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Forums: Index > The Wizengamot > Who Inheritted Ignotus Peverell's Cloak?


Hi everyone. We've been having a discussion in the Ignotus Peverell article on who inheritted the Invisiblity Cloak from Ignotus Peverell: Ignotus's son or granddaughter, Iolanthe? I would like your opinion, thanks.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard's Tale of Three Brothers says that Ignotus shed his cloak and gave it to his son. Recently, JKR wrote an article on Pottermore which says that Ignotus' granddaughter, Ionlanthe inherited it from her grandfather.

I was on the side that say Iolanthe that inheritted it. Couple reasons.

1. She was the only one that said "inheritted from her grandfather." Ignotus son was just given it.

2. In the Harry Potter universe, Tale of Three Brothers are fairy tales and what Pottermore article provided was in-story history. Fairy tales may contains some facts, but they are not absolute truths. My opponent think just because the tale were written by JKR, that it is absolute truths. My opponent fails to recognize the purpose of why JKR wrote those fairy tales in the Harry Potter universe, they were fairy tales. Like I said before, fairy tales may have some facts but are not 100% truth. They often use to convey a message. Like the Warlock Hairy Heart encourage reader to love. The fact it mention that Ignotus gave the Invisibility Cloak to his son is more likely for two reasons. First, unlike his brothers, he didn't face an untimely death. Second, the Invisibiliy Cloak, unlike the Elder Wand, have a rather peaceful transition of owners.

3. My opponent used a quote from the Pottermore article which says "She was the granddaughter of Ignotus Peverell. In the absence of male heirs, she, the eldest of her generation, had inherited her grandfather’s invisibility cloak" to justify the position that Ignotus passed it to his son, who in turn pass it to his daughter. In my opinion, this quote doesn't show this conlusion. If anything this shows us, that Ignotus's son and any possible other children, and grandchildren who may be males may have predecease him. We have seen in real life, where a child inheritted from grandparents because their parents who suppose to inherit, predecease the grandparents. And we have seen in real life, where a female inheritted only once all male heirs are gone. An example of this can be seen in the British royal family.

4. My opponent failed to read further on the Pottermore article which says ""From this time on, the cloak was handed down to the eldest in each new generation." This was after Iolanthe inheritted the cloak from her grandfather. So it was her that began the tradition of passing from one generation to the next. It didn't began with Ignotus passing it to his son, who in turn passes to his daughter. It began with Ionathe.

5. Are we expect to see fairy tales characters to come to live in our real world? If as my opponent believe, they are absolute truths.Seasrmar (talk) 20:17, October 31, 2015 (UTC)

A response:
1) Pottermore never said that she inherited the cloak from her grandfather.  It says "she inherited her grandfather's cloak."  That is a huge difference.
2) The "Tale of the Three Brothers" is a fairy tale.  However, in universe they also contain truth.  In fact, it has been shown that almost all they contain is true.  Much to Hermione's chargin, it was shown that the Peverell's and the Hallows did in fact exist.  The only very small part that has proven to be false (maybe) is that the Hallows were not created by Death and instead by the Peverells.  (Even in this, we only have Dumbledore's opinion.)  If these "fairy tales" were completley legend, none of the Deathly Hallows would exist in the first place.  So since the Hallows and the Peverell's exist, my oponent must conclude that everything we can verify about "The Three Brothers" has been proven to be true.  A fact that is not critical to the story is that the cloak was inherited by Ignotus' son.  It makes no sense that JKR would include a fact that she knew to be false as an item that was not critical to the story.
3) The Pottermore story may not be read apart from canon.  JKR conclusively said that the eldest son of Ignotus inherited the cloak.  There was absolutely no reason for her to include that fact unless it was true.  Yes, it is possible - reading Pottermore alone - that Iolanthe could have outlived her father, but again, we cannot read Pottermore alone, since JKR specifically stated that Ignortus' son inherited the cloak. 
4) The phrase "From this time on, the cloak was handed down to the eldest..." strongly suggests that the cloak was first inherited by Ignotus' son/Iolanthe's father.  If the cloack was always inherited by the eldest in a given generation, there would be no need to indicate that Iolanthe inheriting the cloak broke tradition.  This line indicates that starting with Iolanthe, the cloak was inherited by someone who was not the oldest son.  In traditional English inheritance schemes at this time, the item would have passed on to the next closest male descendent.  However, with Iolanthe something different happened - it went to the eldeset in the generation regardless of gender - and this statement only makes sense if the previous inheritance was in fact according to tradition and  to Ignotu's son.  If Iolanthe was the first to inherit the cloak, there would be no reason to mention "from this time on."  JKR would have simply said the cloak was always inherited by the oldest.
5) If fairy tales such as "The Three Brothers" do not contain any truth, then the Peverells and the Deathly Hallows did not exist at all.  In which case there is no point having this discussion since there was no Cloak to inherit in the first place. Wva (talk) 22:18, October 31, 2015 (UTC)
1. If Iolanthe must have inherited from her father, than why doesn't it mention so? e.g. her father's cloak or his name's cloak. All JKR would need to do after that is just explain who her father was, the son of Ignotus. But she didn't Also, once you gave something to someone, it is theirs. If they decided to give that something to another person, it will be their gift to another person, it's not your gift to another person. And, in the books, Harry always mention that he inherited from James, and likewise James inherited from his father. Why not mention the Cloak of Ignotus Peverell? 
2. I never said that the fairy tales did not contain truth. What I disagree with my opponent is the level of truth. My opponent would believe 100% of it. While I believe some parts are true, some parts are not. If we are to believe everything from the Tale of Three Brothers, how is it possible that the Gaunts are descended from Cadmus? The Tale told us his fiance died. The Tale also tells us that after got the Resurrection Stone, he went to his home, where he lived alone. He killed himself. Cadmus Peverell's bloodline ends there if we go by the Tale. Yet, the Gaunts are his descendants in real history.
3. My opponent insist that JKR said that Ignotus's son inherrited the Cloak, but no where does JKR outrigtht say this. If my opponent simply use The Tale as the only basis, then my opponent is mistaken. As demonstrate above, fairy tales, while have some truth, are not 100% truth. Fairy tales cannot be use to ascertain complete truth, instead some parts only. Meanwhile Pottermore, which has been call "Writing by J.K. Rowling" can be used as absolute truths. I quote the author directly, my opponent quote a piece that the author include in a fairy tales, where truth and fiction are mixed. My opponent would believe that 100% of the Fairy Tale, and make it canon. While I take what JKR said, and part of the fairy tales, as truth. Perhaps my opponent like to believe that Gilderoy Lockhart did all those amazing things too.
4. "From this time on, the cloak was handed down to the eldest..." This indicates that unlike her father's generation, who predecease Ignotus and her generation, where it must be male who were the first to inheritted. Going forward, none of the Potter generations after hers predecease the previous ones, and it didn't matter if the eldest was male or female, he or she would inherited the Cloak.
5. Again, my opponent mischaracterized what I said. I never said the fairy tales do not contain any truths. What I said was there were only some truth in them. The Brothers, Ignotus having a son, and the Hallows are real. However some parts, like Death and Ignotus' son inheritting the cloak isn't. Seasrmar (talk) 01:42, November 1, 2015 (UTC)
Whoa. I think you're complicating a simple issue; it's a matter of using Occam's razor. We are presented Beedle the Bard's account of events (which, admittedly, has a few artistic liberties, the most obvious being Death, and, more arguably, Cadmus dying before siring children -- which is only an apparent untruth; we wouldn't know if he had been married before, but I digress).
Generally, we tend to accept any account from characters in canon as a null hypothesis (that is, presumed true until evidence suggests, or proves, otherwise). Take this example: in Half-Blood Prince, Slughorn says that he used Felix Felicis twice in his lifetime, one when he was 24 and again when he was 57. We have no reason to doubt Slughorn's statement so, we take it as a truthful statement. But, in Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore says what he sees on the Mirror of Erised is a pair of thick woolen socks -- we were only able to dispute this account because Rowling later said he was lying to us (he actually saw "his family alive, whole and happy").
When a character says something, we can only assume they are lying or somehow in the wrong if we have compelling evidence to say that. If we didn't, we'd be arbitrariously picking and choosing what's canon and what's not.
On the recent Pottermore update about the Potters, Rowling does not, in any way, cast doubt as to the veracity of Beedle's account of the cloak's first bequest (her exact words are "[she] inherited her grandfather's invisibility cloak" which is quite different from saying that she inherited the cloak from her grandfather). Pointing out that the Tale is not a 100% accurate source of information is not acceptable as, if we went with that, we could not accept anything other characters say, since everyone is prone to lying or to be mistaken.
Hence, parsimoniously, we should list the succession of the Cloak's inheritance as Ignotus > Ignotus's son > Iolanthe, until any evidence proves or leads us to believe that this may not be the case. --  Seth Cooper  owl post! 03:01, November 1, 2015 (UTC)
Then why not say "She inherited her father's cloak?" It was his by that time. Just like by the time James got it, it was said he inherited his father's cloak, and when Harry got it, it was said he inherited James' cloak. Why not just say they inherited their ancestor's cloak? There's a different between not believing everything in the Tale and believing everybody else. People can will tell the truth. The Tale is part of a fairy tale, which has a tendency to fabricate some stuff.  Seasrmar (talk) 03:34, November 1, 2015 (UTC)   
We need to back up a moment.  Fairy tale or not, the story was written by JKR.  The evidence is clear that she had done significant background work on all her characters and I don't think any credible reader will doubt that by the time Book 7 came around she clearly knew the "Potter family story."  So why in the world would she write something intentionally false as a throw-away detail in a story?  There are occasions when characters are wrong about something - like in Book 1 thinking Snape was trying to steal the stone or having imperfect knowledge.  There are aspects of the "Tales" that are likely to be fanciful - e.g., the Hallows were created by Death instead of the Peverell brothers.  However, this is not one of those cases.
Now, if the Pottermore article specifically said the cloak was inherited by Iolanthe, then fine, but it does not.  However, the Pottermore story is perfectly consistent with the fact that inheritance went from Ignotus -> (son/father) -> Iolanthe.  JKR specifically wrote that it was inherited by Iognotus' son, and there is no credible reason for JKR to have been mistaken or wished to mislead the reader.  So we are left with the solution that is consistent with canon and is also consistent with the Pottermore article. There really is nothing more to say.  Those are the rules of interpretation that we use.   Wva (talk) 15:54, November 1, 2015 (UTC)
My friends, I concede. You are right. While I still believe there are some elements in the Tale of Three Brothers, as fairy tales, are false, I will concede the part that Ignotus Peverell's son inheritting the Invisibility Cloak before Iolanthe. This is due to a closer read of the Pottermore article, which further said: "Dragon pox carried them off within days of each other, due to their advanced age, and James Potter then inherited Ignotus Peverell’s Invisibility Cloak." This quote describe how James inheritted the Invisibility Cloak. Of course got the Invisiblity Cloak from his dad, but it was originally Ignotus, who was long dead by the time James got it. So likewise, Iolanthe got it from her dad, Ignotus's son, while the Invisiblilty Cloak was origninally Ignotus, who may have been dead by the time Ignotus's son gave it to Iolanthe.Seasrmar (talk) 00:37, November 2, 2015 (UTC)
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