The Black Family Tree. Finally. :P

[lls_mutant]

In some ways, I love the fact that JKR gives her fans these little factoids. In others, it annoys me because she sometimes messes me up.

Full Black family tree is out. Definitely interesting- especially as we see what other people were struck off for. (And I'm sorry, but Alphard was still struck off for being a werewolf. Sirius just doesn't know his parents knew. So there.) I'm sure other people will discourse on it much more fluently than I, but I just want to be a little bit of a grump. I love being as canon compliant as possible, and I definitely have some mistakes. We now know Sirius's parents' names. :P It's almost tempting to revise Deny Thy Father and put that in. (And can I just say I'm mildly annoyed that fandom guessed right on Sirius's father being Orion? I hope his parents were kinder than to give Sirius Orion as a middle name, but maybe that's what started it all, having the initials S.O.B.) Alphard was the uncle on Sirius's mother's side, although I'm not sure I care that much about that one given how closely the parents were related. And we have a birth date for Regulus. And a death date, which we had before.

I've known I was off on my birth and death dates for Regulus. I goofed up early on and then had to force myself to be compliant with my own stuff. But frankly, my mistake made for a more interesting Regulus, since it became evident he dropped out of school. And the death... in my world Regulus is going to die in 1980, but the first half of it. Lily's way to pregnant for me to say it's still 1979! Oh well.

I have another little rant, but I'll save it for later because someone's awake.

Comments

[cloudlessnights.livejournal.com]

Hm, I'm not really sure if all of the birth or death dates the tree gives us can be correct, because according to the one I've looked at on the lexicon (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/blackfamilytree.html), both Bellatrix' father and Sirius's mother's father were thirteen years old when their respective daughers were born. I very much hope that this is not what JKR had intended, but just an error in transcription (or perhaps another example of why it's a good thing that she's an author and not a mathematician?). Anyway, so I guess you shouldn't worry too much if your dates don't exactly match with those given on the family tree ...

[brieza.livejournal.com]

It definitely seems as if Sirius' parents' birthdates are about 10 years too early. It looks like you could move them without issue.

[cloudlessnights.livejournal.com]

Hm ... that would probably make sense when it comes to Sirius's mother (if her birth date was ca. 1935 instead of 1925, so that her father would have been 23, not 13, when she was born), but with Bella's father there seems to be no way out - you can't make him much older, since he is the youngest of the three siblings (assuming now that Walburga is indeed 10 years older than the date on the family tree suggests), and you can't make Bellatrix much younger either, because her younger sister has a daughter who's already in her early to mid-twenties as of OotP.

In the end, I wholeheartedly agree with the comment you posted further down - it would have been better if JKR had just given us the tree without the dates. She'd do well to stay as far away from numbers as possible anyway ... ;-)

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

I wondered about the transcription error myself. And yeah, I'm not worrying too much about it. Plus, the Blacks won't be in my fic much longer, so.... ::shrugs::

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

If it's not in the books, it's not canon--it's the author's commentary on her canon. So don't worry about it.

And honestly, given JKR's myriad problems with math, ages and timelines, I'm just going to ignore anything pertaining to those that isn't in the books. (I have enough problems dealing with her mathematical Flints that are IN the books.)

[brieza.livejournal.com]

Your icon is so appropriate!

lurve the icon, gehayi

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

that is all.

Re: Rowling's family tree? I'm not bothered, to be honest. 13 and 14 year olds marrying each other makes me queasy especially with wizards living to 150. Ugh.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not losing any sleep over it. Probably the most annoying is we have the parents' names now, because that can get annoying when reading a fic. But I like the name Arden better than Orion anyway, and Sirius's mother is thanking me for naming her Elizabeth :)

[brieza.livejournal.com]

The family tree is interesting, but for your stories, I think yours works better. I'm not sure how much of it would be beneficial. (And ick on Sirius' mother name).

JKR's math mistakes are becoming legendary. I'd've prefered the family tree without dates. For the most part, they've only made things more difficult.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

I'm not worrying too much about it, to be truthful! I don't deal that often with dates myself. So, it makes it nice and easy :)

[marauderthesn.livejournal.com]

Oooh, where did you find the version with Regulus's birth and death dates? (I take it this is the end of the "Sirius and Regulus were twins" theory.)

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

It's in the Lexicon now. Regulus is 1961-1979.