Vernon's character

[maria_kirilenko <maria_kirilenko@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52678

Morgan wrote:

> Vernon Dursley - fat and mean and not particularly bright.

Ffred replied:
Agree with the mean part but Vernon has got to be pretty good as a
businessman. He owns (or holds a senior post in - I know that views 
are
divided on this one) a manufacturing company. He has successfully 
negotiated
Grunnings not only through the catastrophe for manufacturing industry 
in the
early 1980s but also the one in the early 1990s and they are still in
business.

Now me:

Well, yeees.... But having good business sense and being 'bright' 
isn't exactly the same thing, is it?

I don't really think there's enough canon to prove that he's smart, 
or to disprove it. But he's got a trait that truly smart and 
intelligent people don't normally have. He is extremely narrow-
minded. His narrow-mindedness shows in everything he reacts to, 
starting with Harry and finishing with his death-penalty comments and 
the state of Sirius' hair. 

I'd hesitate to call Vernon Dursley smart. The portrayal of whole 
family is so grotesque that it doesn't really allow for anything 
positive. If any of Harry's relatives turned out to have a positive 
trait it would be very inconsistent with the rest of their 
characterization.


Maria,

who also thinks that 'Lucius' is an allusion to 'Lucifer' and 
pronounces 'Lucius' accordingly.