DD at the Dursleys: Why do people dislike the scene?

[snow15145]

No: HPFGUIDX 158012






Magpie:
I said they were two different questions, so "I didn't enjoy this 
scene" 
can't be answered with "But don't you remember what the Dursleys 
did?" I 
know all the facts, and they don't match up the same way for me to 
give me 
the same emotional response, as happens with many scenes in canon 
that break 
down along similar lines. As a response to years of abuse, albeit 
years 
before, it seems a rather odd kind of response. I think it's very 
important 
to be able to separate the two. Otherwise it's easy to just sort 
people 
into "people who can not be done wrong to" and "people who can not do 
wrong."

So, as I said in response to why I did not enjoy the scene, well, I 
didn't 
enjoy it and now I'm trying to analyze why--which is hard because 
it's a 
feeling, not an intellectual process. I doubt either of our emotional 
reactions are about our ethical sensibilities first; I've been known 
to 
enjoy scenes where a person is being childish or wrong or bad or mean 
as I 
think everyone has. If you enjoy a scene you automatically find 
reasons you 
should enjoy it, if you don't you find reasons why you shouldn't.


Snow:

Ok first off I didn't `enjoy' it nor would I look for a reason to do 
so but I can accept why the scene happened and can appreciate why 
Dumbledore had reasons to act in such a manner given his past-limited 
choices in allowing Harry to live with the Dursley's to begin with. 

Dumbledore had no choice but to allow Harry to live with the very 
people that would abuse him to a degree. To what degree this abuse 
has affected him we can only surmise by his adult actions that he has 
now portrayed. Has Harry been affected by the abuse from the 
Dursley's and if he has, how is he displaying that affect? 

We are right back where you didn't want to be
at the beginning. 
Dumbledore's actions in this scene are a direct result of Harry's 
disgruntled upbringing. You can't separate Dumbledore's feelings 
laying Harry (the wizarding world's only hope) on the doorstep of the 
Dursley's from his suppressed (as I view it) limited actions when 
last he spoke to the Dursley's in this very scene. 

Magpie snipped:

I don't like the kind of thing DD is doing to begin with on a 
visceral 
level--the knocking somebody in the heads with the mead? That makes 
me want 
to clonk Dumbledore on the head with the mead, and it probably would 
have no 
matter who he was doing it to, because I hate that kind of teasing. 
Seriously, I hate it. It's like nails on a chalkboard for me, and it 
doesn't seem to even say much to the Dursleys.

Snow:

Now you are applying your own emotions to the scene. You don't like 
being treated that way therefore you don't like the Dursley's being 
treated the way Dumbledore treated them. I agree I don't like anyone 
to be treated in a disrespectful way but how did the Dursley's treat 
Harry and more so how did the Dursley's treat Dumbledore in this 
scene; they never changed, they are still disrespectful and subtlety 
abusive? 

I try to live my life by the turn-the-other-cheek analogy but there 
are times when the cheek just gets to red to turn it again; after all 
we are only human even if you are blessed with powers :) like 
Dumbledore. 



Magpie:

I also don't see the context that's being described, and trying to 
make this Dumbledore righteous response to abuse years after the fact 
doesn't make me think Dumbledore's just so compassionate he loses it 
a bit with these people. It makes it seem like an act to me.

Snow:

I see it as actually repressed anger, which for the Dursley's sake 
Dumbledore is a very fair and compassionate man because I would have 
been way more insensitive than Dumbledore was in this scene if it 
would have been my child or charge. 

As I said in my previous post Dumbledore would not allow himself to 
abuse the Dursley's in the manner that they chose to abuse Harry 
because he would then stoop to their level and be no better than they 
are or were. 


Hope you understand

Snow