The Dursleys

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 124626


bob:
> 
> God we could whip a dead horse back to life in this chat
> room! lol
> 
> JK Rowling is a genius.  Putting Harry with those horrible
> muggles created for the reader an emotional bond with the
> main character from the very beginning of the story and a
> half a billion "flys" buying the book shows just how
> brilliant the Dursleys' importance to the story was.


Personally, I don't think it is so well done of JKR. I think she 
made it much too easy for us to despise the Dursleys. Honestly they 
are boring, stupid, narrow-minded, abusive, ugly etc. They just kind 
of deserve what they are getting, don't they? But such setting only 
drives our attention from much more serious problem of the Muggle-
Wizard relationships. Namely from the fact that wizards both "good" 
and "bad" regard themselves as a superior race. Bad ones kill and 
torture Muggles just for the fun of it. Good ones presume to mess 
with Muggles's minds and memories (doubtless, they are doing it for 
Muggles' own good, but would you like to have your memory altered?). 
The sad truth is that while in our world racism is just a failed 
ideology and races are no more than an ideological construct in the 
HP universe they actually do exist. Kind of uncomfortable knowledge, 
isn't it? But as long as we are busy despising the Dursleys we won't 
look at the problem from their perspective.

"a_svirn"