Respecting the Dursleys( was:Re: Hi everyone -- banning the books)

[Nancy Hannah]

No: HPFGUIDX 159510

Alla posted:


>I am just 
trying to feel something for Dudley and cannot, assuming that I am 
hundred percent sure that his parents are abusive monsters. I mean 
the fact that he is a bully to Harry obviously does not help, but I 
am trying to imagine what if he would not and only his parents 
abused Harry, and he was indifferent and still cannot find any 
sympathetic scenes.

>It is like with Draco - I do feel that he is likely headed to 
redemption and am feeling rather sorry for myself, because usually I 
eat those stories with the spoon, but I hated him for so long and 
for five books JKR did not give me ONE deed of Draco which is worth 
sympathy ( that is only my impressionn of course), so this 
redemption story will leave me untouched, most likely.

>I want to buy Dursleys as abused child and want to sympathise with 
him. Help me?

Alla,

I can see where Dudley can be looked at in todays world as an example of a kid gone bad
because of abusive , neglective home. They indulge him, give him all the wrong messages, 
 and then berate him and put pressure on him. You can see how he has learned to control 
his life by being a bully, to HP and all.  He is the kid abusing animals I'd say, if he were real.

Draco , falls in similar situation. Much pressure, a wimp with a big bark, not much bite  and 
his father is disappointed in him I think. Draco has become less of a challenge outwardly, than 
in the first books. He slinks behing ready to pounce. Kind of a dirty player , or back stabber, not
someone who can outwardly challenge HP. IMHO.

All the kids come with their own baggage, whether real or imagined by them.  And they have been given 
their own "tools" to deal.  Hermoine her studies to compensate, Harry is curiosity, Draco his need 
for hate of someone who is supposedly greater than him,thus disappointing his worshipped father.

So... what baggage are the adults all carrying? Snapes past eludes me.  Also.. DE... I really can't grasp how
they work, why they become DE  etc.

Nancy