Talk:Pure-blood

"Blood" in "pure-blood" should not be capitalised. Check out Chamber of Secrets, when Malfoy gives that as the password to the Slytherin common room, he says "Oh, yeah — pure-blood!" I've never seen it capitalised anywhere in the books. Hermione1980 20:41, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Then I guess a move would be in order. Except I think there is a redirect to here, so it might just have to be a copy and paste and lose the history. That's fine with me. Speaking of capitalisation, is it Muggle, or muggle? And does that fit with muggle-born etc.? --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)}

It's Muggle and Muggle-born, pure-blood but Mudblood (gasp! not a nice word!). Let me see about that move… Hermione1980 21:02, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Moved. Hermione1980 21:03, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Thanks... Oh, and sorry bout the unsigned post above... I went ahead and signed it with no timestamp. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:08, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Half-Blood versus Pure-Blood

Many times on many articles, it has come up of the debate between half-blood/pure-blood. And it is never resolved, so once and for all, here we should have the final discussion:

A half-blood is defined as: A witch or wizard with at least one wizarding parent but at least one Muggle parent or grandparent.

A pure-blood is defined as: A witch or wizard of 'pure' wizarding ancestry, without any Muggle ancestors whatsoever as far as can be determined.

This is very contradictory however. For children like the Potter children (James II, Albus, and Lily II), there is no distinct blood status for them. They do have muggles in their ancestry, but all of their parents and grandparents are magical (argue that Lily is a muggleborn until the cows come home, but she's still a witch, and therefore defined as one). They don't fully fit into pure-blood, and most definately not half-blood.

I think the problem here is the definitions on the Lexicon given for Half-Blood, Muggleborn, and Blood Traitor (to some extent and even squibs to a certain extent) are defined so technically, but pure-blood is defined as something a pure-blood-ist thinks. Which has no technical way to distinguish precision, because Jo has mentioned that even pure-blood families have some muggle distantly in them. Therefore, I move that we distinguish pure-blood-ism as "any witch or wizard born to two magical parents, and have four magical grandparents" otherwise, characters such as James Potter II, Albus Severus Potter, and Lily Potter II have no blood distinction and there will forever be a 'half a dozen one, six the other" fight.

Either way, we need to fully exact our definitions, because sticking with the Lexicon %100 clearly isn't working since, like the Bible, it contradicts itself in places.--Silverdrama 05:49, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the Lexicon definitions are rather inconsistent in that regard. But I still think that Harry and Ginny's children would be half-bloods based on JKR's statement on blood purity. I'll quote and break down why:

"The expressions 'pure-blood', 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' have been coined by people to whom these distinctions matter, and express their originators' prejudices."

This makes any distinction between what extremists think and what other people think moot. The definitions were invented by people who are prejudiced; they are the ones who care about distinguishing individuals based on blood in the first place.

"As far as somebody like Lucius Malfoy is concerned, for instance..."

Again, he would be one of those people who is concerned with blood distinctions, hence he would know them well.

"...a Muggle-born is as 'bad' as a Muggle. Therefore Harry would be considered only 'half' wizard..."

I take this as meaning that, in determining blood purity, a Muggle-born is treated the same as a Muggle. Because prejudiced wizards -- those who created the defintiions -- see a Muggle-born as basically the same as a Muggle. They might have magic, but they're still "unclean" (hence the term "Mudblood"). This is well illustrated by a scene in Chapter 9 of Goblet of Fire, during the Death Eaters' riot at the Quidditch World Cup:

"Granger, they're after Muggles," said Malfoy. "D' you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around ... they're moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh."

"Hermione's a witch!" Harry snarled.

"Have it your own way, Potter," said Malfoy, grinning maliciously. "If you think they can't spot a Mudblood, stay where you are."

This makes it clear that people like the Malfoys (again, those who came up with the definitions) clearly don't consider Muggle-borns to be "real" wizards and witches. Thus, having even one grandparent that was Muggle or Muggle-born makes you less than "pure". To go back to Rowling's statement in comparing blood purity to the Nazis' racial definitions:

"A single Jewish grandparent 'polluted' the blood, according to their propaganda."

To further support the point that pure-bloods need to have entirely magical heritage more than two generations back are what we know about various pure-blood families. The House of Black's family tree dates back to the Middle Ages. Ernie Macmillan claims to be descended from nine generations of pure-bloods. The Malfoys are pure-blood at least as far back as the 17th century (when Brutus Malfoy lived). This all suggests that pure-bloods require many more than two generations of entirely magical heritage.

Furthermore, it's notable that pure-bloods who care about their heritage will only marry fellow pure-bloods. Marrying a Muggle or a Muggle-born are equally grounds for being disowned (the Blacks disowned both Isla and Andromeda for marrying a Muggle and a Muggle-born, respectively). They don't even appear to permit marriage to a half-blood, presuambly because half-bloods still have known Muggle ancestry and would thus still be "polluting" the bloodline.

As Rowling has said, no one is really "pure". The families that claim to be "merely cross Muggles and Squibs off the family tree and pretend that they didn't exist". But there is a considerable difference from families like the Blacks, who are only magical in ancestry for at least several generations and who remove not only any non-purebloods who marry into the family, but also any "blood traitors", from their family tree, and families like Harry's, who make no effort to pretend they don't have Muggle-borns and Muggles in their family.

To sum up, from what we can extrapolate from Rowling's statements on the subject and from the books, it seems that pure-bloods are those who claim to have no Muggle ancestry whatsoever -- or, at least, none that can be traced for many generations back. Half-bloods are basically anyone who has both magical and Muggle heritage, which makes sense, considering that "most wizards these days are half-blood anyway" (according to Ron in Chamber of Secrets) and that pure-bloods are dying out. Oread ^(talk) 20:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Another thing to add -- Rowling drew parallels between the Death Eaters' prejudice and the Anti-Semitism of the Nazis, commenting that they used "precisely the same warped logic". The Nazis persecuted people with even a single Jewish grandparent -- even if that grandparent had not been a practicing Jew, or had converted to another religion. Because they considered Jews to be a "race" -- i.e. it was a matter of ethnicity, something that is innate and fixed. It seems to be the same way prejudiced pure-bloods consider Muggle-borns: even though they can use magic, they were still born to Muggles, they still have Muggle blood. Oread ^(talk) 18:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Do Pure Bloods mind Half Bloods as much as Mudbloods? I thought that they didn't mind Half Bloods, which is why a lot of them followed He Who Must Not Be Named. Also, what was Voldemort's opinion about Squibs and Half Breeds and non human sentients? And did Voldemort mind Mudbloods more than Muggles? 75.27.36.231 04:40, August 28, 2010 (UTC)

There is a degree of prejudice. Remember that Bella calls Harry a "filthy half-blood" multiple times, but they were accepted more so that Muggle-borns. Voldemort seems to equate Muggle-borns with Muggles, unless their power is attractive to him. --JKoch^{(Owl Me!)} 04:59, August 28, 2010 (UTC)

Luna Lovegood

I don't know if I can add Lovegood family as Pureblood family because Luna Lovegood is for sure that she is not muggleborn, more likely pureblood witch like Weasley family, Black family, Malfoy family etc.. We for sure know the fact that Luna's father Xeno is known as editor of Quibbler in the Wizarding World, and her mom is interested in experimenting with random spells before she died. It suggests that Luna is not Muggleborn witch. Is it ok to add Lovegood family as pureblood later on? 76.95.131.60 10:42, January 5, 2011 (UTC)

No, it isn´t. As she could have a muggle grandparent, or another muggle ancestor.--Rodolphus 10:47, January 5, 2011 (UTC)

You mean we don't know if she is half-blood or pure-blood, right? If xeno or mrs.lovegood is half-blood wizard, this would have made luna half-blood, right? 76.95.131.60 18:30, June 5, 2011 (UTC)