[HPforGrownups] Re: Redeemed!Dudley?

[Patricia Bullington-McGuire]

No: HPFGUIDX 56238

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, jenny_ravenclaw wrote:

> I find it hard to believe that Dudley feels unsafe in any way in his 
> own home.  Someone else mentioned that Dudley's parents have "lost" 
> control over their son, but I feel that they never had control over 
> Dudley to begin with.  Vernon and Petunia's agenda with Dudley is to 
> give him what he wants.  Dudley is the one who runs that household - 
> Petunia even makes the rest of the family go on a diet along with 
> Dudley, including Harry who is already noticeably thin.  Aside from 
> the diet, Dudley is in complete control: all the presents he wants, 
> all the food he wants, all the trips he wants, all the tantrums he 
> wants and all the coddling he wants.  If Dudley does have any worries 
> they would have to be about Harry - after all, it is because of Harry 
> he lost one of his rooms and it is because of Harry he grew a pig's 
> tail and it is because of Harry that his tongue nearly suffocated him.  
> Dudley may worry about Harry assuming more authority in the Dursley 
> home, not Vernon turning on his own son.

I, on the other hand, find it very easy to believe that Dudley does not
feel safe within his family, though it may not be physical abuse in
particular that he fears.  Kids need (reasonable) limits set by the
authority figures in their lives in order to feel safe.  It's ingrained, 
part of our nature.  The subconscious reasoning is something like, 'I know 
I'm safe exploring my world and pushing its boundaries because if I get 
too near the *really* dangerous stuff, someone will pull me back.'  But 
Dudley has never had any limits or controls imposed by his parents.  So 
he tries to gain that sense of security by being in complete control of 
his world.  The problem is, he never can be in *complete* control.  Life 
just doesn't work that way.  Since he can't trust the adults in his life 
to keep him safe, and he can't rely on himself to keep him safe, I doubt 
Dudley is capable of really feeling at ease and comfortable in his life.

Mind you, I don't think Dudley is conscious of any of this.  He's not a
very self-aware kind of boy.  But Dudley shows many, many signs of being
deeply unhappy and insecure.  He's far, far from the picture of confidence
and self-assuredness I would expect to see in a child who feels safe and
well-loved at home.


----
Patricia Bullington-McGuire	<patricia at obscure.org>

The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered
three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the
purely hypothetical.  They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each
nonexisted in an entirely different way ... 
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"