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

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 159569

Alla:
> And after book 6 it is rather clear to me that that is what JKR is
> trying to promote - that Dudley was abused too, but I am just soo
> not buying it, I mean I am buying it on intellectual level, but not
> on the emotional, because JKR did not manage to make me feel one
> ounce of sympathy for Dudley. I want to buy Dursleys as abused 
> child and want to sympathise with him. Help me?


Jen: Well, I can't help because I have a problem with the whole 
scenario myself. The primary reason is what you said above, emphasis 
mine: "And **after** book 6..."  

Where was this concept in books 1-5? I'm not talking what I believe 
in real life but what was actually written on the page. Weren't we 
meant to laugh at the jokes about Dudley's size? Cheer when Harry 
discovered he could threaten him with magic? Roll our eyes at the 
Dursleys' stupendously poor parenting?  

I didn't know until Dumbledore's dramatic speech that I was supposed 
to feel sorry for Dudley and consider him an abused child *in the 
story*.  That's a hard message to sell in my book when JKR spent 5 
books presenting Dudley as the boy we should love to hate. 

I'm not saying everyone felt that way or read Dudley as I did, but 
those were the responses I thought a reader was meant to have, just 
as Fred & George are meant to be funny. 

Like you said in another post Alla, I did feel something for Dudley 
during the Dementor scene and wondered afterward what his worst 
memory was. I do think JKR is headed to a point where *Harry* will 
finally feel sympathy for Dudley and see the pathos in the 
situation, and readers will be meant to feel the same in that 
moment. Unfortunately, JKR could have done more to show this along 
the way than just have Dumbledore blurt it out as we near the final 
act.

Jen R.