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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 159536

Alla:
Could somebody who indeed feels that Dursleys are horrible, but feel
something for Dudley explain why? <snip>

I mean if for you all Dursleys are great, ( for hypothetical you, or
like for Betsy, they are just not abusive, I get it), I am just
trying to feel something for Dudley and cannot, assuming that I am
hundred percent sure that his parents are abusive monsters

<snip> 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?

Magpie:
Grrr!  My response to this seems to have been eaten, so I'll do it 
again.  As somebody who likes both Dudley and Draco..:-)

Dudley I don't feel sorry for—not because I dislike him, there just 
doesn't seem much reason to do so.  He's not in such bad shape.  
He's a jerk and a bully, but he doesn't seem so different from any 
number of jerks his age probably hanging around and he honestly 
doesn't seem unhappy.  I can see him growing up, getting a job he 
expends the minimum amount of effort at, getting married and having 
kids who don't see him as much more than average.  He doesn't even 
seem to have inherited Vernon's temper.  Vernon and Petunia are 
abusive in an ironic sense, that they indulge him too much, but they 
still seem to have more of the basics down than, say, many of the 
parents on Nanny 911.  When he needs to lose weight they actually do 
put him on a diet, one that they all participate in.  He seems like 
somebody who might be quite happy leading an ordinary life.  The 
moment after Dumbledore tells them that Dudley's terribly abused is 
probably supposed to underscore how awful they are, but it's just 
kind of funny—they aren't offended, because they are happy with each 
other.  So do Dumbledore's words have any meaning outside of his own 
judgment of the family that they don't care about?

Now, Draco is a different story.  Harry immediately connects the two 
as spoiled, but fandom tends to make them into doubles far more than 
they are.  They're both bullies, but bullies are not all alike.  
Their physical looks—which JKR often uses for character—are 
completely opposite.  Dudley is fat and soft.  He is, as defenders 
of all the focus on his weight attest, the physical representation 
of overindulgence and intemperance and gluttony.  His size is his 
advantage over Harry—as a fat kid who can squash him, then he grows 
into a big guy.  Draco, otoh, is pinched and pale, defined within 
the story far more often as not getting what he wants.  In the one 
scene where he's alone with his father, Lucius is acting completely 
differently than Vernon.  Where Dudley bullies often for fun, 
carelessly throwing his weight around, Draco seems to have a much 
deeper need to hurt, especially hurt specific people.  He's 
insecure, brittle and sensitive.  Dudley could never have done 
Draco's story in HBP.  

None of which necessarily makes him sympathetic, but I'm not sure 
that's necessary to make for an enjoyable redemption story if that's 
what JKR has in mind.  One of her strengths as a writer is the way 
she *doesn't* give in to urges to make her characters cuddly.  With 
Draco in particular she seems to have been aware for years that 
people sympathize with him and does little to combat it in the books 
themselves—I mean, little extra to combat it since obviously there's 
plenty of places in the books where Draco's awful.  In interviews 
she stresses his badness—but I think that was partially to throw 
people off the track of where she was going (and also because the 
harsher characters she's written is better than the schmoopy 
misunderstood soul).  I think the only way to possibly miss out on 
the story is in refusing to allow it to happen because you want the 
character to have a particular outcome.

I mean, for me the character's had my sympathy since the beginning.  
There are lots of scenes where he has it—particularly in PS/SS he 
doesn't at all seem like a kid bullying to bully, and he's stayed 
that same kid in every book.  I see him always wanting something and 
working towards it, and it's not always something fundamentally bad 
(sometimes it's a good thing twisted into something bad).  So I do 
think there's plenty of places where JKR refrains from making him 
completely unsympathetic to prepare for a storyline that isn't 
wholly unsympathetic.  This is something that Draco fans are 
sometimes accused of making up—post HBP I've seen a number of 
comments insisting that however engaging the character was in HBP, 
there was no foreshadowing or build up to it at all (ironically 
sometimes from people who would mock others for making the same 
arguments about shipping).  But it has at least sometimes been seen 
by others who don't particularly like the character but set 
themselves to looking at him closely.  How sympathetic they are to 
him is a matter of taste, of course.