Dancing Dudley? Addendum on themes

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52430

I burbled:
> 
> > I think JKR chooses to use Harry's lack of interest as the means 
to 
> > keep this theme [femininity] in the background.
> > 
> > I believe it to be deliberate because Lily is such a glaring 
hole 
> in 
> > the narrative.  There are other minor indications: Dumbledore's 
> > remark that Maxime is an able headmistress and an excellent 
dancer 
> > is one.  (A subtle counterpoint to Dudley too, IMO.)

Amy asked:
> 
> Lost you there.  Where does Dudley fit in?

Sorry.  Keyboard running ahead of logic there.

I think Dumbledore is first correcting Fudge's anti-Giant prejudice 
by emphasising that Maxime is good at the things she is supposed to 
be good at: being a head of a school.  He then goes on to pick out 
something about her that implies there is a human being to be known, 
too, not just a colleague or professional to be respected.

He picks on dancing, which to my mind indicates two things:

1) Dancing denotes relationship, and in the context of the Yule 
Ball, where they did dance, the potential for romantic relationship, 
and the pairing of masculine and feminine.  He is signalling 
Maxime's right to be 'gendered' and partnered, IMO.

2) Dancing denotes grace (of movement, not theological!), and I have 
always seen Maxime's gigantism as a metaphor for fatness: "I have 
big bones".

Taking the two together, I think Dumbledore is in part implying 'fat 
can be sexy'.  Hence Dudley; many readers are uncomfortable with the 
way his fatness is continually emphasised as something unpleasant, 
and I see the germ of an alternative view.

---------

In my earlier post I forgot to give canon support for the idea that 
JKR keeps some themes out of her early books and brings them in 
later.

One example is racial and other prejudice, which is at best covert 
in PS but is a major theme of COS.  Interestingly it almost 
disappears from POA (Lupin excepted) but comes back in intensified 
form in GOF where we learn through Fudge, Skeeter, and the Pensieve 
the extent to which the WW generally buys into the Malfoy view of 
the world.

Another is fathering: nearly absent in PS and COS, it is fundamental 
to POA and GOF, but in quite different ways.  If a lack of a father 
is imprisoning, distorted fathering is a poisoned chalice indeed.

I think both these themes illustrate the point that we don't see 
them until Harry is made aware of them, or becomes able to be aware 
of them.

David