[HPforGrownups] Re: DD's dilemma + owl post

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 126409

--- vmonte <vmonte at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Harry on the other hand is who he is DESPITE the abuse and neglect
> he received from the Dursleys. That's pretty amazing in my book! 
> 
> I think JKR is telling kids to take responsibility for their own 
> lives.  


I think we also underestimate how much kids actually know about the
world around them.  They know that bad things happen to people and
that grown-ups are often blind to nasty things like bullies.  They're
aware that kids can be physically hurt or even killed - they do pick
up horror stories from the news.

And to present them with literature where everything goes the way it
should go - ie, Social Services swoops in and chastises the Dursleys
and rescues Harry - isn't the way it works in real life.  There is
plenty of that kind of kids fiction around and it's pretty boring.

I strongly doubt that the Dursleys qualify as legally, criminally
abusive parents.  Yes, I know they locked him in his room and fed him
cold soup - once, for about a week.  And I've asked 2 social workers,
3 teachers and 1 cop about it: they all agree that realistically the
Dursleys would probably get the equivalent of a severe talking to,
mandatory counselling and about 6-9 months of monthly visits by the
authorities to endure.  The Dursleys as presented to us would be
smart enough to get around those strictures without too much trouble.
 In an ideal, perfect world, they'd be in big trouble; unfortunately,
we're stuck in the world we've got.

I don't think kids would find those real-life "punishments" very
effective.  Much more appropriate to see Aunt Marge get literally
blown up and to see the house-proud Dursleys' living room explode
when Arthur and the twins come to pick up Harry in GOF.  THAT really
hurts.

And Harry's attitude to them cannot be dismissed either: he is not
terrified of them or even afraid of them.  He demands his letters
from Uncle Vernon in PS/SS, he faces them down in COS when he leaves
in the middle of the night (he's mad as heck, not afraid), he even
feels the first stirrings of empathy for Aunt Petunia ("his mother's
sister") in OOTP.  

Post-COS, the Dursleys are a major inconvenience for Harry because
they are people who can irritate him in countless little ways and he
has to put up with them for a number of weeks every year.  It's hard
to keep up a polite facade with people you don't like in an office;
living with them is ten times as bad.  They're reminders of a life he
can't wait to leave behind.

The reason I haven't written the Dursleys off completely (which I
might have done pre-OOTP) is that single comment of Aunt Petunia's
that Harry was staying.  If you want to believe that Dumbledore
threatened her or bribed her years ago, fine.  I don't.  I think
we're going to discover that she does have a small bit of humanity
left inside her and that it came out when she was confronted by her
sister's defenceless child at a time when she had an infant around
the same age.  She felt empathy for her sister's fate and her
nephew's plight and it went far enough for her to give him a home. 
Not the love of a family, she doesn't have that much inside, but
enough as Dumbledore said that she took him in.  And that counts.

And I think we're going to find out in the next two books that you've
got to keep an eye out for that bit of humanity in all the
characters, even the truly awful ones, to see if it's completely
extinguished or not.

Magda (who will no longer respond to the Dumbledore/abuse issue ever
again because she doesn't want to be called names anymore)


		
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