Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Jun. 30th, 2004 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
That's just a silly name for a book. But it is very interesting to muse about who the half-blood prince is.
We can divide our options in a number of ways:
1. Choosing between:
A past or former student, presumably of Hogwarts (I'll count those visitors in GoF for this)
Another wizard
Another magical being, probably a half-breed
A muggle
2. Choosing between:
Somebody we know well (the trio, Neville, Draco, Hagrid)
Somebody we kinda know (Luna, Dudley)
Somebody we recognize easily (The Patils, Crabbe and Goyle, Stan Shunpike)
Somebody whose name we've heard (Euan Abercombie, Malcolm Baddock)
Somebody completely new.
I realize I listed females in this, and they can't be princes, I'm just trying to give examples from each category.
There's some people we can easily knock out. I'm going to assume that nobody is a bastard, unless it's been otherwise stated. If your parents are married, they're your parents, no questions asked. So, not possible:
Malfoy (he's pure-blood)
Nelville (ditto)
The Creevies (muggleborn)
Harry (possible, but seriously unlikely, and wouldn't people already know? Besides, she's said it isn't him or Voldy)
Voldemort (see above)
Tom Riddle (you're stretching, but it still can't be him, not unless his muggle family was royalty. Otherwise, why would he have been raised in an orphanage?)
Before I list every character in the book, let's ask a more pertinant question: Prince of what? Do wizards have their own royal lines? There wouldn't seem to be enough of them for that. There's five people in Harry's dormitory. That's ~half the people in his year and house. If there's ~10 people per year, per house, that's only 280 in the school. Since I made a lot of assumptions in that math (Hermione could be sharing with 10 girls, none of whom we know), I'll say that Hogwarts has an enrollment of between 250-300 students. From what I can glean from the books, there are very few schooling options for wizards. If there's maybe two schools per country (Hermione guessed that the girls in the woods were from Beauxbatons just on their accents, so there apparently isn't another French school), and each has the same enrollment... Well, it's not very many children. There were 3000 kids at Stuy, and that's only four years. One high school out of many. We know there aren't very many pureblood wizards, certainly people have said it in nearly every single book, if their population is really as small as all that, wouldn't everybody be a prince, somewhere down the royal line?
And besides, we haven't heard anything of any wizard royal line. So that leaves two options:
Muggle royalty (well, it is a half-blood)
Non-human royalty.
I am hesitant to accept "non-human" as the option. Half-humans are called "half-breed", right? So while it's possible, it seems unlikely. Hagrid gets the boot, because he isn't half-blood.
That leaves muggle royalty.
Now I'm confused. She's really going to insert a wizard prince into an existing royal line? What?
*sighs*
I'm going to lie down. I give up. I just discussed my way into a corner.
We can divide our options in a number of ways:
1. Choosing between:
A past or former student, presumably of Hogwarts (I'll count those visitors in GoF for this)
Another wizard
Another magical being, probably a half-breed
A muggle
2. Choosing between:
Somebody we know well (the trio, Neville, Draco, Hagrid)
Somebody we kinda know (Luna, Dudley)
Somebody we recognize easily (The Patils, Crabbe and Goyle, Stan Shunpike)
Somebody whose name we've heard (Euan Abercombie, Malcolm Baddock)
Somebody completely new.
I realize I listed females in this, and they can't be princes, I'm just trying to give examples from each category.
There's some people we can easily knock out. I'm going to assume that nobody is a bastard, unless it's been otherwise stated. If your parents are married, they're your parents, no questions asked. So, not possible:
Malfoy (he's pure-blood)
Nelville (ditto)
The Creevies (muggleborn)
Harry (possible, but seriously unlikely, and wouldn't people already know? Besides, she's said it isn't him or Voldy)
Voldemort (see above)
Tom Riddle (you're stretching, but it still can't be him, not unless his muggle family was royalty. Otherwise, why would he have been raised in an orphanage?)
Before I list every character in the book, let's ask a more pertinant question: Prince of what? Do wizards have their own royal lines? There wouldn't seem to be enough of them for that. There's five people in Harry's dormitory. That's ~half the people in his year and house. If there's ~10 people per year, per house, that's only 280 in the school. Since I made a lot of assumptions in that math (Hermione could be sharing with 10 girls, none of whom we know), I'll say that Hogwarts has an enrollment of between 250-300 students. From what I can glean from the books, there are very few schooling options for wizards. If there's maybe two schools per country (Hermione guessed that the girls in the woods were from Beauxbatons just on their accents, so there apparently isn't another French school), and each has the same enrollment... Well, it's not very many children. There were 3000 kids at Stuy, and that's only four years. One high school out of many. We know there aren't very many pureblood wizards, certainly people have said it in nearly every single book, if their population is really as small as all that, wouldn't everybody be a prince, somewhere down the royal line?
And besides, we haven't heard anything of any wizard royal line. So that leaves two options:
Muggle royalty (well, it is a half-blood)
Non-human royalty.
I am hesitant to accept "non-human" as the option. Half-humans are called "half-breed", right? So while it's possible, it seems unlikely. Hagrid gets the boot, because he isn't half-blood.
That leaves muggle royalty.
Now I'm confused. She's really going to insert a wizard prince into an existing royal line? What?
*sighs*
I'm going to lie down. I give up. I just discussed my way into a corner.
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Date: 2004-07-01 01:50 am (UTC)Actually, number of people is no argument for or against royalties. There are islands that have less than fifty inhabitants - who are ruled by royalty.
That aside, of course "we" as the readers, as well as Harry et al should have known since book one if their were wizard royalty - at least if that wizard royalty were English. If it's Spanish, Australian or Transylvanian, it's perfectly possible they just haven't been interesting up to now.
Muggle royalty? Possible, but I can't really imagine having JKR bring muggles into the Big Main Plot, let alone into the title. So other magical kin (as in "Fountain of Magical Brethren") would be much more interesting. That might even fit with the half-blood vs half-breed thing: Giants apparently aren't counted among the Magical Brethren, or at least I can't remember a giant in the fountain (but of course the fountain was a lie, so who knows). So there's elves, goblins, centaurs, wizards. I can't really imagine a king of house-elves; but for the rest, anything mixed with anything might be the answer...
Though my guess would be half-goblin. Or it might be the descendant of an ancient, no-longer-in-power royal line, sort of a half-blood Aragorn for the Potterverse? *shrgs*
Am going to re-read the Chamber of Secrets now.