This Harry Potter Theory Makes Complete Fools Of Pure-Blood Supremacists

Summary

• One of the biggest questions in Wizarding World fandom is where and how Muggle-borns get their magical powers.
• There are many theories, including that of J.K. Rowling.
• The author explained that there is a special magic gene that is passed down from one generation to the next.
• This theory gave birth to another, more plausible one, which not only explains Muggle-born magical siblings, but also destroys the pure-blood doctrine.

J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World is a complex and intricate universe that has mesmerized generations of readers and viewers around the world. While the basic idea of the universe - wizards and witches living among non-magical people called Muggles - is simple and exciting, it also leaves much room for speculation.

One of the most popular questions among fans is how Muggle-borns like Hermione Granger and Lily Evans can become wizards and witches when their parents and close relatives do not have magical powers.

Since the original books give hardly any answers to this question, fans have been theorizing for years about how the whole magic-discovery thing works for Muggles.

Official and fan theories

Official sources have also tried to explain the mystery. The Wizarding World website, for example, says that the wizarding community used to believe that magic would just 'bob up' out of nowhere in Muggle-born kids, so they called such children 'Magbobs'.

J.K. Rowling offered her own, much deeper theory in the Bloomsbury webchat.

'Muggleborns will have a witch or wizard somewhere on their family tree, in some cases many, many generations back. The gene re-surfaces in some unexpected places,' she said.

The idea of a special magic gene is indeed intriguing and gives fans the opportunity for further speculation.

The Harry Potter Wiki offers a theory that the magical ancestors of the Muggle-borns are actually all Squibs, who lost not only their magical powers, but also their knowledge of them. So when the magic gene reappears many generations later, it's as if the magic came out of the blue.

Other fans are certain that there can't be a single magic gene, but rather a combination of genetic factors that cause Muggle-born children to become wizards and witches. This theory explains how Muggle-born siblings - like Colin and Dennis Creevey - could both become students at Hogwarts.

More than that, this theory puts pure-blood supremacy under a great deal of scrutiny.

Pure-blood doctrine makes no sense

The idea that magic comes from a mixture of genes makes it clear that pure-blood supremacists, who are clearly a metaphor for various real-life intense nationalist movements, are simply wrong in their belief that they are somehow unique and superior to Muggle-borns.

The theory clearly states that the first wizards and witches were born of Muggle parents after a mysterious combination of genes took place. Eventually, this 'accident' became common and a large wizarding community was formed.

Wizard-born children inherited the combination of genes, and some of them preferred to forget their Muggle background and started calling themselves pure-bloods.

Well, if the wizarding community had been more accepting of Muggle science and included genetics in their schooling, there probably wouldn't be any pure-blood elitists at all.

Sources: Wizarding World, Bloomsbury, Harry Potter Wiki.