Twins and Duddley/Snape as an abuser

[bawilson at citynet.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 145520

"Magpie:
Sure.  But it seems like throughout this thread I keep getting 
pushed into what people consider the opposite position of 
their own rather than what I'm actually saying, which I don't 
think is that extreme.  I've got no problem with people finding 
this scene funny because Dudley has always been mean to Harry 
and eats a lot while Harry is starved.  I am speaking only 
against the idea that because it's enjoyable it's something 
other than what it is, which is a scene where the twins are in 
control and Dudley is a Muggle being Pranked by wizards."


It seems to me that you don't see the difference between what 
the Twins did to Dudley and what the Death Eaters did to the 
Robinson family at the QWC.  

The Robinsons were minding their own business when a bunch of 
Death Eaters came along and levitated them upside down just for 
the fun of it.

Dudley had made a career of tormenting his younger, smaller, 
weaker cousin, and had made a habit of eating anything that 
didn't eat him first.  Now he was at the other end of the 
torment AND as a direct consequence of his inability to refrain 
from stuffing his fat, ugly face.

The Death Eaters would have tormented any Muggles who had the misfortune to have come into their range.  The Twins visited retribution upon someone who had injured their friend.  Would 
it have been better had they not done so?  Perhaps.  Would it 
have been better had they used a more subtle method?  Almost 
certainly.


Lupinlore:
"I also have a great deal of experience with abused teens -- 
abused literally to death in two cases.  And from my point of 
view, Snape most definitely IS an abuser, over and out.  So are 
the Dursleys, but for some reason they don't get as much press, 
these days."

Being a meanie is not the same thing as being an abuser.  
Compared to cases I have seen, Snape is as a candle to a bonfire.  
The Dursleys, although not nice people, would seem positively 
cuddly compared to some of the poor excuses for parents/guardians 
I have encountered.

"Betsy Hp:
And yet, when Dudley *does* refuse to take food from a wizard, he 
gets repeatedly hit in the head with a glass."

All Dudley--and his parents, for that matter--had to do was to 
hold the glass and put it on the table.  He wasn't being forced 
to drink it.  

Besides, after what he and his parents did to Harry, being made 
to sit on a comfy sofa, having a glass of mead poke you in the 
head, and being told off by Dumbledore seems to be a fairly mild 
comeuppance.  Dumbledore could have turned them all into frogs, 
after all.


BAW