Why is it that so many series that have hereditary magic never

>>54203518
/lit/

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>>54203518
>magic is hereditary in Harry Potter
It isn't, though.
Squibs aren't as rare as you think they are, them being "the exception" it's just what Purebloods want you to think.

Magic in Harry Potter isn't hereditary despite being considered as such.
There is no proof in Harry Potter source material as to the magic being hereditary.
There is proof in Harry Potter source material as to the magic NOT being hereditary in the form of Muggleborns.

It's just people mixing up correlation with causation in-universe.

>>54203541
Harry Potter is just the example that came to mind but the problem exists in most rpg settings.

>>54203592
>most
This word is thrown around so much, but when you get down to brass tacks, whenever someone says "most", what usually means is "my worldview is so sheltered and uninformed that I can't do anything but make sweeping generalizations".

tl;dr [citation needed]

>>54203562
except their are huge blood lines of wizard families who have gone to Hogwarts for 10+ generations
2/10 try harder

>>54203518
it feels like you answered your own question somewhere in there. there are wizard aristocrats and they have the same advantages as real aristocrats, money and influence. some people, like in real life, are lead to believe that these aristocrats are naturally better than other people, but it seems like the main factor in harry potter magic - beyond having the potential in the first place - is skill and not inborn power.

>>54203683
>bloodlines
Means absolutely fucking nothing.

Have you considered that maybe wizards are more likely to be born in places saturated with magic?

>>54203592
>the problem exists in most rpg settings

Most RPG settings don't HAVE hereditary magic. In most RPG setting magic is something you simply study and learn, like any other skill.

>>54203518
Wizard supremacy is a thing in HP, of course. It's never questioned even by the god guys. Nobody in Dumbledore's Army ever thinks "hey, you know what would really help these Death Eaters see the error of their ways? Fifty muggles with fucking guns. Or hell, I bet Mr. Weasley has a closetful of illegal enchanted guns that he's not supposed to have; let's fucking lock and load."

>>54203562
>Squibs aren't as rare as you think they are, them being "the exception" it's just what Purebloods want you to think.
According to what? Your headcanon? Also you probably think that Squib is just a term for a muggle with wizard parents but that's not actually the case, squibs are distinct from muggles enough that muggle repelling charms and the like don't work on them. So canonically a wizard can't birth a muggle, even a muggleborn can only have a squib or a wizard.

But more importantly there are wizarding families that have been around for centuries. If wizards had the some chances of having wizards as muggles then there would be no such thing as a centuries old wizard family. Therefore magic is hereditary.

>>54203518
They go to the same school, and receive the exact same courses there.
As for equipment, surely purebloods *can* get better stuff... but then again, all you need to cast most spells in the Potterverse is a wand, and skill. Magics that would require more expensive equipment are not the focus, usually.

>>54203728
>dragging muggles into wizards-only dispute
Also, Order of the Phoenix are repeatedly shown to be "honorable good guys", who won't stoop down to breaking Statute of Secrecy for the purposes of what is a strictly wizards-only dispute.

Voldemort might've done it, but he is too blinded by his hatred of all muggle.

>>54203753
>Therefore magic is hereditary
See >>54203709.

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>>54203518
Are you really surprised to see bad writing in the dullest franchise in the history of movie franchises? Seriously each episode following the boy wizard and his pals from Hogwarts Academy as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the gloomy imagery, the series’ only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of special effects, all to make magic unmagical, to make action seem inert.
Perhaps the die was cast when Rowling vetoed the idea of Spielberg directing the series; she made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody?just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for her books. The Harry Potter series might be anti-Christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-James Bond series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.
>a-at least the books were good though
"No!" The writing is dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs."
I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

>>54203769
>>54203709
>every wizarding family in the entire world lives on a leyline
Stop spamming the thread with your headcanon.

>>54203807
the great Gatsby anything other then smouldering garbage opinion discarded.

>>54203562
Rownling said Muggleborns had wizard ancestors.

>>54203518
Worst girl but only because of the worst MC ever.

>>54203807
Sweet pasta

>>54203769
It's not a wizards-only dispute; it's established that several muggles are the victims of wizard hate crimes. And if there's one thing you learn from the Harry Potter books, it's that good guys break every rule all the time, even when there's no good reason. And not just the "don't go to this spooky part of the school where you'll solve the mystery" rules in the earlier books. Harry uses all three Unforgivable Curses in earnest and never gets punished for it. Dumbledore's Army weaponizes mandragoras, which are not only indiscriminate area-effect death magic but are also intelligent beings whose babies they're stealing and turning into grenades.

>>54203518
>Why is it that so many series that have hereditary magic never actually bother thinking out the consequences?
Because most of the prerequisite history isn't actually defined.

>In Harry Potter why can Muggleborns compete with Purebloods?
Magic is like handing everyone a gun. Having a gun means everyone can kill each other, and you respect that if nothing else. With enough guns around, there's going to be at least a few people who are damn good shots.

>Many Pureblood families have enough wealth to get the best equipment and private tutors and even the poorest families have centuries of magical knowledge to draw on, plus all the inbreeding in the Wizarding World should lead to Purebloods having a higher number of magical traits than muggleborns, so why isn't there a skill gap?
Access to resources is a benefit but it is not an automatic win. Idiots like Crabbe and Goyle won't be able to take advantage of additional education and training. Inbreeding fucks you up, the obvious example being the Hapsburgs. What we are shown of the HP setting does not provide enough data to conclude there is or is not a skill gap according to heritage, thanks to a small sample size, selection bias, and a lack of quantitative rigor.

>Moreover if there is absolutely no difference between purebloods and muggleborns why is pureblood supremacy such a factor in wizard society, shouldn't it be wizard supremacy?
Because the sociopolitical landscape is being defined by history and tradition, not merit.

>A muggleborn is a wizard equal to a pureblood and their children will be wizards equal to a pureblood, so literally the only difference is class based except not even class seems to matter that much but Rowling still wanted to make a book about Wizard Hitler so she added a bunch of racial stuff that makes no sense in context of the series. And even then she couldn't help herself and had to make Wizard Hitler a half-muggle.
Not enough data. Grindelwald was not a muggleborn.

>>54203642
>most
On /tg/ this usually means D&D and its multiple settings, though.

>>54203883
>Inbreeding fucks you up, the obvious example being the jews
FTFY. Wizarding society is a small cut off society with it's own distinct culture living within but very separate from a larger society, they have more in common with Jews or the Amish than with royalty.

Also inbreeding just causes certain traits, good or bad, to become more common within a population. You have to have a extremely tiny population to get retard mutants.

>>54203807
>The Great Gatsby
>God Tier
Discarded

>>54204208
Wizarding population in general is large enough that inbreeding is not a significant concern. Certain families that are invested in pureblood traditions, e.g. the Blacks, do run the risk of genetic collapse reminiscent of European royalty.

>>54203765
>the entire wizarding world is public schooled
wow that explains a lot

>>54203683
My family went to the same university for generations, it doesn't mean that ability to study engineering is genetic.

>>54203807
Based dullposter

>>54203807
I love you, man. Every time Harry Potter is so much as mentioned on /tv/, I know you'll be there.

>>54203883
>Because the sociopolitical landscape is being defined by history and tradition, not merit.
This alone shits on everything OP says.

>>54203807
1984 and Brave New World should be switched.
Invisible Man, The Trail and Ulysses should be moved to shit-tier
Notes should be moved to God-tier
Hamlet, Tolkien, Twain and Carroll should be moved into mid-tier
Faulkner, Hemingway and Steinbeck should be moved into overrated-tier

>>54203518
How good your magic is in Harry Potter seems to be more about skill than genetics--Hermione's a muggleborn, but easily one of the greatest witches of her generation because she's a good student and puts in the time to get better. Harry's from an old wizarding line (albeit with a muggleborn mother) but as far as his actual magic goes, his only specialty is being pretty good in a duel, otherwise he's strictly average.

Now, like you said, pureblood families should have better resources, but they've also got a stagnation problem. The inbreeding has hurt them more than helped (see; Voldemort's family), and they're generally pretty content to rest on their laurels and be content with their own supposed superiority (a good example here is Draco Malfoy, who spends most of the series floating around Harry's level magically despite theoretically having a way stronger start). Muggle-borns can offset that with a greater understanding of the world outside of the relatively small wizarding bubble, and a greater ambition to understand the crazy new magic world they've been thrown into.

Pureblood supremacy is a thing in wizard society for the same reason a lot of dumb prejudices are a thing in the real world; people are willing to believe in things that support their worldview even when the evidence doesn't line up.

>>54204356
it is though?

>>54204454
Too bad it's completely wrong. One of the easiest ways to guess a persons economic class is to know their IQ.

>>54203837
>>54204209
DELET

>>54204552
Not really. You're much more likely to be poor if your parents were poor, no matter what your IQ is. Poverty isn't an individual problem as much as it's a societal one, too. It's bad enough that just being raised in a certain zip code severely hampers your chances in life.

That's not to say, however, that intelligent people can't work their way out of poverty. It happens much more often in this day and age than it has in any other generation previously. It's just that there's so much more that can go wrong before the individual gets to the point of working their way out of poverty than there is for an already rich (or hell, even just adequately financed) person.

Hard to earn a degree if your parents got credit cards in your name as soon as you were old enough and now you can't get a loan (happened to my cousins; their parents are cunts).

>>54203683
Proof: Money is genetic. Look at all the rich families for 10+ generations. Money is a genetic trait.

>>54203807
>that pic
>fucking_genre_fiction.jpg
This is why people go to /tg/ to discuss books instead of /lit/, because people who like books know that they don't know books, and only the people who know nothing about books think they know books.

>>54203518

Purebloods think they are better not for any practical reason, but because wizard society in general treats muggles as being non-people who only have rights in the same way animals do.

A wizard in Harry Potter walking into an apartment building an ripping the skeletons out of children and using mind control to make people kill their neighbors will be arrested, but not for murder. Just Cruelty to Muggles and and maybe Willful Negligence since they could have exposed the wizarding world.

With that mindset, its inevitable that people with strong muggle ties will be looked down upon by those that especially treat muggles like nonpeople.

>>54204356
How disingenuous, the two are not equivalent.

>>54204496
No, and even if it was the trait is common enough and hard enough to pin down that it is indistinguishable from being non-genetic. The only reason magic being genetic would matter was if it could be easily tested for or if you had blood lines. Without testing for potential or family lines most people would see people incapable of learning magic as simply being bad at magic just like people who are bad at math are seen as just being bad at math, not lacking the capability to master it.

However as for the point of the OP it is a shame that genetic magic/psychic powers/super powers and the implications of such a setting aren't better explored. Imagine a setting where from early in human history magic existed and was limited to a relatively limited genetic pool. The end result would be something akin to European aristocracy who could kill people by waving a stick and speaking some Latin. Would the peasantry ever be able to rise to have political influence when a nobleman could slaughter a small mob with a flick of the wrist? Would the aristocracy actively oppose new technology that empowers normal people?

>>54204720
You literally used the example of a single family line going to a school. Besides if only people from specific family lines were allowed to go to school to study engineering would you immediately classify as ability to become an engineer as genetic?

>>54203807
>A brave new world
>Low tier
I actually have to agree with that, I tried reading it but gave up after like 6 pages of the book explaining why some woman had purple eyes.

>>54204481
Prejudices have to have some kind of basis, the English believed the Irish were subhuman because they were dirt poor illiterate papists, the Irish were able to be kept down because they had a number of disadvantages stacked against them. Muggleborns have no disadvantages so there is no reason for them to be oppressed by the most incompetent and stereotypical aristocrats imaginable, they should've turned things around in a couple generations, long before Harry Potter was born.

>>54204627
If you actually bothered to look up the facts you'd feel ashamed at how wrong you are.

>>54204779
You know you could supply those facts?

>>54204750
>>54204733
Going to school doesn't give you magic. It's something you're born with.

>>54204767

Muggleborns have the disadvantage of not having a magical family with a supply of wizard gold to fall back on.

Hermione's parents are both dentists. This sounds boring, but the result they never touch on is that this means Hermione is fucking loaded. Her family can afford to pay pounds for gold.

If you were a poor muggleborn wizard, you legitimately might not be able to afford your wand.

>>54204750
First off, I'm a different anon.

Second off, if no matter how hard you tried and studied, people outside of these lines were unable to engineer, then yeah, I would call it genetic.

>>54204761
How is that a bad thing?

>>54204799
I'm not google, it's not my job to waste my time compiling a bunch of links for some random guy on the internet that he'd probably never bother reading anyways.

>>54204767
To be fair, old wizarding families hold most of the power in the wizarding world, and uprooting that kind of systematic imbalance can be very difficult, especially given how long-lived wizards are. I agree that Muggleborns should have been making headway long before the story starts, but still.

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>>54204779
>y-you're wrong!
>I don't have to present my sources to refute your argument, look it up yourself!

The worst part is your opponent didn't provide any sources, either, so it's not even an argument, it's just two neckbeards yelling at each other about money.

>>54204819
Is there any mention in Harry Potter of muggles being enrolled into magic schools and showing no ability to learn magic?

>>54204828
It is needless exposition. If I was reading an encyclopedia based on that setting than sure you can take six pages to explain why someone has a certain eye color, otherwise get to the actual plot.

>>54204811
Either muggleborns can become better wizards than purebloods because it's all down to how much they study or they can't because if you don't have enough gold you can't make it in the wizarding world. You can't have it both ways.

Also the Weasley family does pretty well for themselves despite being poor and disliked.

>>54204906
There's no mention of muggles learning it period, and the fact that muggleborns are a different camp entirely implies differences beyond learning.

>>54204865
Wizards all learn at the same school, In Wizarding Society most jobs only require a wand to do.
These two factors mean the Wizarding World should be more of a meritocracy than any other society in history.

>>54205060

Yes I can, because its not an absolute you dingus.

Hermione is smart and dedicated. But lets make one tiny change and see the effect: imagine if Hermione could not afford a copy of 'Hogwarts: A History'.

Half the magical lore she quotes in the first 2 books just vanished. Smarts dont help you if you can get access to the information needed to apply those smarts.

The Weasleys are kinda poor, but nit so poor that they cant send 7 kids to school AND own their own estate full of magical gear.

Thats what 'poor' looks like for a wizard: a government job with a mansion and a large family, with time to indulge your eccentric hobbies and your wife never has to work to make ends meet. But the youngest son wears handmedowns, so they are 'poor'.

>>54205070
Or it implies that they stumbled into using magic where other equally capable people did not. Harry Potter, as far as I know, never addresses the percentage of muggles who, despite their best efforts, have no magical ability. For all anyone knows it could be that everyone can use magic if taught, most just never learn.

>>54204927
Decided to reread the first six pages of BNW. I really think you're missing the point if you think those pages are only about someones eye color.

>>54205242
You mean that's what 'poor' looks like for a Brit.

There are only a few wizarding schools and only a couple thousand wizards total in the entire planet. There's no reason why they shouldn't or couldn't try to give everyone a proper education. Pureblood families are generally pretty rich, that's their "advantage", but everyone gets handed a first-rate education, in the UK at least.

>>54203940
But magic isn't hereditary is D&D, it's a skill that can be learned or gift that is bestowed in most cases. Only sorcerers have hereditary magic and they're pretty rare and in many ways the most limited of casters. They also didn't exist prior to 3e.

>>54204807
Depends entirely on the setting and rpg of choice.

>>54203807
> Catch 22 in low tier but Count of Monte Cristo in God tier
Opinion discarded. Nice pasta

Is being a cutie not!belgian tsundere hereditary?

>>54205279
Now you're just talking nonsense.

>>54205830
well done, that may have been an intelligent statement if they weren't already talking about a very specific setting.

>>54203883
>Habsburg

>>54203683
Yeah, same for plenty of British private schools.

Hermoine wasn't born to a bloodline, still uses magic.

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Because the Bell Curve exists. Magic proficiency is hereditary in these series, but its a phenotype, not a genotype since Magic is a developed skill. It is more apt to say that magical aptitude is genetic, rather then outright magical ability. The ability is the result of the individual's cultivation of his aptitude, as well as his environment's influence upon it.

The end result is that the Harry Potters and Shirou Emiya's of the world inevitably come along, people with low aptitude but relentless cultivation, or who simply hit the genetic lottery in what was otherwise a mediocre bloodline, or who simply had an ideal environment, and blow a ton of bluebloods out of the water.

The end result of course is that the plebs come to believe that genetic inheritance itself is a scam and the exception is the rule, just as happens in real life. However the reality of genetic inheritance of general aptitude remains, often resulting in a tragedy of magical miscegenation.

TLDR: Voldemort did nothing wrong.

>>54207400
Pretty sure that they explicitely say that it's magical ability that may or may not exist within people, and not different degrees of aptitude with a majority being almost sans-magic

Magic is hereditary, but skill in magic is not, you simply either have magic or you don't.

>>54203518
Because if Rowling had followed up on the implications of the base of the very setting she herself created, it would have turned into an anti-racemixing story that made the deatheaters look like they're the good guys. Especially with the ministry pulling this 'Move on, nothing to see here' shit.
> all the denialism in this thread.
Friendoes think it through. If capacity to magic is a genetically transmitted trait, which it evidently is, then that means that you can breed it out of existence by interbreeding with muggles. You end up removing more and more of the sequences that give them these abilities, until they're gone beyond repair. And yes, that also means mudbloods' witchcraft is either weaker, or in a constant danger of ceasing to work, depending on how it works in closer detail. Get fucked mudbloods.
TL:DR Stop thinking about HP making sense, something is wrong with JKR's brain.

>>54203807
> Hamlet is low tier but TGG is God tier
> Fucking Les Miserables is in the God tier category
Shit taste desu.

>>54208204
>If capacity to magic is a genetically transmitted trait, which it evidently is
Bullshit. Raw magical aptitude is not genetically encoded, it's "soul-encoded" for lack of a better term. Harry absorbed part of Voldemort's soul, not his DNA, and as a result gained the strictly hereditary magical ability of being able to talk to snakes.
>something is wrong with JKR's brain
100% true though

>>54205242

part of that is household spells are so good in HP I think

if your good at some spells you basically never have to buy food or have to deal with buying new clothes because your old ones got ripped to pieces

Molly probably does a lot of spell work to save whatever money she can

>>54208996
Actually, it's explicitly said that you can't make food magically somewhere in there, it's brought up in the last book.

>>54209479
Using magic to increase growth if you have a garden seems pretty effective though.

>>54208342
That explanation reeks of shoddy plothole filling.

>>54203518
How bad is this anime? Is there a good abridged series that shits all over it?

Or is it actually merely flawed with redeemable qualities?

>>54203807
good pasta shit image

>>54210135
It's pretty generic haremshit with a touch of isekai and chuuni shit with the protagonist having the magical ability to use any weapon

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>>54206713
Yes

>>54210262
that isn't that "chuuni" of an ability compared to most other people in the series.

What I never got about Harry Potter is, you have kids making potions so powerful they can put people to sleep forever, which means it's a fairly common potion, they've got insta-kill plants like mandragoras pissing around, they have fucking unicorn blood that makes you live forever but you turn into what's probably a vampire, I dunno, it's not explained well in the movies. I'm getting off track.

My point is, alchemy is clearly the most powerful thing since forever, but nobody uses it. How has Dominant Strategy not twigged and made alchemy the absolute shit?

>>54203753
>So canonically a wizard can't birth a muggle, even a muggleborn can only have a squib or a wizard.

>Wizards can only birth wizards or squibs.
>Muggles can occasionally birth wizards.
Wouldn't this mean that eventually the magically sensitive would outbreed the non magical pop?

>>54210554
this isn't a magic staff... *picks up bazooka* *blows up monster*

>>54209854
No, not really. It's established in the second book. That it doesn't adhere to your attempt to hamfist /pol/ beliefs into the setting of a children's book series is another issue altogether

>>54210645
Because most real life institutions don't act like powergamers trying to break 3.5, and Harry Potter magic isn't simulationist so it isn't reliably the best at everything.

>>54210876
even I could recognize a RPG launcher, and likely figure out how to launch it.
the powerful attack had nothing to do with his abilities, but rather his luck of finding the weapon.

>>54211319
It's not about it being realistic or not, it's about how fucking corny that scene was

>>54203807
You got a lot of replies, more than I thought you would since this is posted once a week nowadays.

>>54211319
RPGs have an obvious warhead and pistol grip for any idiot to see and people still forget to take off the cap safety. I don't think you'd be able to figure out how to operate a LAW in time.

>>54211422
but how is using is having the ability to use a weapon that even ISIS regularly uses a "chuuni" ability?

>>54211498
It's possible that the RPG was already armed considering the launcher was loaded.
maybe i could do it, maybe not, but magical knowledge that RPGs need to be armed before firing isn't a particularly strong ability.

>>54203518
Your idea of blood influenced magic does not correlate with the rest of fiction's authors.

It's like saying that all wizards in fiction function as those from Dungeons & Dragons.

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>>54211726
It was a LAW. Different manual of arms.

>>54203880
I never remember when he used Avada Kedavra. I remember when he does the rest.

>>54203518
>tfw that time Louise summoned Shirou Emiya

>>54203518
Well I mean the whole pureblood thing being seen as a big deal is something we've seen in the real world despite, you know, that having no effect in the real world either.

Nobody ever let results get in the way of bigotry.

>>54203807
Where's the Silmarillion?

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>>54203709
This is a headcanon and one that directly contradicts established HP canon.
KJR has explicitly stated that muggleborns all have magic ancestors.
Magic unquestionably has a genetic/linage component to it in HP.
It's also implied/explicitly demonstrated that there are a bunch of other factors in there such as natural talent for certain areas of magic, quality of teaching and equipment and also the intelligence of the person.

In summary put your nonsense HP headcanon aside, it's got shitall to do with rpgs.

>>54203807
1984 in the high tier.
What a fucking joke.
Like most of Orwells books it's a collection of interesting ideas presented in a mind numbingly dull way.

>>54211870
Hill of Swords was okay for what it did at the time but is highly overrated nowadays.

>>54211726
That wasn't the chuuni part, what made it chuuni was the very CONCEPT of a rocket launcher hanging around on a fantasy world for the protagonist who is also from our world to find and use to blow up a monster after everyone and everything else has failed, because he also has the ability to use any weapon. And then, the whole idea of some random japanese teen being "THE LEFT HAND OF GOD" and getting super special magic powers because of it is undeniably chuuni as fuck

>>54203518
oh man, haven't read so much bullshit since a while

basically, in Harry Potter you can either use magic, or not, that's it, everything else is just exercise and practise

> but Rowling still wanted to make a book about Wizard Hitler so she added a bunch of racial stuff that makes no sense in context of the series. And even then she couldn't help herself and had to make Wizard Hitler a half-muggle.
lol, dude, do you really think the racist shit what Hitler said was true
and about Voldemort being half-muggle, Hitler wasn't that much of a "pure" arian either

>plus all the inbreeding in the Wizarding World should lead to Purebloods having a higher number of magical traits than muggleborns
more like, higher number of invalids