Ignotus and the Mirror: a Response to Terri_Testing and Jodel
So I have a theory about Ignotus’s connection to the Mirror of Erised, inspired by the recent essay by Terri_Testing, and particularly one of Jodel’s comments. This theory assumes that at least some of the information in the legend of the three brothers is true, but doesn’t require that it be completely true (though it can be). Essentially, Ignotus
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So, if a Gaunt ancestor popped in and discovered Cadmus Peverell's suicide, it may be that he'd discovered a cousin's suicide rather than just a neighbor's suicide, and would be entitled to an inheritance, especially if Cadmus had few to no descendents.
But, I'm also wondering - how much of the mirror's influence is specific only to the person it affects? Does it only affect the gazer, or, if someone who has looked into it, later has children, would those children also be affected? Because bringing a Gaunt ancestor into the equation, then looking at Marvolo and his brood, did that earlier Gaunt gaze into the mirror, and did it affect his later reproduction? Males make new sperm, while females have all of their eggs from birth. That doesn't mean that existing cells can't be affected, but would they be affected differently than newly-produced cells?
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Which is one of the reasons that I'm inclined to believe that the Mirror is more likely to be Ignotus's work than Cadmus's. Iggy at least had the time. And a family to leave his artifacts to.
After all, we were given canon reason to suppose that the Gaunts had been inbreeding themselves into extinction for a long time (and were shown the Blacks were no short distance down the same road, even if not as far), so trying to drag the mirror into it is kind of in excess of requirements.
And, yeah, everyone but the Muggleborns are all probably descended from the Peverills by now. And there's probably a very wide range of just how far back one needs to go with all magical forebearers before you qualify as pureblood.
The Blacks seem to have been deliberately marrying only other magicals since about the time of the Peverills. They may or may not be the only ones, but I expect that they are on the extreme end of the scale.
One of my essays over on Red Hen pointed out that one of the major gaps in Rowling's history of magical Britain is an apparant impression that there has been about the same number of wizards in Britain for the past 1000 years. Which simply does not hold water, unless wizards really are dieing out. Because the estimated population of Britain has increased something like a hundredfold in that time. If wizards made up the same percentage of the population then as they seem to do now (acto Rowling maybe 3000-5000), and the Wizengamot has been around since Saxon times (which featured a remarkably similar-named group of Muggle counselors of the King), then the Wizengamot was a 50-member body then, too -- then it probably constituted every wizard in the nation.
Isolation probably accounted for a lot of magical/Muggle crosses before brooms and Floo transport were established, and Hogwarts probably also served as a marriage brokerage during at least some of its history. But we honestly have very little certainty as to how the general wizard-in-the-street viewed a magical/Muggle marriage prior to the sort of social stresses which led to the Acts of Wizarding Seclusion.
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According to the harrypotter dot wikia dot com site, Cadmus did have an heir, though it isn't clear who the mother was. With his sad obsession with the dead, he was probably a poor father; the Gaunts could well be his direct descendants, what with Marvolo's bad parenting style and all. I know that, when I'm upset or sad, I'm a lot shorter with my kids than I'd like to be, and we learn our parenting the most from our parents.
But, maybe he died young and the child was raised by others. Maybe neighbor Gaunt took it in.
I think the number of Wizards in various times is a case of, 'Oh, maths.' It's possible that there was a larger population in the medieval times, as it seems, from Nearly Headless Nick's story, that being a wizard was more open and accepted back then. It isn't too much of a stretch to imagine that marriage between suitably matched Wizards and Muggles were arranged, based more on social status than magical status. I think you might have written about that (maybe in the same article.) After the witch hunts, I can totally see the WW retreating and withdrawing from Muggle society, even moving away from ancestral homes so they wouldn't be fingered by neighbors as being magical, and so voluntarily limiting themselves to a more restricted gene pool for their matches.
And, after a while, the fear factor disappeared and it became socially enviable to point to a completely Wizarding background. It also bolsters their sense of superiority to say that the burnings and such weren't effective. I'd expect that this pureblood thing is more with the upper class families, like the Malfoys, than it is with the common Wizard. Gaunt and kin would be a special case, then, based more on lineage than on circumstances. I'll bet that the Weasleys are more indicative to attitude, with the only difference being that they're more vocal about their beliefs. Everyone else tucks their heads down and pays lip service, because social pressure is a real thing.
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I've been thinking for a while that they are. They haven't noticed because their population is stable. It hasn't decreased, yet. But they haven't compared the number of wizard to the number of muggles. They don't realize that the ratio of wizards to muggles is going down.
It appears that with the exception of the Weasly's small families or only children are the norm. And if the percentage of Muggles who have magical children keep going down eventuly the wizarding world will start to lose population.
Which got me thinking about the Baby Boomers Born in 1960 I could be considered at the tail end of the baby boom. I am the oldest of 6 children. My mother said when I was born the Hospital Nursery was full. With each child - at the same Hospital she could see the Nursery getting emptier and emptier.
So Snape, Malfoy, LeStrange etc would have been going to school as the Boom hit. With the increase in muggle births there would have been an increase in muggle-borns, something that terrified the Purebloods.
In Harry Potter there is no post Voldemort defeat baby boom shown. Harry doesn't notice in his 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th year that there are more 1st years than in his his. There are no lil 1st year Harrys or Harrietts coming up to saying they were named after them.
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Of course I was also trying to keep the number of wizards in porportion with the muggle population throughout. But if wizards really are dieing out -- and it is certainly a viable hypothesis, for wizards in folklore were certainly more numerous than they seem to be now -- then all of those figures are probably complete vapor.
Rowling claims that there are something like 3000 wizards and witches in Britain -- which makes no sense of the claims that wizards are longer-lived than muggles and that Hogwarts has something like a student body of some 600. But then, 'Oh, maths'...
But if there have pretty much always been around that many of them, and that more and more of that number have tracable ties to the Muggle world within 2 generations, the hard-liners might well feel themselves under siege.
One of the factors in all of my populations projections was the fact that the highest birth rate in Great Britain in the 20th century was in the year 1920. If the number of magical births inside the muggle birth talleys was stable, then around 1931 Hogwarts would have suddenly started receiving an influx of close to twice the number of Muggle-borns that it was accustomed to.
Which, appears to be right around when we *know* there was an uptick in the Pureblood supremicist rhetoric and propaganda.
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We do see some wizards who live very long life, but is that the norm? HP is lacking in showing extended families. Where are the Grandparents, Great-grandparents or even Great-great grandparents? The only student we know of with a living Grandparent seems to be Neville.
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And the lack of grandparents is just plain lame.
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But, for that matter, where are the Evanses? Muggles might not live as long as Wizards, but we don't generally die off in our thirties and forties. If, as was more common back in the 1950s and early 1960s, they married out of high school, they shouldn't even have hit their sixties as the series opens, if my meager math is right. I get why Rowling didn't want to show them - Harry would have had some advanced notice of what might happen with him, and Petunia would have been on a leash, but at least have them traveling the globe and sending post cards, or something!
Could also mention the Lovegood elders on both sides. Maybe Wife Lovegood's parents shunned Xeno, but did they also shun Luna? It's like all the orphans got together and had an Orphan's Dating Club.
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Admittedly, Rowling already had a Cast of Dozens just by making it a school story, but given the size of the WW (i.e., puny), pretty much everyone he met outside school ought to have had the same last name as one of his schoolmates.
It's not like she needed to specify if they were parents, uncles, cousins, older siblings, or whatever.
Of course it would have largely reduced the whole wizarding war to a family spat, but that's what it bloody *was* after all...
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