Muggles, Mudbloods, and Wizards of Magic

 

In the well-known Harry Potter series, there are several different blood types a being of witchcraft or wizardry may be: Pureblood, Half-blood, and Muggle-born. Like a family’s name or wealth may affect their status in society, a person’s blood type works in virtually the same way. Although, it is quite evident that a witch or wizards blood-type often may correspond with their wealth such as the Malfoys.

          Pureblood wizards are from a long line of magic beings and are often the oldest families of all. There are the poorer and more morally respectable families like the Weasleys, and there are the wealthy, greedy, conniving, corrupt families like the Malfoys. The Malfoys like to flaunt their blood line in the face of others as if it somehow makes them better.

          Half-bloods are those who are born of one magic parent and one human parent. The status of half-bloods can really go either way, depending on who they are talking to. If they were to talk to someone like the Malfoys, it may present a problem for them, but if they were to speak to most common wizards, they are viewed no different than any pureblood.

          Muggle-borns are the most mistreated and disrespected of all blood lines. Muggle-borns are the witches and wizards that are born of two humans. It is unknown really how they are born with magic when their parents weren’t (though, I believe it is because of distant ancestry). Another term for muggle-born wizards is “mudblood”. Mudblood is a very derogatory term and is viewed as extremely offensive. They are called that, typically by purebloods, because their blood is viewed as “filthy” and is considered bad blood.

          What I want to know is, why is it only muggle-born wizards that are viewed as having diluted blood? Wouldn’t half-bloods be considered the same? Muggle-born wizards have two muggle parents and just happen to have magic. Half-bloods technically have the “diluted” blood because they are a combination of muggle and wizard blood. I believe that the judgmental and extremely pretentious. There should be no reason they are considered better than anyone else. You either have magic or you don’t, it shouldn’t matter to what degree or ancestry.  

Harry Potter and the Seven Horcruxes

 

        Harry Potter: the “Young wizard.” “The chosen one.” “The boy who lived.” Yes, we have all heard about Harry Potter and we all love the stories. The entire series is… So creative and unique that it is hard to put into words. There are so many concepts that no one else has really thought of. J. K. Rowling made up vocabulary and concepts that can be recognized around the world. We all followed Harry though out his life and, most importantly, his journey to find and destroy every last horcrux keeping Voldemort alive; ever remnant of his malicious and broken off soul.

          In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, one thing we were not told at the end of the movie is that Tom Riddle’s diary that was so often referenced throughout the movie is actually a horcrux. A horcrux is used to create a sense of immortality. When someone kills another, a piece of their soul is literally broken and ripped from the rest, dismembering your soul. Evil wizards would then put those torn off pieces of souls into another object so that they could never truly die.

          At the end of the movie, Harry used the fang of a basilisk to stab the diary and, inadvertently, destroys one of the horcruxes. A few moments prior, Harry himself had been bitten by the same basilisk he had taken the fang from. Harry is later discovered to be the final horcrux of Voldemort. My question is, why would the fang destroy the horcrux of the diary but not Harry?

          I have a few theories about why the bite of the infamous basilisk might not have worked on Harry in this particular scenario. One theory is that the destruction of the horcrux, when in a living being, is only destroyed when that person is completely dead, which seems like an obvious answer. My second theory is that the destruction of the horcrux is not instantaneous. The phoenix had come to the chamber of secrets and had healed Harry after the venom of the basilisk had begun to spread through his body. In theory, a phoenix like the one from the movie can heal and repair any sickness, injury, or ailment. Perhaps, when Harry was starting to die from the bite, that could have also been his body started to destroy the horcrux as he himself died, but being healed had halted the process of destroying the horcrux.

Aphrodite: Goddess of Love

 

Aphrodite is a well-known Greek goddess. She is goddess of love, desire, pleasure, and procreation; see a common theme? Her overwhelming beauty sparked quite a tension among the Olympians. It was feared that the beauty of Aphrodite and the desire that many had for the goddess would create a mass rivalry to try and take her for themselves. It was believed that said rivalry would create a war among the gods. In an attempt to rid them of this predicament, Zeus married Aphrodite off to Hephaestus. Hephaestus is described and “ugly” and “deformed”.

The characteristics used to describe someone like Aphrodite are not hard to infer. She was a beautiful, worldly-desired goddess who was forced to marry one of the most “hideous” of all the gods. She is described as being extremely vain or highly focused on her own vanity, ill-tempered, and quite sensitive on occasion in terms of her reaction to being “insulted”; though she was said to often imply insults where no insult was intended. She was quite obviously very displeased with her forced marriage (A marriage that Hephaestus was overjoyed about. I mean, the man even forged her beautiful jewelry and presents to try and compensate for his lack of beauty in comparison to hers. She could have been a bit more grateful; he was a sweetheart to her. She sort of seemed a bit like a spoiled brat).

In reaction to her distaste for both her marriage and her “inadequate” husband, Aphrodite had many affairs. She really wasn’t particular about who she would sleep around with in any way, shape, or form. Whether she had affairs with a wide range of men because she actually had some interest in them or because it was a sort of rebellion against both Zeus and Hephaestus is still in question. She had affairs with gods (particularly Ares: God of war with whom she was most often sighted or paired with in mythology), mortals, even Adonis who was sort of like her surrogate or adoptive son after she found him as a child. Granted, she was a girl who was used to being constantly desired and given what she wanted. She wasn’t exactly given the fair end of the bargain by being “betrothed” to a god who most found inadequate, but she could have held higher standards for herself. Aphrodite is not any different than most gods. Many gods; Apollo, Zeus, Ares, Poseidon, they had countless children because of all of their affairs. What I find strange about her situation is the fact that Hephaestus plays such a major role in her mythology. A similar occurrence can be said of Persephone. With major male, Olympian gods, they tend to have “consorts” as opposed to concretely evident partners or wives. Persephone and Aphrodite were both forced into marriage that they didn’t want, simply because of their beauty. The difference was, Persephone always went back to her husband (Of course, he hadn’t given her much of a choice), Aphrodite seemed as if she were more married to Ares than she ever seemed to be with Hephaestus.

Overall, Aphrodite isn’t exactly one of my favorite of the Greek goddesses. I like her and the whole idea of love and everything that she represents, but I honestly believe that some of her traits make it harder to enjoy her character or sympathize for her. Aphrodite seemed to be a truly conceited, selfish, and bitter person who would use men to show a sign of rebellion and anger at the life choices she had been forced into.