OK, so it says in AoS that magicians can't have children and instead take apprentices like Nathaniel. Underwood says (i think it was him anyway, talking to martha) that its because of what happened with the italians, something to do with the mafia.

This is all well and good and i understand the logic but I would like to know what would happen if a magician did accidentally have a child, male or female.

What would happen or how would that never happen? What precautions would be put into place to stop it, or if there isn't anything what would happen to the magician or the child in question?

It's just been something that I've been curious about for a while (I'm not planning on writing some horrid, far-fetched fanfiction or anything :D).

Hello.

You're right, there's reference made in AmS to the nasty factionalism that arose in Rennaissance Italy, where competing dynasties of magicians, each ruling their own city states, fought each other into the ground. The British magicians seek to avoid that by removing blood-ties between generations. No doubt accidents did happen, and children were born to high-ranking magicians. In such circumstances the authorities will have ensured that his/her child was swiftly adopted out to some fairly high-caste, non-magician family, and the offending magician will have been forced to sever contact. Failure to do this would have been swiftly punished. Of course, all these edicts didn't stop strong bonds being forged between some masters and their apprentices (Lovelace and Schyler being one example), since they were to all intents and purposes in a parent/child relationship anyway.

J

Lovelace/Schyler!!!!

What a horrible pairing.

I stil think it's weird that they would forbid magicians from having kids and then allow orphan apprentices to live in their home. If Mr. Underwood was even slightly decent, Nate would have been just as devoted to him as he was to Mrs. Underwood.

It might have been easier to prevent the dynasties by putting them all in a group home or Hogwarts or something.

The only similar RL example that i can think of is the priests in the Catholic church and that was for money.

If we use the Hogwarts idea, then the Bartimaeus books would be around 8 books long.

Horakthy wrote:If we use the Hogwarts idea, then the Bartimaeus books would be around 8 books long.

Yes please!

No, Anne of Green Gables found her family, went to school, grew up and became a teacher in like a book. It's a stylistic choice.

But yea, stretching the story out over more than a trilogy wouldn't have hurt it's popularity in the least..

Yes, but considering the huge number of other books Mr Stroud is working on...