Appeal of the story to the reader WAS: Re: Of Sorting and Snape

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 175593

houyhnhnm:
There *is* something mean spirited in the books. The stories 
appeal to the mean in readers and for some they are not nearly
mean enough, as we have ample evidence.

Montavilla47:
I don't want to put words in houyhnhnm's mouth, but I do
agree that there is a certain amount of mean-spiritedness.
Not as much as Roald Dahl, perhaps, but a bit.

To give an example:

I think we are expected to enjoy the various punishments
and humiliations that are heaped on the Dursleys through-
out the series.  I could go through the litany, but we're all 
familiar with it:  Pig tail on Dudley, ruined business dinner, 
blown-up Marge, etc., etc.   

We're encouraged to enjoy this because the Dursley's are 
such hideous people.

We're also encouraged to enjoy the various painful and
humiliating hexes that are visited upon Draco Malfoy and
the other Slytherins, including tentacles sprouting from
their faces and turning into giant slugs.

(I wonder--did they have to take Skele-Gro to get their
bones back after that particular hex session?)

We're encouraged to enjoy the punishments inflicted on
the petty villains of the Wizarding World.  We're supposed
to applaud Hermione's cleverness when she kidnaps and
blackmails Rita Skeeter, or disfigures Marietta's face, or
leads Umbridge out to the Centaurs.

We're supposed to laugh along with the kids when they
imitate the sound of hoofbeats near the traumatized
Umbridge.

We're intended to find satisfaction in Dumbledore's 
lecture to the Dursleys.

These are the moments that seem, to me, to appeal
to what is mean-spirited in the readers.  Some of these
moments I enjoyed.  Some I did not.  

I may not have gotten them all, considering other, 
similar moments to be merely amusing, or poetic 
justice or whatever.  And some of the moments I 
mention above will not strike all readers as mean--
but may be, to others, merely amusing, poetic 
justice or whatever.

Montavilla47