Blood Purity bigotry is a central theme of the Harry Potter series. But how did it come to be? Is it truly ignorant nonsense, or is there a reason for it?
Mrs. Rowling’s Premise
Mrs. Rowling writes that magical folk feared violation of the Statute of Secrecy, which in turn was caused by persecution by Muggles.1 There are some problems with this. The biggest problems are her bogus version of United States History2 and the fact that witch hunting was largely restricted to Europe and the New England areas, so why would the rest of the world vote for it?
Bad arguments
The most common reason fan fiction authors adopt is essentially xenophobia. Wizards have some unique cultural elements, and that culture is diluted and, eventually, lost by the inclusion of children with non-magical heritage. The biggest problem with this argument is the forced inclusion that the young child of non-magical heritage experiences. He or she does not choose to immigrate. In no story featuring this argument has there ever been a real choice for the young student. Come to Hogwarts, effectively immigrating from non-magical Britain to magical Britain, or lose your magic, possibly with disastrous consequences for your future health, happiness, or both. Oh, and by the way, we aren’t going to tell you that you are immigrating until after you have made the choice and come to regret it. See more on this here
The next most common argument is essentially that the magical bigot is right. This is, if anything worse. The whole robes are better, parchment exists for a reason, you need to be told everything style of these stories grates. I talk about that here
A Reasonable Premise
At first this is a slight variation of the bad ideas, one that I have read very few times, but the difference is profound. Instead of speaking to observed particulars from the books, the indicia of the cultural differences, this argument focuses on fundamental viewpoint. The premise is that the person of non-magical heritage will never look to magic as a first solution, but will always instinctively do things the “muggle” way when possible. That this non-magical bias limits their appreciation for, practice in, and ultimately ability at magic. That many will attempt to explain things scientifically when magic has no such constraints, and in so doing self limit.
With just a few short examples, these stories can present a rationale for the bigotry that allows it to be wrong but rational. That is, we can see why the ideology attracts people, even while we condemn some of the conclusions.
Stories like this include, but are not limited to:
- stowfords. First Steps Published: 2008-05-15. Updated: 2009-04-30. See Chapter 5.
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. “Pure-Blood” The J.K. Rowling Index. Published: 2012-10-18. Last Viewed: 2022-07-05.↩︎