Fear as a Crime --Long (Re: muggle baiting )

[Julie]

No: HPFGUIDX 156138

Among the many, many posts discusing wizard/muggle interaction and 
abuse of power over the last two weeks:  {large large snips)

> "sistermagpie" wrote:  Wizards have super powers that Muggles do 
not have.  That is the *definition* of what they are.  Taking 
advantage of those super powers is an abuse of power against a 
Muggle in a way it is not against a Wizard>>>>>

> "Gerry" wrote in two seperate posts: [snip]...Harry used his 
superior powers on Aunt Marge. Aunt Marge in the past> has used her 
superior powers over Harry ...> > Gerry:  [snip] What about 
Dumbledore's behaviour at the Dursley's. Forcing entry, forcing them 
to sit on the couch, having the glasses of mead float around their 
heads. Was that teaching them a lesson? Was that Muggle baiting? 
Because the Dursleys are Muggles and Dumbledore has superiour powers.
>
"Magpie" snip...[Ton-Tongue Toffee]...introduces many of
the forms of cruelty that become more important later on. Cruelty 
that...is not really as meaningless as the incident is
laid out to be. We've seen in canon pranks that go awry, that have
consequences, that aren't so funny in retrospect. 
>
>"JustCarol":[snip]....The strong have a duty to protect the weak, 
or at least a moral obligation not to use their strength against the
defenseless. Remember Harry saving Dudley from the Dementors and
contrast that with the Twins nearly choking him on his own tongue....
Fred and George should think before they act and not use their 
strength against another's weakness whatever the victim may have 
done to "deserve" it>>>

>>"horridporrid03"  [snip]....It does bother me that *everyone* in 
the Weasley family laughed about the Prank. (Especially Bill. Et tu, 
Bill? etc. <g>) I think it's indicitive of the entire WW, however. 
Muggles are all a tiny bit lesser-than. Poor Arthur is really 
fighting an unhill battle, without even family support.>>>
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Inky/Julie writes:  
"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, and then its 
just fun.."

I like this thought of consequences: How will Dudley's/Marietta's 
experience shape future choices/actions.  Its very easy to get 
caught up in the story and "hiss" our favorite characters' enemies.  
To rejoice in thier downfall.  But we've seen these characters come 
back year after year.  Harry's relationship with Draco is an 
example.  It doesn't really matter that Draco was friendly or a 
snobby stuck up brat at Madame Malkins--Harry and he are doomed by 
the storyline to be enemies. But would Draco have become such an 
early enemy/rival if Harry had not rejected his ofter of friendship 
in the way he did?

By choosing to strike out at another using "power," whether that be 
magic or the power of one's personality or popularity, how are (in 
this case)the Twins and Hermione affected by their choices to act 
and in possible reactions by victims who will not necessarily 
forgive and forget.

Like Marietta, Dudley is a minor character; his fate matters little 
at this point in cannon.  He's there to show both the Dursley's 
abuse of Harry and the dangers of the wrong type of love.  Do I like 
Dudley? No.  Is he a sympathetic character?  No, he's a demanding, 
whining bully and an utterly horrible little monster towards Harry.  
But I sympathize with his fear.  Every time he has a run in with 
magic, its something scary, something hurtful. Harry delights in 
magic, but for Dudley it's a closed world that terrorizes him, that 
he will always be forced to interact with from a subservient, 
powerless postion.

This to my mind is the key point: Fear and Terror.  There have been 
comments about Petunia's abuse of Harry—that she's driven by 
jealousy of Lily, pettiness, or is just a mean and nasty person.  
All these might be true.  But the fact remains that Petunia and her 
family are terrorized by magic's existence in their lives, They are 
forced to accept it in the form of Harry, and are therefore driven 
to acts of cruelty to try to retain power in their own home.  
Don't forget about the one moment of almost-sympathy Petunia 
displays towards Harry (in Oof P)—when she reveals her knowledge 
of the Dementors and recognizes a worse threat than Harry.

Regardless of how much of a little monster (ok, gigantic `small 
killer whale sized' monster) Dudley is towards Harry, Dudley is 
still younger than the twins are (intelligent 16 or 17 year olds) 
and afraid of magic.  

Someone pointed out in the Evil Hermione/Marietta thread (in defense 
of Hermione) that 15-year-olds make dumb choices at times without 
thinking of the consequences.  While true, it's also an 
overgeneralization, implying 15 year olds can't think ahead. These 
are not ordinary children, nor particularly ignorant children.  They 
go away to boarding school specifically to learn to control and use 
this dangerous power, to learn how to exist in the wizarding world 
and to avoid the notice of muggles.  They are told that muggles fear 
magic--one example is the stories of executions of witches.  That it 
didn't work on "real" witches wasn't the point, the lesson was on 
the fear/hate muggles have for magic.

JKR spends quite a bit of time at the start of the passage in 
Chapter 4 (GoF) describing Dudley's terror.  All the Dursley's are 
huddled together, cowering back from the wizards.  Its hard to 
miss.  What are George and Fred's intent toward Dudley?   They 
didn't attack him because he's a muggle, they didn't intend to kill 
him, so why use the Toffee?  Because they know it will frighten him, 
and that's payback for harming/bullying Harry (although by this time 
since it's not in response to a specific incident of bullying, it's 
more a punishment for Dudley being Dudley and existing). They treat 
Dudley like an animal by tempting him with food, forbidden toffee 
that's actually a "bait" that lures Dudley into a "trap".  They have 
no empathy for the terror they create in him.
	
Dudley has good reason to fear wizards and magic in the first 4 
books, magic has not been Dudley's friend. I don't see JKR hinting 
anywhere, that Muggles can attack a wizard physically, when the 
wizard is alert and ready with spells like "Stupefy" or "Petrificus 
Totalus" or even the first spell leaned at Hogwarts "Wingardium 
Leviosa."  Can you see Dudley thinking clearly while cowering behind 
his parents or the sofa?  We've been told repeatedly that muggles 
can't do magic, but that magic affects muggles.

Dudley's been taught all his life to both deny magic's existence, 
and to fear it and what it will do to his family.  Dudley learns 
that one can't hide from magic in the very first book! No matter 
where a crazed Vernon took them, magic tracked them down.  

Dementors aside, when Dudley actually meets magical people, are they 
pleasant?  No.  Hagrid "magics" a pigtail on Dudley in revenge--not 
for Dudley's actions--but for Vernon's insult towards Dumbledore. "I 
am not paying for some crackpot old fool to teach him magic 
tricks!"(SS, pg. 59)    

Dudley is already afraid of magic when the Toffee Incident occurs—
its put him with snakes, damaged the house, inflated Aunt Marge, 
annoyed/angered/frightened his parents and physically disfigured his 
own body.  The whole scene in Goblet of Fire screams of fear as the 
three Dursleys wait for Arthur Weasley.  Dudley is clearly stressed--
"diminished" as JKR wrote.  He's quiet, fidgety, and afraid the 
pigtail will reappear.  When the Weasleys do arrive, they arrive 
with a "bang" -- exploding a hole through the wall.  It's not a 
visit, it's an invasion.

Arthur reveals the twins know Dudley's on a diet.  Harry wrote to 
complain and beg for alternative food, which Molly sent (pg. 28 & 
53).  So what do the Twins do?  Scatter a whole bag, "big, fat 
toffees in brightly colored wrappers," before Dudley's eyes (no 
chance of ignoring them).  And greedy, temporarily deprived Dudley 
falls for the trick, surreptitiously downing a seemingly abandoned 
toffee.  From the Muggle point of view, Dudley's then "poisoned" by 
tainted candy (add in deception to the twin's sins).  OK the twins 
didn't intend permanent harm—but Dudley doesn't know that, and while 
he's trying amidst his shock and terror to figure out what's 
happening to him, he hears his mother in hysterics and the adult 
wizard keeps trying to do something else to him.  

Thank goodness, Arthur stuck around a while trying to force civility 
out of the Dursley adults!! Who knows how long the Ton-Tongue effect 
would have lasted, or if Dudley would have choked to death before it 
wore off.  Fred and George can't know for sure that the Toffee is 
harmless since they told Harry they'd been "looking for someone to 
test them [Ton-Tongue Toffee] all summer." 

I've read several arguments that seem to imply that unpleasant 
characters like the Dursleys, Aunt Marge, Slytherins in general, and 
Marietta "deserve" the bad things that happen to them.  Maybe, 
although Lord preserve us all if that's the case. I've been 
increasingly concerned in the later books how often 
supposedly "good" characters chose to ignore the rules that 
supposedly apply to everyone, and receive "rewards" for doing so 
in the form of points, knowledge, the embarrassment of enemies.
I keep waiting for consequences.

Unless the ministry is going to obliviate the Dursley's on 
Harry's 18th birthday, I fear Dudley will take what he's learned 
about wizards and become a viable agent against wizardry, if the 
muggle world wanted to strike aback at wizards. Similarly, I 
fear that Marietta with strike out in resentment and hatred, 
becoming a prime target for recruitment—if not to support Lord 
Voldemort (and that doesn't have to mean a Deatheater persay) than 
at least to the anti-Harry Potter/Dumbledore faction within the 
ministry.   

Fear too often becomes hatred and then justification. 

Thank goodness its just a story, only a story . . . .