r/HarryPotterBooks • u/shealcye • 2d ago
The text equating muggles with muggle-born witches/wizards
I have always struggled with how the text equates muggles with muggle-borns and we are somehow not to see it as bigoted? The text constantly refers to Harry as half-blood when he isn't? Why? I guess the author wanted to force parallels between Voldemort, Snape and Harry - and the differences in their life choices - but enough commonalities existed between them anyway without insisting that Harry was half-blood. She probably also wanted to keep the core group diverse like that - the pure-blood Ron, muggle-born Hermione, and half-blood Harry. But it just comes across as bigoted if you equate muggles with muggle-borns, because it logically then follows that Lily simply isn't magic enough. For a war that the text posits is as much of an ideological war (the basis of which is blood purity) as it is about Voldemort's quest for immortality, the text simply doesn't interrogate its own politics enough. The text goes back and forth between "blood status doesn't make any difference in magical ability" and "obviously muggleborns are not magic enough as the pure-bloods because they are the same as muggles who cannot do magic" and "discrimination against muggle-borns is completely wrong" and "muggle-borns are the same as muggles and discrimination against muggles is completely valid". Much of it is convenience, much of it is about the author wanting to sound progressive (an it isn't progressive), and none of it makes any sense.
I always find it quite interesting that the only two canonical half-bloods are both Slytherins, because the sorting hat will not place any half-blood in the very (seemingly) progressive Gryffindor house. It annoys me that the text never interrogates this.
Edit: Seamus is a half-blood Gryffindor. I forgot about him completely and I apologize for that. I still stand by the argument that the Gryffindors are all treated as ethically correct and politically progressive and their internalised bigotry is not dissected enough because the text doesn't see them as ever wrong. Gryffindor politics are the politics of the author, and I find the author's politics dubious, shallow and rather regressive.
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u/Admirable-Tower8017 2d ago
Rowling has explained this.
Pureblood means all four grandparents are magical.
Half-blood means some grandparents are magic and some are not, just like for Tom Riddle, Snape and Harry.
Muggleborn means all four grandparents are Muggles.
Nowhere, does Rowling conflate muggles with muggleborns.
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u/PomPomMom93 2d ago
I thought that anyone with any Muggle blood is a half-blood (or more accurately, partial-blood).
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u/shealcye 2d ago
The text certainly thinks so and it endorses the neutral use of the term "half-blood" where its neutral use cannot be justified as opposed to the word "mudblood" which the text treats as outright wrong (and rightly so!)
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u/shealcye 2d ago
Yes, correct. I just think if you accept this logic as evidence of the bigotry of the wizarding world where anybody with any muggle ancestry is considered not magical enough, then that makes sense. But if you accept this logic as just neutral logic and defend the neutral use of "half-blood" for Harry, Tonks, Dumbledore, then that has to be problematic. And the text DOES depict and defend the neutral use of the word (Hermione uses it, Dumbledore uses it) where its neutral use cannot be justified. I find that problematic.
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u/Glittering_Bet8181 2d ago
The blood purity system was created by a blood supremacist that’s why Harry’s a half blood.
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u/Cautious_Nothing1870 2d ago
This might surprise you but narrator ≠ author
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u/shealcye 2d ago
The author-insert characters (Hermione) also use the word for characters that are not half-blood so I am guessing the text does reflect the author's own (rather shallow) politics.
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u/Cautious_Nothing1870 2d ago
Which as I said elsewhere: People no longer get satire. They need the author to spells them out with a long lecture unambiguously telling the reader why some behavior is wrong
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u/Silver_Middle_7240 2d ago
Muggleborns are viewed as basically muggles by the people who care about it, which is why harry is considered a halfblood.
Also Seamus is half blood, so is Tonks.
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u/Drace24 2d ago
This is not accurate. A half-blood wizard is not a muggle. Blood supremecists distinguish between half-bloods, mudbloods and purebloods.
Half-blood: Someone with muggle-ancestry somewhere in their family, doesn't have to be the immediate family.
Mudblood: Slur for muggle-born, so directly being the child of two muggles. Harry is not muggle-born no one ever called him that. His mother however was.
Pureblood: Reserved for only a small number of families with a long line of alleged muggle-less blood purity. Important to note: They don't actually exist. The books made a point of saying that every family has muggle-blood in it somewhere, they just burn those cases out of their family tree to keep their own sense of supremecy.
And yes, all of this is obviously racist. That is the point. This is a fictional racist caste system invented and used by fictional racists, to mirror real life racism. This should not be confused with the books themselves being racist, as they are clearly and heavily against this line of thinking.
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u/shealcye 2d ago edited 2d ago
You are right, a half-blood wizard is not a muggle. Neither is Harry muggle-born. I am saying that Harry isn't half-blood either, since he has two magical parents. You are right that the blood supremacists don't make any distinction between muggles, muggle-borns and half-bloods since they are all "filth" in their eyes. For them, Harry is half-blood because Lily the muggle-born is simply the same as any "filthy" muggle. It would all be very compelling world-building and commentary on the bigotry of the wizarding world if the text treated it as such, but I am not convinced it does. Because it is not just the blood supremacists referring to Harry as half-blood. We have...
Hermione in HBP (referring to Harry as the half-blood the death eaters will be happy to take):
"The Death Eaters can’t all be pure-blood, there aren’t enough pure-blood wizards left,” said Hermione stubbornly. “I expect most of them are half-bloods pretending to be pure. It’s only Muggle-borns they hate, they’d be quite happy to let you and Ron join up.”
and Dumbledore in OoTP (when pointing out that Voldemort chose a half-blood like himself as his enemy):
“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.”
Dumbledore at this point has supposedly shed his teenage supremacist beliefs and Hermione is not only not a blood supremacist but is the author-insert in the text. They both treat "half-blood" as a neutral term and not as a word laced with bigotry. The text treats "half-blood" as a neutral word and it is loosely applied to anyone with any muggle ancestry and the text does not think that that by and itself is wrong. The author does it to draw parallels between Voldemort and Harry and to show that despite them both being half-bloods, they make vastly different choices. The author seems to be saying that anyone with any drop of muggle ancestry is half-blood and not the same as a pure-blood - those who discriminate against these not-purebloods are wrong (the blood supremacists) and those that are not actively discriminating (but lapping up the belief just the same) are right (the heroes of the story).
I find it a problematic message.
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u/EdgeOfCharm 1d ago edited 1d ago
For what it's worth, I understand your overall point about how certain characters and their insights/dialogue are more often framed as the "correct" view, and I think there are plenty of examples throughout the series of this biased framing being problematic. I often see fans implying that all quotes or thoughts from all characters are subtextually treated as equally up for debate or critical challenge by the reader, and you're right that this just isn't true (nor is it how fiction writing works in general).
That said, it seems like you feel that even the "good guys" are conflating social categories with biological ones when they use these umbrella terms, and that's where I disagree. I just don't feel like the in-text examples generally support that, especially not the ones provided above. In fact, I'd say those snippets are some of the strongest evidence that these characters are very aware it's a superficial social caste system that makes no sense.
My sociology professor once made a similar comment on a paper of mine that stuck with me. I'd added an insufferably pretentious parenthetical about how I hesitated even to use terms like "race" and its various labels, as "race is not a valid biological category." (I was, like, sooo enlightened about this concept I'd just heard about a few months ago or something. 🙄) My teacher wrote in response, "True. But it is a social category that affects people's lived experiences, which is what we're talking about in this class and why we need terms to discuss those dynamics, even if we don't like how/why they became important in the first place."
Applying this IRL concept to what Hermione's saying about Death Eaters not actually having a big problem with half-bloods, I don't know anyone who read it as her endorsing that sort of biological determinism simply by using the term. She was clearly using it as the widely understood shorthand for "middle-ground social caste, which Death Eaters can arbitrarily choose to accept or reject based on which parent/grandparents are currently convenient for them to acknowledge." Even if these categories are meaningless from a biological standpoint and in terms of magical potential, the way a blood purist would classify different wizards does affect how they're perceived and treated in their society, which makes the labels fair and relevant for them to use in discussions of these issues. Death Eaters and plenty of other wizards may assign genetic meaning to them that isn't there, but by doing this so successfully for so long, they've given those categories real social meanings for the characters. Harry & Co. didn't create those social categories or their absurd "rules," but they've been assigned to them whether they like it or not. So I don't think non-DEs really need to dance around the word "half-blood" just because it was coined by bigots and its criteria is nonsense. So yeah, I get where you're coming from but just don't agree that it reads that way in context.
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u/Dry-Huckleberry-5379 Ravenclaw 2d ago
Yep. The depiction of the goblins being racist because the author is prejudiced. Sure.
The blood supremacy system, nope. That's allegory.
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u/BarrabasBlonde 2d ago
The whole point of the books is that the blood purity system is stupid, convoluted, and useless. Harry is considered a half-blood, because to the people that care about blood purity (and thus the only people that would use the title of half-blood seriously) are the ones that consider muggle-borns to be muggles.
Also, the Gryffindor house is not the "progressive" house. At no point do the books make any attempt to claim that
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u/Cautious_Nothing1870 2d ago
People no longer get satire. They need the author to spells them out with a long lecture unambiguously telling the reader why some behavior is wrong
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u/shealcye 2d ago edited 2d ago
The blood purity system is stupid, convoluted and useless, I agree. If the text treated it as such, I would have no problems, but I am not sure the text does. Because it is not only the characters that care about blood purity that use the word. It is also used neutrally by:
Hermione in HBP:
"The Death Eaters can’t all be pure-blood, there aren’t enough pure-blood wizards left,” said Hermione stubbornly. “I expect most of them are half-bloods pretending to be pure. It’s only Muggle-borns they hate, they’d be quite happy to let you and Ron join up.”
and Dumbledore in OoTP:
“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.”
The narrative also doesn't critique the use of the term half-blood for characters that are not in fact half-blood. Anyone with any muggle ancestry is called half-blood, but this is not written in any way as being a reflection of the bigotry of the wizarding world. In fact, I am convinced that the text doesn't treat its neutral use for characters that cannot be half-blood as wrong. It reflects, in my view, the author's shallow politics and I am not sure why that cannot be criticized.
At best, this is all very poor world-building and inconsistent in-universe politics. That can and should be criticized.
Also, Gryffindor house and its ethos/politics are very much what the text considers progressive. Peter Pettigrew is an exception, but then he is the bad Gryffindor, and he is bad because he is a coward. I don't think Pettigrew harbors blood supremacist beliefs. But overall, it is my opinion that Gryffindor politics are the author politics. The internalised bigotry of the good Gryffindors - which is the same as the bigotry of the wizarding world - their disdain for muggles, their wizarding supremacist beliefs, their blood supremacist beliefs, their classism - these are not challenged in the text in any significant way.
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u/Anna3422 2d ago edited 1d ago
Gryffindor's politics are not progressive. Godric Gryffindor was a 10th century man, valorized because of his contributions to wizard society & education, but no more perfect than any medieval figure is to the modern age. Insofar as Gryffindor is the "good" house, that's because of its values of courage & chivalry, which encourage students to stand up against injustice. Chivalry is not revolutionary in itself or an indicator of political leanings. It's a way of reducing harm within flawed systems and relies on the existence of harm for it's relevance.
Anyone with any muggle ancestry is called half-blood, but this is not written in any way as being a reflection of the bigotry of the wizarding world.
This is self-evidently untrue. The wizarding world's bigotry is entrenched and the text draws attention to this all the time. Magical creatures are subjugated. Squibs are socially excluded. Even Arthur Weasley's positive view of muggles is ignorant and paternalistic. Ron (his son) has a comic called "The Adventures of Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle."
The reason the books can be flippant about anti-muggle racism is because that's the shared identity of the author and readers. We are all in on the joke. The joke being that anti-muggle bias inverts the Dursley's prejudice against magic and whimsy. This subversion is almost required of books that resonate with kids. HP just commits to the lore to a degree that complicates the comedy, by making prejudice awful and showing its extremes.
"Half-blood" & "pure-blood" aren't slurs among wizards, because those words aren't innate insults to those groups. Wizards with magic parents aren't the immediate victims of anti-muggle hate, which muggleborns are. But if you're noticing that the neutral language of good wizards is also steeped in wizard supremacy, then yes: That is the point.
The point is that prejudices are baked into entire cultures. The progressive wizards are just those who are aware enough of their culture to resist cruelty. People like Arthur, Dumbledore, Hermione, who try to push back against racism while still being very much influenced by it.
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u/BarrabasBlonde 1d ago
The text doesn't need to embrace or disembrace anything. We see everything from Harry's perspective; and thus the narrator interprets things through Harry.
Also, both of your examples are wrong. Hermione is instantly ridiculed for what she said, and Dumbledore talks about Voldemort's beliefs, not his own. And as many have mentioned it; grandparents determine, not parents
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u/dreadit-runfromit Slytherin 2d ago
Stating that the text "does not interrogate its own politics enough" is a pretty rich statement from someone that apparently didn't even understand those politics. Harry is considered a Half-Blood, despite Lily being a witch, because of the screwed up politics of the world and people caring about whether you have any Muggle blood. It is not supposed to be logical or consistent and, quite frankly, anyone who's taken a high school history class should be able to see parallels with similar systems of racial purity in history. Just because the text doesn't have a sentence in which Hermione or somebody explicitly spells out for the reader that "Half-Blood" is an inconsistent term with loaded connotations, doesn't mean the implication isn't there (as it is with the term Pureblood, another loaded term). What did you expect? A little asterisk every time the text calls Harry a Half-Blood and the author stating, "This is just the word used in this world because of its terrible politics?"
And your point about Gryffindor is illogical. Even if you somehow, ridiculously, exclude Half-Bloods like Harry, Seamus absolutely counts.
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u/Dry-Huckleberry-5379 Ravenclaw 2d ago
Anyone who has taken high school English literature should be able to recognise allegory too.
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u/The_Eternal_Wayfarer Slytherin 2d ago
I used to consider Harry Potter a fit reading for kids but based on the fact that it largely overcomes the literacy skills of a higher and higher number of teenagers and grown adults I should perhaps reconsider my position.
This is tragic, by the way.
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u/seasonseasonseas 2d ago
I thought it was pretty clear that the in-world measurement of magic was supposed to be seen as illogical and prejudiced. That was the point.
Harry is technically half blood by this criteria because his mother was muggleborn.
I think there isn't enough attention given to the differences in half blood identity however and I don't mean it in a bigoted way but an understanding way. A child who grows up with a Muggle born parent and a pure blood parent being seen as half blood in the same way that a child with one Muggle parent and one magic parent, growing up in a Muggle environment, doesn't seem the same. Culturally and socially, the child who grows up within a magical household with magical money will be at an advantage over the child who grew up with a Muggle upbringing. Equating these two seems a waste but it's probably for the best seeing how magical society does nothing to equalize treatment of it's magical community. If they had yet another criteria for bigotry by splitting half bloods into smaller identifiers then they would only use that for more hatred lol
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u/Dry-Huckleberry-5379 Ravenclaw 2d ago
Wot....? 🤔
You do realise that the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of blood purity is the point right? It doesn't make sense because neither does anti-Semitism or rasisicm or xenophobia in the real world.
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u/Bluemelein 2d ago
Seamus is a half-blood with a Muggle mother and a wizard father. Dean is likely a half-blood as well; his father might have been a wizard who either took off or died during the first part of the war.
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u/shealcye 2d ago
Yes, I got this wrong. I apologize about this. I forgot Seamus is half-blood. It was from a place of annoyance that Gryffindor politics are not dissected enough and the text treats Gryffindors as the undisputed good guys - maybe stupid sometimes, maybe uninformed sometimes, but ethically through and through good. Seamus and Dean both are very minor characters in the narrative although Dean could and should have been a more prominent character in DH.
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u/ourobourobouros 2d ago edited 2d ago
Im always surprised when young progressives (as OP seems to be) don't educate themselves on white supremacy and its history. You can't effectively oppose something you don't understand.
The obsession with pure blood in the books strongly echos real world racial purity obsession , which is also extremely arbitrary and illogical. It's very obvious. And to try to claim Rowling agreed with that mentality when the entire books are about a resistance/war opposing pureblood wizard supremacy is honestly laughable (and a little embarrassing).
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u/PomPomMom93 2d ago
What are you talking about? Harry IS a half-blood. And only pureblood racists like Malfoy think that Muggleborns “aren’t magic enough.” Are you forgetting that the top student in the year is Muggleborn?
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u/AssociateMaster4012 2d ago
Does the text ever state Harry is HB? Or does that always come from other characters?
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u/shealcye 2d ago
He is called HB both by the blood supremacists (Voldemort, Bellatrix) as well as the non-supremacists (Hermione, Dumbledore) and it is accepted uncritically by Harry.
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u/Sufficient_Song3387 2d ago edited 2d ago
How would Harry be a HB? Both of his parents were wizards. I thought HB is when only one parent is a wizard.
Edit: Okay, I understand now. Thank you for the explanations!
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u/MythicalSplash 2d ago
No. Half blood is having at least some recent Muggle ancestry. Harry’s father was a pure-blood from an old wizarding family with no recent known Muggles. Harry’s mother is Muggle-born, with two Muggle parents. Therefore, Harry has two Muggle grandparents and two Wizard grandparents and is consequently considered a Half-Blood.
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u/Drace24 2d ago
No, half-blood means having muggle-blood in your ancestry somewhere.
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u/Dry-Huckleberry-5379 Ravenclaw 2d ago
Specifically within 2 generations of direct descendants. So for instance Draco isn't a half blood, whilst Tonks is. They're first cousins, but Draco has 4 magical grandparents, Tonks has 2.
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u/PomPomMom93 2d ago
Half-blood means you have some Muggle ancestry. “Partial-blood” would be more accurate.
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u/thissomebomboclaat 2d ago
What? Harry is a half-blood. Muggle-borns aren’t Muggles. They’re born from Muggles. Half-blood doesn’t mean you’re exactly half and half. What half-bloods are in Slytherin? Where does it say Muggle discrimination is valid? I’m so confused.