sort of savage — lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed.”

“I think he’s brilliant,” said Harry coldly.

“Do you?” said the boy, with a slight sneer. “Why is he with you? Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead,” said Harry shortly. He didn’t feel much like going into the matter with this boy.

“Oh, sorry,” said the other, not sounding sorry at all. “But they were our kind, weren’t they?”

“They were a witch and wizard, if that’s what you mean.”

“I really don’t think they should let the other sort in, do you? They’re just not the same, they’ve never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What’s your surname, anyway?”

But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, “That’s you done, my dear,” and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.

“Well, I’ll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose,” said the drawling boy.

Malfoy tries to make conversation, and seems to be, from his perspective, trying to be friendly? He throws in that question about ancestry, so blood does matter to him, but hearing that both Harry's parents were wizards is enough for Malfoy to assume that this boy must be a pure-blood like him. However, Harry rapidly gets the impression that Malfoy is a snob and an entitled bully, especially from the way Malfoy talks about 'servants'. I think it's telling that Malfoy asks Harry's surname before he even asks his first name.

The interpretation I took from these two initial meetings is that Harry Potter is pure-blooded enough for Malfoy to potentially accept him as a friend, and both conversations make it clear that Malfoy would be willing to have Harry as a friend. However, the way that Malfoy talks about other people is enough for Harry to immediately realise that Malfoy treats other people with contempt, and is cruel to those he thinks are 'below' him. Harry instinctively sticks up for his friends and defends the little guy (perhaps due to his own past, being bullied at school and picked on by Dudley), and indeed this loyalty will go on to be one of Harry's greatest virtues.

Random addition, I'm sorry, I'm thinking about Harry Potter now and I'm in full-on literary criticism mode.

Gryffindor and Slytherin are generally presented as each other's opposites, and Harry and Malfoy are the archetypal Gryffindor and Slytherin, respectively. We are also told that courage is the Gryffindor virtue, and ambition is the Slytherin virtue. This is never pointed out to us explicitly, but it occurs to me that, in the world of the books, Harry and Malfoy are both characters who are totally lacking in the other side's characteristic virtue.

It's easy to notice that Harry's signature virtue seems to be passivity, obedience, or lack of ambition. Since Rowling is on Harry's side, she tends to also present acceptance and passivity as one of the primary virtues. Consider how in Philosopher's Stone, Harry is able to see the location of the Stone in the Mirror of Erised, whereas no one else can, because Harry alone does not want the Stone for anything. Other people see themselves doing things with the Stone, but Harry, who only wants to find it and not use it, sees himself finding it. Throughout the series as a whole, Harry follows Dumbledore's instructions obediently, and he is generally pretty bad at taking initiative himself. When in situations that would require him to take the initiative, he tends to either sit around waiting for things to happen (cf. Goblet of Fire and even worse in Deathly Hallows), or to do what he thinks Dumbledore would want him to do (cf. Dumbledore's Army). When characters ask him what he would like to do after graduating, he tends to stammer a bit and be unsure, as he does not seem to have given it any thought. In the parable of the Deathly Hallows, with the three brothers granted wishes by Death, the two brothers who want to use their wishes to accomplish things fail and die horrible deaths, whereas the third brother, who wants to do nothing except hide, is the 'good' one; and Harry inherits the third brother's cloak, and his power of invisibility. The climax of the whole series is Harry's death in the Forbidden Forest, a scene which involves Harry obediently following prophecy, accepting death, and letting it happen to him. Harry is a person largely without ambition.

Meanwhile the most noticeable character trait Malfoy has, aside from his snobbishness or his bullying nature, is his cowardice. This almost becomes a virtue in the final few books - Voldemort and the Death Eaters try to recruit Malfoy into their army, or have him carry out important duties for them, and he always hesitates. Malfoy is afraid to actually hurt other people. It's not that he's selfish, or that he's primarily afraid to be in danger. In Deathly Hallows, for instance, Malfoy would definitely be safer, in Malfoy Manor, if he just positively identified the heroes. But he doesn't. In Half-Blood Prince, he is entrusted with a crucial task for the villains, but dilly-dallies, makes excuses, and ultimately is too squeamish to go through with it. The dramatic climax of the book is Malfoy hesitating, afraid to commit a murder. But he never becomes a hero either. He is too afraid to join them as well. The heroes save his life in Deathly Hallows but he's still unable to bring himself to join them. Just as Harry suffers a basic lack of ambition, Malfoy suffers a basic lack of courage.

In some ways that makes Malfoy one of the more interesting characters in the books, to me. Rowling could have written him as a two-dimensional villain, and she didn't. In the first book Malfoy is, like Snape, a red herring - he's nasty so he seems like the villain, but he isn't. But as the books go on, we can tell that he has actual virtues. I think the crucial chapter for him is chapter 31 of Deathly Hallows - Malfoy intervenes to stop Crabbe and Goyle from killing Harry, Crabbe betrays him and sets the room on fire, and Harry goes to save Malfoy and Goyle:

And then Harry heard a thin, piteous human scream from amidst the terrible commotion, the thunder of devouring flame.

“It’s – too – dangerous –!” Ron yelled, but Harry wheeled in the air. His glasses giving his eyes some small protection from the smoke, he raked the firestorm below, seeking a sign of life, a limb or a face that was not yet charred like wood….

And he saw them: Malfoy with his arms around the unconscious Goyle, the pair of them perched on a fragile tower of charred desks, and Harry dived. Malfoy saw him coming and raised one arm, but even as Harry grasped it he knew at once that it was no good. Goyle was too heavy and Malfoy’s hand, covered in sweat, slid instantly out of Harry’s –

“IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I’LL KILL YOU, HARRY!” roared Ron’s voice, and, as a great flaming chimaera bore down upon them, he and Hermione dragged Goyle onto their broom and rose, rolling and pitching, into the air once more as Malfoy clambered up behind Harry.

[...]

Malfoy fell off the broom and lay facedown, gasping, coughing, and retching. Harry rolled over and sat up: The door to the Room of Requirement had vanished, and Ron and Hermione sat panting on the floor beside Goyle, who was still unconscious.

“C-Crabbe,” choked Malfoy as soon as he could speak. “C-Crabbe…”

“He’s dead,” said Ron harshly.

I notice that, facing certain death by flame, Malfoy's first instinct is to grab the unconscious Goyle and try to drag him to safety. Malfoy could then drop Goyle and just hang on to Harry, but he holds on to his friend, unwilling to leave him to die. Once they all get out, Malfoy's immediate thought is for Crabbe, and he seems to be in tears. He seems to feel this way even though Crabbe had just turned on him. That tells me that Malfoy is not entirely a horrible person. He cares about his friends and responds empathetically, even when he could let go and save himself.

Malfoy's problem isn't that he doesn't have a conscience. He does. It's that he's a coward. He's a fence-sitter - in theory he believes in pure-blood supremacy, but he doesn't have the stomach for what Voldemort and his minions would do to secure it. He seems to realise that Voldemort would destroy everything he cares about (as does Lucius, by the end), but does not have the courage to stand against him.

Anyway, when I make this analysis, it seems pretty clear that what Harry and Malfoy need to do is learn from each other - or at least, learn from the house opposed to theirs. Harry's ability to accept what is necessary is to an extent a virtue (a better writer than Rowling could make something kenotic out of it), but if it were tempered with ambition, if Harry had more sense of purpose and initiative, he would be a better hero and a better man. Likewise I cannot help feeling that Draco Malfoy, if he were given more of a spine, could also perhaps be a good man.

Whether you wrote a genfic about a Harry/Malfoy friendship, or M/M slash, or M/F romance with a Malfoid, I think there's potential there. A dramatically compelling friendship or romance should have something that each partner offers the other. A partnership in which Harry can encourage Malfoy to be braver and more principled, and Malfoy can encourage Harry to show more initiative and ambition, seems like it might bring the best out of both of them.

There seem to be only what, ten thousand wizards in all of Britain, and they all go to school together, so asking for someone’s last name probably returns a value you have heard before.

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