Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 151034

Ceridwen wrote:
> Yes, most definitely, the blood protection is the most important
> underpining (sp?) in the out of Hogwarts part of Harry's life.
> There can be no discussion about his placement with the Dursleys, or
> anything associated with it, without having to go back and point to
> this extrordinary protection. <snip>

Carol responds:
Agreed. If Dumbledore had any secondary considerations, and that's
what this debate seems to be about, they were exactly that, secondary.
He had no choice but to place Harry with Petunia, whether that was the
best choice otherwise or not. And, of course, we can only judge for
ourselves whether the choice was a fortunate one or not, regardless of
Dumbledore's intentions, based on two things: 1) The inescapable fact
that Harry survived, almost certainly because of the blood protection,
and 2) Our view of Harry's character and suitability as the nemesis of
  Voldemort. I think that most of us like Harry and feel that he will
ultimately defeat (destroy, kill, vanquish, choose your adjective)
Voldemort. And, regardless of Dumbledore's intentions, IMO placement
with the Dursleys fostered in him exactly the qualities that he would
need to begin his journey into, erm, herodom. I've already delineated
these qualities but I'll repeat them: humility; resilience; lack of
fear (resistance to bullying); the ability to think for himself, and
quickly. I would add compassion for the hardship and suffering of
others, which is hard to acquire if you've never suffered yourself.

So what I want to know is first, whether others agree that he has some
or all of these qualities, and second, how he acquired them if not
from the Dursleys. (Possibly he was born with them, a fortunate
combination of Lily's compassion and James's reckless courage, but if
so, there's no credit due to Harry for his choices or his development.
I think that Nature, or his genetic heritage, worked in concert with
Nurture (used loosely here--I'm *not* saying that the Dursleys
nurtured him in the usual sense of the word) to produce the Harry that
we see in the early pages of SS, before Hogwarts and Dumbledore (and
Snape and all the rest) were part of his environment and played their
role in shaping his character (along with his own choices, but that's
not relevant here. I'm saying that in the Pottervers (we are not
talking about RL here), bad (or outright evil) often turns against
itself, Voldemort's attempt to thwart the Prophecy by killing Harry
being the most obvious example. And I'm arguing that, regardless of
Dumbledore's intentions, placement with the Dursleys can be regarded
as a "good bad thing," an unfortunate choice that Dumbledore had to
make because of the blood protection that turned out to have fortunate
consequences, the person that Harry became as a result of his
placement with them. (To be sure, his genetic inheritance is also
important. Imagine how Draco, or Neville, or for that matter, James if
he were twenty years younger, would have been shaped by that
environment. Would any of them, even with the powers acquired through
the scar, have responded as well as Harry did if placed with the
Dursleys? Or suppose that Harry, with his inborn genetic traits and
the scr-induced powers, had been placed with a wizarding family and
somehow survived? Wouldn't the celebrity syndrome
(seCeridwen'sparagraph on "celebrity rot" upthread) have been a
terrible danger? Imagine Harry as a "pampered prince,"sure of his
powers, basking in his own celebrity. How would he have developed
those necessary qualities: humility, fearlessness (as opposed to the
recklessness and bullying we see in young James and young Sirius),
resilience, the ability to think quickly or even instinctively under
pressure or threat of injury.

Ceridwen:
> <snip>  We see what happens to child celebrities all the time in
> the real world, and I do wonder if Harry might have gone that way if
> things had been different.  Sometimes, I wonder what he would have
> been like being raised by two strong and sometimes diverging
> personalities like James and Lily, but that's a completely different
> question.

Carol:
Wecan't ask what he would have been like if he'd been raised by James
and Lily because in that case he wouldn't have the links to
Voldemort--the scar, the Prophecy, the powers acquired at GH. He
wouldn't be the Boy Who Lived, infant celebrity. He might not even
have the personal motive of destroying the wizard who killed his
parents, though I'm not ruling out their being killed in battle with
LV or the DEs if GH hadn't happened. But if GH hadn't happened, Harry
wouldn't be Harry. He would be just another wizarding kid, good at
Quidditch, possibly good in DADA, probably courageous in a standard
Gryffindor sort of way, but with a normal life and normal interests.
No scar for people to stare at, no terrible dreams from Voldemort's
point of view, no competing in the TWT, none of the stuff that makes
Harry Harry.

OTOH, we can consider what kind of life Harry would have led if he'd
have lived with James Potter's parents (if they were alive). Setting
aside blood protection or assuming that it could work using James'
blood rather than Lily's, wouldn't he have been a second James or even
worse, the Macauley Culkin of the WW, without the redeeming qualities
of a Harry raised by the Dursleys? Sweet are the uses of adversity;
they can shape a hero as pampering and adulation can't.

So I'm asking you to look at what Harry is at the beginning of SS/PS
compared with what he might have been if he'd spent his first eleven
years as a child celebrity, the Boy Who Vaporized You Know Who.

Now, please. I don't want to be accused, as a poster on this list
recently implied, of being in favor of child abuse, psychological or
otherwise. Of course I'm not. (FWIW, I believe in treating children as
individual human beings and expecting/helping them to develop a sense
of responsibility and respect for others without being hit or yelled
at.) But I'm talking about the child hero of a children's fantasy
series, particularly SS/PS, not a real child in the real world, where
there are no Dumbledores faced with a choice between a loving family
or blood protection for a newly orphaned baby. In the RL,I'm pretty
sure that if a family as well off as the Dursleys sent their ward or
adopted child to school in his cousin's much-too-large cast-off
clothes, Protective Services or the British equivalent would come
calling. (OTOH, he's not nearly as badly off as Oliver Twist and other
orphans of the literary variety, as I could easily prove but could not
do without going off topic.)

Opinions on how those first years shaped him, anyone? Is he or is he
not better fitted to be the savior of the Wizarding World by having
lived with the Dursleys for eleven years? Did he or did he not develop
the qualities I specified an/or other strengths and virtues through
living with the Dursleys? (And, no, to anticipate a counterargument,I
don't regard his not knowing magic for the first eleven years was a
handicap. He caught up quickly, and so did Muggle-born Hermione.)
Again, I'm talking about the *character traits* he acquired through
sleeping (not living!) in a broom cupboard for eleven years, having to
do chores while his pampered cousin watched or played with his toys,
wearing hand-me-downs, not getting quite enough to eat, and being
frequently yelled at and ordered around. Not an ounce of timidity in
sight, and, oddly, perhaps, no inclination to become a bully himself.
Whatever faults he may have, I think we allagree that he has some
noble and heroic qualities, and those qualities must have developed
either *because of* or *in spite of* his upbringing by the Dursleys.
If there's a third option, I'd be indebted to anyone who points it out.

Carol, apologizing to Ceridwen for not turning this into a Snape
thread ;-)