Occlumency VERY VERY LONG

[sigurd at eclipse.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 191726

Dear Alla

Alla says:
 " No, I think Dumbledore wanted to do everything in his power that Harry would abused and scared and miserable after living with Dursleys and would look at Dumbledore as god and do anything Dumbledore would want him to do and would go and die because Dumbledore raised him to that."

Otto's response:
At peril of agreeing with Pippin on anything, I must say that I find this extremely doubtful on simple logic alone, leaving aside the necessity of any proof from "scripture." It would require a crassness and cynicism that seems completely at variance with the character of Dumbledore through the rest of the book. Dumbledore would in this case be out Voldemorting Voldemort.

I found, after only a few chapters of the book, wondering why in the world Dumbledore ever lodged Harry with the Dursleys and questioned what he hoped to achieve. The best I can extrapolate is that Petunia is Lilly's sister and owes him some obligation, and that she (Petunia) knows what is going on, apparently being a squib. I maintain that his judgement in such case was extremely faulty, perhaps foolish, but I cannot concieve of it being the motivation you suggest.

Perhaps J.K. Rowling felt that as part of her backstory Dumbledore picked the Dursleys simply because any wizzarding family would be the first place Voldemort would look. Perhaps raising him in Hogwarts rom infancy is not possible, perhaps-- perhaps-- perhaps-- perhaps---

My own belief is that you cannot explain this from the internals of the book, but that JK Rowling was simply assuring marketing success by weaving into the story one of the most powerful tropes that appeals to immature readers, that they are special children with magical mystical powers marooned among a family of boorish toads who do not recognize their greatness and insist on them doing things like homework, shining their shoes, brushing their teeth, studying, and not running with scissors.

One note- stylistically the Dursleys start off as opera bouffe figures, too overdrawn in their boorishness to be other than figures of farce. Later on they degenerate to just plain irrelevant mean-ness. Also, in the first books where she cannot assume that everone will have read  1 before 2 after several years of publication, the groundwork must be set again for new readers to understand the "motif' or "theme music" of the Dursleys in the tone poem. This necessarily gets compressed and more overdrawn. Later on, they become more extraneous as it is no longer needed. Everyone knows the story.

Otto