James Potter was a pure blood and he had very dark hair.

Must like Sirius, he had black hair too, and was pure blood.

*shrugs* Dark hair is a dominant gene. That's why there tends to be more brunettes than lighter colored hair. Just like darker eyes are a dominant gene.

We also know that both of them were rather rebellious, seemed to not really care about PB society, and one of them married a muggle-born.

I fail to see what their socially rebllious behvaiour has to do with this discussion of the pure bloods and their genes. Unless, that is, you are trying to suggest that JK used noticably different physical traits to help highlight their difference from typical pureblood society.

Since we're talking about hair/eye colour, blood types are also an example of Co-domininance, I believe. Just thought it'd bring that up because Werekitty mentioned the whole dominant/recessive thing.
But yes, I can see no particular reason why purebloods would selectively breed to increase occurances of certain recessive genes. We're given no indicators that they are considered preferable in that culture. After all, Lestrange has drank hair, and she's as pureblood as it gets.

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I think, most likely, that it would depend on the family itself.

For example, if a specific pureblood family has been known to have light colored hair, and eyes, as well as a light complexion, that specific family might view an albino as the pure-est of their line, whereas another family with dark eyes, and hair, might view someone with near-black eyes, and black hair, as the pure-est. It really depends on perception, family history, mentality, status, and traits.


In essence, depending on the family, albinos /could/ be considered the most 'pure', while others might view dark hair, eyes, etc as the most pure. Perspective is everything in this case.

I .. really doubt that. I don't think anyone care much. If you're born into a Pure Blood family, there'd likely be some sort of indication which family (like the Weasley's red hair, Malfoy's arrogance..), but however 'big' it is, would doubtfully matter.. Either your a PB or not.

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My two cents... Given the relatively small pureblood society, I think they would be forced to "ignore" any gene selection via marriage just because to get a pureblood spouse is top priority, regardless of the traits. If they had more options, however, I do tend to think they would start to favor certain traits. All societies have their own ideals of beauty, I don't think the wizards would be different.

Given their magic, though... if certain traits were highly prized -like being albino- would we see more of the purebloods using magic to fake this somehow? So I tend to think Rowling just didn't delve into this one bit or saw it as a non-issue.

I tend to think it was the former, Ree. She was focusing on Harry and on his adventures. The PB thing was added on to add certain friction, and eventually set up what would happen in book Seven.

The traits thing may be by family, and some could consider albinism to be "purer" than others. Death eaters may especially consider pale skin and red eyes to be a sign of favor, because of the "enlightened" form of their hero, Voldemort.

Consider this: The Malfoys, for the most part, were pretty much blond. We just don't know that much, because the surface was barely scratched.

In the books the more fanatical of the pure blood wizards were into genealogy and hated anybody who was muggle born, part muggle, or didn't share their mindset.

The physical traits, aside from the genetic retardation of the Gaunt family, wasn't really touched upon.

Here is somethings interesting I found, its basically everything people are trying to say and explains alot more:(well at least I think it does)

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/bloo ... names.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizarding_world#Pure-blood