Skip to main content

harry potter - Can Muggles give birth to a magic sensitive child similar to a Squib?


In Harry Potter, Squibs are generally known as people who cannot perform magic, and all the examples from the books appear to be descended from wizards.


In reality, we see various levels of magical control exhibited by Squibs -- they can see magically hidden things (such as ghosts, the true appearance of Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, and magically hidden creatures), use magical items, develop magical relationships with magic beasts (such as kneazle-cat hybrids), etc.


Moreover, there are many Muggles who claim abilities (such as seeing ghosts) which require magical sensitivity as well. While Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them claims that these people are either lying or Squibs, it's also purposefully written with an unreliable narrator.



The Muggle-born wizards we see, however, are all of standard wizarding capability.


Can Muggles give birth to a magic sensitive (but incapable of casting spells) child, equivalent to a Squib (since the term 'Squib' itself only applies to the children of wizards); a dud wizard?


Squib



Answer



Using the Wayback Machine - I found this site / info which is attributed to J.K. Rowling herself and would cement the 'No' answer:



I have been asked all sorts of questions about Squibs since I first introduced the concept in ‘Chamber of Secrets’. A Squib is almost the opposite of a Muggle-born wizard: he or she is a non-magical person born to at least one magical parent. Squibs are rare; magic is a dominant and resilient gene.



http://web.archive.org/web/20110713111531/http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=19


Additionally - in more current form:



Pottermore* seems to have the answer land on 'No' as well - however, depending on your interpretation of things (as well as the canonical level of the site) - you may find some conflicting info on the same page.


The Squibs Fact File defines Squibs as:



Humans with little or no magical talent born into wizarding families, who are looked down on by the wizarding world



(emphasis mine) - so, the very clear "born into wizarding families" seems to indicate the identifier "squib" belongs exclusively to offspring of wizarding families.


However, it goes on to say:



MAGIC ABILITIES


Able to access the wizarding world, unlike Muggles, and can use certain magical objects and creatures




If Muggles can produce non-muggles, then purely logically, they should technically be able to produce non-muggles with limited wizarding capabilities which would fit a practical definition of 'Squib'. We have seen that some wizards have more innate skills than others and this would seem to indicate there is a 'curve' of some sort in terms of skill but again, logic aside, the term Squib seems to be reserved for wizard families, not low skill Muggle-borns



*Is Pottermore canon?


https://www.pottermore.com/about/us



Pottermore, the digital publishing, e-commerce, entertainment and news company from J.K. Rowling, is the global digital publisher of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more