Join hosts Aureo, Irvin, and Sophia, and guest Zoe Panagakos as they discuss the Black Family and the family tree as shown in the Harry Potter series.
In this episode:
- Muggle studies are relevant – always
- None of us can pronounce French
- “Don’t drink and blast tapestries”
- Prepare your star constellation knowledge
- Teenage fathers or math mistakes? You decide!
- Were Walburga and Tom besties at Hogwarts?
- Count all the mentions of Herpo the Foul
- Sirius may have killed his father!
- Nymphadora Bellatrix Potter, you were named for the two baddest witches…
Resources:
- Does ‘Harry Potter’s’ Black Family Tree connect Mrs. Black, Tom Riddle, and McGonagall? by Irvin
- Black Family Tree by The HP Lexicon
The two family tree pictures we use for this episode:
The Pub’s Jukebox:
- Black Family Anthem by Parselmouths
- Starcross’d Brothers by Malfoy Manor featuring Nagini
- Black Family Tree by Hawthorn & Holly
Some families seem to collectively decide that a particular name is the best and keep using it – it makes life hell for genealogists trying to work out which William Smith is involved in a particular context. There was also a practice of naming eldest children after their father/mother, but rather than being “Junior” the child is known by their middle name.
Obviously, they name children after bright stars because they shine out of the Black.
There is apparently a daffodil/narcissus cultivar called “Constellation”, so Narcissa’s name may be an elaborate pun. Or maybe her blond hair provoked suspicions of infidelity, hence her name doesn’t fit the family pattern. Narcissa seems disinterested in Black family news – maybe she picked up on this subconscious distancing, or was the least favourite daughter (until Andromeda eloped) as the other two looked like Blacks.
LOL at your elaborate backstory for Narcissa and her blonde hair.
Bravo, sir!
And yeah, as someone who’s kinda obsessed with royal history and all that, the whole reusing names thing is a huge pain in the ass. (Seriously, French people, you are allowed to have a king not named Louis!) I’m always entertained by how writers telling fictional stories about this (ie. Philippa Gregory) find ways of differentiating the dozens of Edwards and Marys and Richards.
I am not too pleased with your take on the name Marius, LOL. (I named my son that).
Marius is an ancient Latin name, it means “descendent from
Mars” or “dedicated to Mars”. It is a name of strength and power. So many names in the series are Latin versions of names of Greek origin, and so many names are pure Latin names. And with the squib Marius, I think it’s a perfect name, since he would have needed strength to overcome and have a good life in the muggle world.
But otherwise, I love your name discussions!
#JusticeForMarius
Ah sorry about that! I think part of of my reading here is that I know multiple Mariuses so that name seems “regular” to me, a bit like Harry. And all the others on this family tree are pretty unique names so it did stand out.
But I don’t have any dislikes towards Marius, it’s a cool name and I am sure your son is wonderful 🙂
Love the etymology of the name here and agree it makes good sense to name the squib Marius.
I would assume that the teenage fathers are due to math errors, but either way unexpected children would likely be adopted (whether officially or not) by other family members. I knew someone that eventually found out the reason for the large age gap between their siblings was that their big sister was actually their mother.
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Maybe Orion was killed by Voldemort/Death Eaters (e.g. he didn’t want to join as he’d recently seen a grim at his window, and was scared to leave the house), and that was what turned Regulas.
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Andromeda and Sirius show the difference between Slytherin and Gryffindor approaches to defying your family: one dramatically runs away, the other quietly courts and elopes with a muggleborn.
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The Horcruxes episode of Alohomora called them “voldybits”; does that mean his lack of interest is because he’s chopped them off and secreted them around the country?
Re teenage fathers – I think that’s done largely because of societies that frown on teenage pregnancies. We see no indication that wizards are all that fussed in opposition to teen pregnancy. Such things were quite common in the 1600s when the wizards cleaved from Muggle society, so I imagine their attitudes to be far more relaxed about it.
Particularly in the case of the Blacks, they would be far more invested in the genealogy and pedigree of the children than in hiding teen pregnancies. As long as the teenagers in question were respectable purebloods, I think they wouldn’t bother with adoptions or any of that. Also, as we discussed, I imagine the Blacks took a very “it takes a village” approach to the various cousins in the family, so the grandparents and everyone would pitch in regardless of who was whose official child.
I agree the Black family would all pitch in, but given the focus on “genealogy and pedigree”, the issue (pun not intended) with teenage parents is whether they were married or not. A child born “on the wrong side of the blanket” would be viewed as lesser and not eligible to inherit, hence the potential of adoption by another family member (thus making the child more official).
Ah, but you can rush 13-year-olds into a marriage if someone is knocked up, which seems like something the Blacks would do. (We also don’t know for sure if the medieval hangups regarding “legitimate” offspring persisted in the pureblood wizards, but I would assume they did to some extent.)
Fair point.
I suspect any society big on genealogy would have hangups about legitimacy. If you can be expelled from a family for not living up to its ideals, that suggests the family would also be persnickety about who is a member in the first place.
Though there doesn’t seem to be a widely-used magical method of confirming lineage (like the provide-blood-sample-to-goblins methods so popular in fanfic). The Blacks (and presumably other families) have extensive private records, but Umbridge gets away with claiming to be a Selwyn.
I really like your point about Andromeda and Sirius – that’s a great way of looking at it. The Gryffindor makes a huge fanfare about his principles, the Slytherin quietly slips away.
And I take Voldybits to mean something very different, which Voldemort doesn’t have upon resurrection! If the Trio and Dumbledore spend the last few books hunting for Voldybits, tha’ts not a mental image I want to engage with!