A word on the rules this fic follows. It is not a strict single point of departure. [...] I’ve posted a disclaimer in chapter one to this effect (“This is not a strict single-point-of-departure fic”). If anyone thinks this was a bad idea, now would be a good time to speak up.
The question that most interests me is not single vs. multiple departure, but rather known vs. unknown departure. If the set of points of departure is finite and known in full to the readers, then we can draw on canon evidence to help make inferences about the world of the fic. If not, we have only the fanfic itself to draw upon.
As a reader, I would rather have more information available. But this would require the author to have potentially unbounded knowledge of canon, depending on whether Word Of God was included, and at minimum to have read all the books.
I find it odd that Eliezer writes this fic without having read all of the books, but it’s his life and his fic. And for the purposes of complying with canon, I believe that careful perusal of Wikipedia and other fan-made sites should be sufficient.
The biggest danger is poor characterisation of characters who don’t show up in what Eliezer has read. Reference sites are good at explaining what people did, but poor at describing what they were like. However, I don’t think that Eliezer is using any such characters, is he?
And therefore, I agree with you that it would be nice if Eliezer spelt out his points of departure; having not read all of the books should not stop him. Unfortunately, I think that some of his rules (such as the rule against anything to stupid for a book for adults) are pretty open-ended. (And how to apply them is very unclear; why is Peter Pettigrew as Scabbers stupider than the rules of Quidditch, for example?)
having not read all of the books should not stop him.
That’s not true. Without exhaustive knowledge of canon, there’s no way to know whether a given detail is specified at all or not. For example, Eliezer may not have realized that Harry and Draco’s experimental results should have been outright confusing given the canon-available information on inheritance.
why is Peter Pettigrew as Scabbers stupider than the rules of Quidditch, for example?
This much at least makes sense to me. Scabbers!Pettigrew requires one person to have done something ridiculously stupid, all on his own. Quidditch is a group error, the kind that can accumulate insidiously from an initially reasonable state and linger for a long time even when every member of the group would have been smart enough not to initially make the error that they’re all propagating.
Without exhaustive knowledge of canon, there’s no way to know whether a given detail is specified at all or not.
That’s a good point. We can only hope that mistakes will be obscure.
Eliezer may not have realized that Harry and Draco’s experimental results should have been outright confusing given the canon-available information on inheritance.
But that’s just DidNotDoTheResearch. One obvious source of information begins (and has begun for some time) with the most relevant quotation.
Scabbers!Pettigrew requires one person to have done something ridiculously stupid, all on his own.
Sadly, that is very credible in the world that I know. (The first mistake is driven by panic; then he sticks with it out of intellectual inertia, sunk cost fallacy, etc.) However, it violates the rule that Harry’s enemies must also be more rational than in canon. But then Eliezer still keeps some characters (Hermione, for example) canon!stupid.
The point is not that Eliezer chose wrong but that it’s unpredictable.
But then Eliezer still keeps some characters (Hermione, for example) canon!stupid.
Really? My impression is that Hermione has been changed in roughly the same manner as all the other characters (more clever, arrogant and ego-driven). Canon!Hermione couldn’t remotely have pulled off the last half dozen MoR chapters, for example.
Chapter 6: there are about 10 muggle-born English wizards per year.
Chapter 23: about one in four children of Squib couples are magical.
The exact distinction between Muggles and Squibs is not specified.
I haven’t found in-MoR data on the population of Muggle England, but according to what I remember from having looked this up somewhere that I can’t find again at the moment, there are about a million 11-year-old English Muggles.
Muggle-born wizards are so incredibly rare (10^-8) that it’s not necessary to postulate heterozygous parents to explain them; they could easily be the result of random mutation.
Wizard-born muggles and squibs are not addressed directly in MoR.
Harry and Draco’s results imply that Squibs must be heterozygous, with magic recessive.
If magic is recessive, then all wizards are homozygous, and should never have nonmagical children. It is possible that “squib” doesn’t mean the same thing in MoR as it does in canon. I dislike this option aesthetically, and if it is the case then I encourage Eliezer to change his mind.
I saw it suggested somewhere that squib children are born to witches who had affairs with muggles. If this is true, then squib children should be much less common to blood-purist parents. It would also explain why squibs are socially embarrassing, and might even explain the origin of the blood purity meme.
Actually, I really like that option.
If magic is recessive, though, then it’s much harder for muggle-born wizards to arise by direct mutation; a single mutation would produce a heterozygous muggle—that is to say, a squib. It’s much more likely that they’re descended from forgotten squib heritage; the smallness of the magical (and therefore wizard-born squib) population is sufficient to explain the rarity of muggle-born wizards.
In canon, the word ‘Squib’ means precisely a Wizard-born Muggle, just as ‘Mudblood’ means a Muggle-born Wizard. (The only thing that’s not analogous is that the latter term is used only as a slur.)
The Harry Potter Wiki describes differences between Squibs and Muggles that are minor and could easily be cultural or due to spells that deliberately distinguish them. (In Book V, Mrs Figg claims that she can see Dementors, and the Ministry’s ignorance of Squibs allows them to believe her, but Harry seems to think that she’s lying.) Squibs and Muggles should be the same phenotype.
So Harry is wrong to conclube that ‘Squib’ means someone heterozygous. The parents of Muggle-borns must also be heterozygous, even if those parents are not themselves Squibs. (I see from the latest chapter, however, that Hermione’s mother is a Squib!)
On reflection, this is the only thing wrong. So we can chalk it up to Harry’s unfamiliarity with the proper terms, or even say that he was oversimplifying for Draco’s benefit.
(Canon does have some Squibs with two Wizarding parents. But we’ve never seen any details of their home lives, so one could easily blame this on adultery. I remember reading some study, based on DNA samples, that concluded that children are surpsingly often not related to their putative biological fathers.)
(Canon does have some Squibs with two Wizarding parents. But we’ve never seen any details of their home lives, so one could easily blame this on adultery. I remember reading some study, based on DNA samples, that concluded that children are surpsingly often not related to their putative biological fathers.)
Actually, the percentage of people who are not raised by their putative biological fathers is pretty small. The percentage seems to be at most around 4%. Even among people who are getting tested specifically because they suspect that the kid is not theirs, the fraction which are cuckolds is less than 30%. See this summary.
Another legend bites the dust! (Although if I cast my mind back to before I heard this rumour, I think that I would have found 3% surprisingly large, all the same.) Thanks for the reference.
I suppose that the numbers could be higher among Wizards. And we only have a small sample size.
Dad had trouble just looking at Harry’s trunk directly. Magic ran in families, and Michael Verres-Evans couldn’t even walk.
Why would Harry’s dad have significantly more trouble than his mum with looking at the trunk? Does Petunia register as a squib to the Muggle-repelling charms? Is it easier to think about magic if you were exposed to it earlier in life? The narration seems to imply that the blood hypothesis is true, but this later turned out to be false.
Does Petunia register as a squib to the Muggle-repelling charms?
Good question. I said above that, by canon standards, Petunia would not be considered a Squib. So any spells that refer to the Wizarding community’s standards of what is a Muggle would treat her as a Muggle.
But she’s probably (2:1 odds) heterozygous, so any spells that look at the genes should treat her as a Squib. The spells may work on the genes without the Wizards who developed that spell actually realising that this is the mechanism; that’s the interesting part.
The narration seems to imply that the blood hypothesis is true, but this later turned out to be false.
Sorry, I forgot that ‘blood hypothesis’ has a specific meaning from Chapter 22.
Yes, the language did seem to imply that some Muggles are less magical than others. However, that’s not quite the same as the hypothesis that some Wizards are more magical than others (edit: which I take to a necessary part of the official Blood Hypothesis). Indeed, if heterozygotic Muggles (as Petunia is likely to be) are more magical than homozygotic Muggles (as Michael is likely to be), then the language of Chapter 7 still works.
The genetic variance in magical ability (at least, independent from general intelligence, studiousness, etc.) is limited to at most three discrete levels. So strictly yes, it’s possible that ‘some Muggles are less magical than others’, but there certainly isn’t a spectrum of magicalness.
Not true. Magic is heritable, but is a single gene thing, so that the pure blood concerns about mixing with muggles/squibs destroying magic are unfounded.
Sorry, I should have said ‘But if so, then that’s just DidNotDoTheResearch.’ (emphasis added).
But this has always bugged me, especially the idea that Squibs (but not Muggles) are heterozygous. Of course, any mistakes in Harry’s reasoning are his and not yours.
Actually, this is worth hashing out thoroughly. I will see if that’s already been done in the comments here, and if not I’ll start a thread on it.
I did that research, thank you. I always read the Wikia.
I just got a copy of the Author’s Notes for Chapter 22, and now I’m confused about your statement here (although I’m less confused about the story itself). Didn’t you admit in those notes that you did not do the research? From the notes:
A reviewer pointed out that J. K. Rowling has declared Squibs to be, by definition, born to at least one magical parent [which is also what Ron says in the quotation on the Wikia that I cited]; looking up the reference shows that she also said the magical gene was dominant. I’m not clear on how this is to be squared with the existence of Muggleborns, except, of course, by magic. Plus if the magical gene is dominant then almost all Muggleborns would presumably have only one copy, and then when two Muggleborns marry a quarter of the children would be Muggles [should be Squibs]. In this case I think I have to say that I’m just not sticking to JKR’s rules, and also plead, of course, “but that wasn’t in the books”.
I’m perfectly satisfied with that explanation; you change what you have to change to make the story work how you want it to. But because I had not read that before, the story seemed wrong to me.
From the Author’s Notes:
The question that most interests me is not single vs. multiple departure, but rather known vs. unknown departure. If the set of points of departure is finite and known in full to the readers, then we can draw on canon evidence to help make inferences about the world of the fic. If not, we have only the fanfic itself to draw upon.
As a reader, I would rather have more information available. But this would require the author to have potentially unbounded knowledge of canon, depending on whether Word Of God was included, and at minimum to have read all the books.
I find it odd that Eliezer writes this fic without having read all of the books, but it’s his life and his fic. And for the purposes of complying with canon, I believe that careful perusal of Wikipedia and other fan-made sites should be sufficient.
The biggest danger is poor characterisation of characters who don’t show up in what Eliezer has read. Reference sites are good at explaining what people did, but poor at describing what they were like. However, I don’t think that Eliezer is using any such characters, is he?
And therefore, I agree with you that it would be nice if Eliezer spelt out his points of departure; having not read all of the books should not stop him. Unfortunately, I think that some of his rules (such as the rule against anything to stupid for a book for adults) are pretty open-ended. (And how to apply them is very unclear; why is Peter Pettigrew as Scabbers stupider than the rules of Quidditch, for example?)
That’s not true. Without exhaustive knowledge of canon, there’s no way to know whether a given detail is specified at all or not. For example, Eliezer may not have realized that Harry and Draco’s experimental results should have been outright confusing given the canon-available information on inheritance.
This much at least makes sense to me. Scabbers!Pettigrew requires one person to have done something ridiculously stupid, all on his own. Quidditch is a group error, the kind that can accumulate insidiously from an initially reasonable state and linger for a long time even when every member of the group would have been smart enough not to initially make the error that they’re all propagating.
That’s a good point. We can only hope that mistakes will be obscure.
But that’s just DidNotDoTheResearch. One obvious source of information begins (and has begun for some time) with the most relevant quotation.
Sadly, that is very credible in the world that I know. (The first mistake is driven by panic; then he sticks with it out of intellectual inertia, sunk cost fallacy, etc.) However, it violates the rule that Harry’s enemies must also be more rational than in canon. But then Eliezer still keeps some characters (Hermione, for example) canon!stupid.
The point is not that Eliezer chose wrong but that it’s unpredictable.
Really? My impression is that Hermione has been changed in roughly the same manner as all the other characters (more clever, arrogant and ego-driven). Canon!Hermione couldn’t remotely have pulled off the last half dozen MoR chapters, for example.
I did that research, thank you. I always read the Wikia.
Okay, now I’m confused.
Chapter 6: there are about 10 muggle-born English wizards per year.
Chapter 23: about one in four children of Squib couples are magical.
The exact distinction between Muggles and Squibs is not specified.
I haven’t found in-MoR data on the population of Muggle England, but according to what I remember from having looked this up somewhere that I can’t find again at the moment, there are about a million 11-year-old English Muggles.
Muggle-born wizards are so incredibly rare (10^-8) that it’s not necessary to postulate heterozygous parents to explain them; they could easily be the result of random mutation.Wizard-born muggles and squibs are not addressed directly in MoR.
Harry and Draco’s results imply that Squibs must be heterozygous, with magic recessive.
If magic is recessive, then all wizards are homozygous, and should never have nonmagical children. It is possible that “squib” doesn’t mean the same thing in MoR as it does in canon. I dislike this option aesthetically, and if it is the case then I encourage Eliezer to change his mind.
I saw it suggested somewhere that squib children are born to witches who had affairs with muggles. If this is true, then squib children should be much less common to blood-purist parents. It would also explain why squibs are socially embarrassing, and might even explain the origin of the blood purity meme.
Actually, I really like that option.
If magic is recessive, though, then it’s much harder for muggle-born wizards to arise by direct mutation; a single mutation would produce a heterozygous muggle—that is to say, a squib. It’s much more likely that they’re descended from forgotten squib heritage; the smallness of the magical (and therefore wizard-born squib) population is sufficient to explain the rarity of muggle-born wizards.
In canon, the word ‘Squib’ means precisely a Wizard-born Muggle, just as ‘Mudblood’ means a Muggle-born Wizard. (The only thing that’s not analogous is that the latter term is used only as a slur.)
The Harry Potter Wiki describes differences between Squibs and Muggles that are minor and could easily be cultural or due to spells that deliberately distinguish them. (In Book V, Mrs Figg claims that she can see Dementors, and the Ministry’s ignorance of Squibs allows them to believe her, but Harry seems to think that she’s lying.) Squibs and Muggles should be the same phenotype.
So Harry is wrong to conclube that ‘Squib’ means someone heterozygous. The parents of Muggle-borns must also be heterozygous, even if those parents are not themselves Squibs. (I see from the latest chapter, however, that Hermione’s mother is a Squib!)
On reflection, this is the only thing wrong. So we can chalk it up to Harry’s unfamiliarity with the proper terms, or even say that he was oversimplifying for Draco’s benefit.
(Canon does have some Squibs with two Wizarding parents. But we’ve never seen any details of their home lives, so one could easily blame this on adultery. I remember reading some study, based on DNA samples, that concluded that children are surpsingly often not related to their putative biological fathers.)
(Canon does have some Squibs with two Wizarding parents. But we’ve never seen any details of their home lives, so one could easily blame this on adultery. I remember reading some study, based on DNA samples, that concluded that children are surpsingly often not related to their putative biological fathers.)
Actually, the percentage of people who are not raised by their putative biological fathers is pretty small. The percentage seems to be at most around 4%. Even among people who are getting tested specifically because they suspect that the kid is not theirs, the fraction which are cuckolds is less than 30%. See this summary.
Another legend bites the dust! (Although if I cast my mind back to before I heard this rumour, I think that I would have found 3% surprisingly large, all the same.) Thanks for the reference.
I suppose that the numbers could be higher among Wizards. And we only have a small sample size.
Why would Harry’s dad have significantly more trouble than his mum with looking at the trunk? Does Petunia register as a squib to the Muggle-repelling charms? Is it easier to think about magic if you were exposed to it earlier in life? The narration seems to imply that the blood hypothesis is true, but this later turned out to be false.
Good question. I said above that, by canon standards, Petunia would not be considered a Squib. So any spells that refer to the Wizarding community’s standards of what is a Muggle would treat her as a Muggle.
But she’s probably (2:1 odds) heterozygous, so any spells that look at the genes should treat her as a Squib. The spells may work on the genes without the Wizards who developed that spell actually realising that this is the mechanism; that’s the interesting part.
I missed something; what turned out to be false?
The blood hypothesis turned out to be false.
Sorry, I forgot that ‘blood hypothesis’ has a specific meaning from Chapter 22.
Yes, the language did seem to imply that some Muggles are less magical than others. However, that’s not quite the same as the hypothesis that some Wizards are more magical than others (edit: which I take to a necessary part of the official Blood Hypothesis). Indeed, if heterozygotic Muggles (as Petunia is likely to be) are more magical than homozygotic Muggles (as Michael is likely to be), then the language of Chapter 7 still works.
The genetic variance in magical ability (at least, independent from general intelligence, studiousness, etc.) is limited to at most three discrete levels. So strictly yes, it’s possible that ‘some Muggles are less magical than others’, but there certainly isn’t a spectrum of magicalness.
Agreed. (I’ve also made a small clarifying edit to my previous comment.)
Everything that you’ve said is correct; I was just confused about what ‘blood hypothesis’ meant until I reread Chapter 22.
Not true. Magic is heritable, but is a single gene thing, so that the pure blood concerns about mixing with muggles/squibs destroying magic are unfounded.
10^-5, not 10^-8.
Quite right.
Correcting this makes the rate too high, if I remember correctly, for random mutation anyway.
Sorry, I should have said ‘But if so, then that’s just DidNotDoTheResearch.’ (emphasis added).
But this has always bugged me, especially the idea that Squibs (but not Muggles) are heterozygous. Of course, any mistakes in Harry’s reasoning are his and not yours.
Actually, this is worth hashing out thoroughly. I will see if that’s already been done in the comments here, and if not I’ll start a thread on it.
See here and to a lesser extent here.
Thanks! I got distracted last night when I saw that my favourite fanfic had an instalment that I hadn’t read yet. (^_^)
I just got a copy of the Author’s Notes for Chapter 22, and now I’m confused about your statement here (although I’m less confused about the story itself). Didn’t you admit in those notes that you did not do the research? From the notes:
I’m perfectly satisfied with that explanation; you change what you have to change to make the story work how you want it to. But because I had not read that before, the story seemed wrong to me.
Given that every character he uses is changed rather significantly for the purposes of the parable it probably doesn’t matter too much.