Identifying with Muggles in Potterverse WAS: Re: DD at the Dursleys:

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 158009

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > <SNIP>
> > So yeah, wizard using magic to pick on Muggle (not defending,   
> > mind you, but being aggressive towards) I side with the Muggle.  
> > Even if the Muggle is an absolute drip.  As the Dursleys are.

> >>Alla:
> Okay, and that is something that I cannot understand at all. Not 
> identifying with Muggles as group, see below, but identifying with 
> Dursleys as part of it. I am just not getting how even if we agree 
> that wizards are being agressive towards them, how that can cause 
> empathy towards them, but to each their own of course.
> <snip>
> I guess to me it is a question of child abusers getting what they 
> deserve, not poor helpless Muggles against wizards, that is just  
> not how I view the situation, but again JMO.

Betsy Hp:
It's the use of magic that tilts it for me.  A wizard using his wit 
or intelligence or basic decency to put the Dursleys in 
their "place" I'm fine with.  But when a wizard uses his magic he's 
taking advantage of an extreme power difference.  A power difference 
I'm on the wrong side of.  That it's done so easily suggests that 
abusing that power is an easy thing for wizards to slip into.  And I 
don't like it.  Which colors how I take that scene.

In a way Dumbledore is punishing the Dursleys' abuse of power with 
his own abuse of power.  (That he includes a sixteen year old he's 
already described as abused himself just shows his lack of control, 
IMO.)  And the thing is, Muggle's can't defend themselves when a 
wizard chooses to go the magic route.  Not physically, not legally.

So even when it's the Dursleys I can't condone it.  Just like I 
couldn't condone the school bully getting beaten up by his father.  
A grown man taking advantage of his superior strength to beat up a 
weaker boy is wrong.  No matter how much of a drip the boy is.  
Similarly, a wizard taking advantage of his superior power to tease, 
annoy, intimidate a muggle, no matter how much a drip, strikes me as 
a bit distastful.  Especially as I'm a muggle myself. <g>  Sets a 
bad trend, right?

Betsy Hp