17th
Voldemort
Rowling does not suggest that blood is not important. It is, particularly if it is (say) your mother. What is more important (however) is blood chosen to be spilt - sacrifice. Next to this, what one inherits is merely an idol. However, it is only if it is naked blood. Naked spirit opposed to naked blood give a legalism of the Spirit that is more intolerable than recidivistic atavism. Yes, a choice is more important than “nature” (what you “are”). However, I am not sure where this leaves the concept of “species”. I suppose a lot of the power of these images (not the other ones, which I find more compelling) derives from the modern milieu, which I appreciate, but find less interesting than the concept of “an older magic”. The ideal is to have blood AND water, lineage and Spirit. Righteousness and Mercy. Earth and Heaven. Voldemort, for all his talk of purity, really hates it. He does not proportion either ends to means, or means to ends. They are all means or ends, as he chooses. Purity is what HE says it is. As Hitler said, it is I who decides who is a Jew, and who is not.
