CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 2: Aunt Marge's Big Mistake

[AmanitaMuscaria]

No: HPFGUIDX 189405



> CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
> Chapter 2: Aunt Marge's Big Mistake

> Questions:
> 
> 1. Seriously - what is wrong with Aunt Marge? What kind of person hits a 5-year old in the shins?

AM: I think she sees children like puppies; I think she would be the sort to hit a puppy, or rub its nose in the dirt if it did its business where it shouldn't - unless it was a favoured dog, like Ripper. Some people are kinder to animals than children. But the idea that you shouldn't hit children is quite recent - I, and most of the kids I knew growing up were acquainted with the strap, hand, and ruler.
> 
> 2. Given the little glimpse of Harry's life with the Dursleys that we see at the beginning of each book, what do you think the Dursleys' neighbors believe to be the reason that Harry attends St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys? And do you think they are concerned that he is allowed to come home every summer?


AM: Either they're like the Dursleys, all about appearances, or they laugh at the Dursleys. But I can imagine Perfect Lawn competitions all around Little Whinging. I doubt they believe Harry goes to St. Brutus's, but they possibly believe he is sent to some quasi-military boarding school. No one seems to question the bullying or his clothes.
> 
> 3. Back to Aunt Marge - would you have been able to control yourself as long as Harry did? How about when you were his age?

AM: I'd have run away as soon as I heard she was coming. 
> 
> 4. Do you think that students from wizarding families are watched as closely by the ministry to see if they perform magic during the summer? Why or why not?

AM: Well, Petunia goes on about Lily coming home with "pockets full of frogspawn, turning teacups into rats", and no one from the Ministry seems to intervene. I think it's just Harry that is so carefully observed. Presumably he has enemies in the Ministry from the start, if he is so watched.
> 
> 5. OK, one more about Aunt Marge - can you think of any way in which she could have been written to be more unlikeable?

AM: Hmm - she might have visited more often, or lived round the corner.
> 
> 6. Anything else that caught your eye in this chapter that should be discussed?

AM: Why do you think JKR mirrored the scene of Snape having his trouser-leg in tatters and bloody from Fluffy in Philosophers Stone with Vernon rushing after Harry after he'd blown Marge up?