Best of Enemies, pt.I

[Barry Arrowsmith]

The intention was that this would be a medium-to-longish post reviewing 
a bunch of characters in HP. It's sort of grown on me, in the fashion 
of the herbaceous menace in Little Shop of Horrors, or more accurately 
the cactus in Quatermass I - and if I ever get round to completing 
and/or posting the final product it'll be in at least three parts. One 
of the penalties of being a garrulous old fart.

I do love a thorough-going villain, the nastier the better. This has 
resulted in a noticeable disappointment with the Potter Cycle, the 
presumptive villains (for the most part) being anything but 
thorough-going. Pretty feeble most of 'em. Shame.
But those that might aspire to donning the badge of evil with pride, 
even though they may be doomed to being thwarted at the last ... well, 
they're a pretty diverse lot and I'm willing to bet that not all of 
them are as villainous as they might appear at first sight. 
There's..um.... let's see, 7 males and 2 females. Does that sound about 
right? 'Course, it depends on how strict your classification is, but 
anyway, that's my count.

I don't include El Ratto Grande, P. Pettigrew Esq. That's because I 
have severe doubts that he is as villainous as he's been presented so 
far. It's quite possible that he's less of a baddy than Sirius, maybe 
much less. But that's another story. One to watch out for in the future 
is Bagman - a slimy git if ever I saw one - but he's yet to break 
cover. To a lesser extent Lockhart can be similarly classified: I've 
always wondered if the Obliviate! maestro was around to work his magic 
on the unfortunate Longbottoms, wouldn't put it past him. We'll see - 
maybe as soon as the summer.

5 so-called anti-Harry characters appear in book 1- a fair indication 
that our eponymous hero is in for a right old battering one way or 
another, though my nasty suspicious mind does wonder how any youngster, 
untrained and ignorant as he is, could possibly prevail against such an 
array of dastardly foes. IMO he can't, not in a world where a wand is a 
sure-fire combination of Swiss Army Knife and AK 47 with a touch of the 
Spanish Inquisitorial behaviour modification programme thrown in for 
good measure. T'ain't credible, not even with that old duffer DD 
pulling strings in the background. And if it isn't credible, then once 
again all might not be what it seems in the Potterverse of sneaky old 
Jo.

Oh, he had 'protection' - but against what? Once you start to look a 
bit closer it doesn't seem all that comprehensive. He's safe inside 
that exemplar of domestic felicity that is chez Dursley, or at least 
he's safe there from ill-intentioned magic, and he is/was protected 
from Voldy - sort of, though even that protection is/was possibly more 
limited than many might assume. But more about that later. If you're 
really lucky I won't bend your  delicate ears with the rationale behind 
Possession Theory - a fascinating concoction of speculation and 
hypothesis (with some tattered shreds of canon support), a personal 
monomania to rank with Ben Gunn's obsession with the rennet-coagulated 
products of the dairy industry and usually presented with an intensity 
worthy of a Class I pub bore. Oh, I don't know though, can't see any 
reason why readers on this site shouldn't suffer too, but in another 
post, I think.

Enough of this maundering. Let's get on with it. Oh - one more thing. 
You may start to suspect that I'm willing to give some of these 
characters considerable leeway in their dealings with young Potter; 
almost bending over backwards in coming up with justifications, excuses 
and presumptions of innocence. Well spotted. That's exactly what I'm 
doing. The books are a pretty well uninterrupted presentation of 
Harry's POV. Hardly objective, startlingly wrong on occasion, Potter is 
not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. A bit of contrary thinking 
won't go amiss, might even be instructive, when reviewing what we've 
seen so far.

Right - who's first? Ah, yes; Uncle Vern.
Originally presented as a semi-comic caricature who by the conventions 
applicable to books about youngsters is sure to be out-manoeuvred at 
every turn, as the books have progressed I've developed a certain 
sympathy for Vernon. He's a natural bully, full of bluster, threats and 
hot air, but even so he's stuck in a nightmare he can do nothing about. 
And there's a chance that it's even worse than that. What fun!

We're in the dark as to how well, if at all, VD knew Lily and James. 
Not too well, I'd imagine; certainly not so well as Petunia did. 
Certainly I can't recall Vernon ever expressing opinions about the 
Potter pair with the venom that his wife does. Magic - that's 
different. It's unnatural, to be shunned and feared. A matter of 
principle - unlike Mrs D. where there seems to be a personal animosity 
at the root of everything. Was Vernon always anti-magic, or is it that 
Petunia made him so?

Vernon would no doubt consider himself as sensible and level-headed, a 
slight contrast to most reader's opinions which would  lean more 
towards the pig-headed and bombastic. One can easily imagine him 
scorning reports of wizards and witches; stuff and nonsense, children's 
tales, that sort of thing. But it goes much further than that; he knows 
they exist and his reaction when confronted with the reality is closer 
to fear and a desperate form of denial than to scorn.

He doesn't treat Harry well, but it's noticeable that the most severe 
reactions occur whenever there's a hint of inadvertent magic from Harry 
or when Harry recounts dreams/memories that  refer back to real events. 
Quite simply, Harry's life would be much more pleasant if he wasn't 
magical. It's possible to argue that Vernon has no animus towards 
Harry, only to what he represents, what he reminds the Dursleys of, and 
perhaps what he might become. More than anything else they want Harry 
to be normal.

My word they do. He's bloody dangerous. You disagree? So tell me, all 
you caring parents out there, what would be your reaction if some 
perverse little snot caused the glass fronting a snake-pit to vanish 
and a bloody great ginormous serpent slides out and snaps 'playfully' 
at your son and heir? I'm sure you'd find it highly amusing. Good joke 
and ice-creams all round, eh?

Just when did Vernon learn to be afraid of the magical world? Well, 
there are theories, I've cobbled some ideas together myself in the past 
(can't help it, I'm a serial theoriser; it's addictive, you know), and 
they involve the previous generation. To a fully paid-up member of the 
League of Conspiracy Theorists (Paranoiac Section) it seems more than 
co-incidental that all four of Harry's grandparents appear  to have 
died within a very short timespan. Authorial convenience or enemy 
action?  If Petunia's parents were given a helping hand by Voldy or his 
henchwizards in shuffling off this mortal coil it would certainly help 
to explain why the Dursleys behave as they do.

Mind you, that's probably not  the only reason. Tell me, is there a 
Muggle in the books that isn't mistreated, patronised or just plain 
used by wizards? Harry is a cuckoo in the nest. They didn't want him 
but they've got him. For the blood protection to work there is no 
alternative. Just what pressures have been applied, I wonder? And Harry 
has learned wizarding attitudes very easily. Threaten 'em with magic - 
at least until they find out he's forbidden to perform it outside 
school. "I've got this stark staring mad mass murderer of a Godfather. 
Treat me right or I'll drop him a line." Add in the not-so-subtle 
mob-threat at the end of OoP  and you realise why I characterise 
Vernon's life as a nightmare. Where can he go? Who can he talk to? Who 
would believe him? Poor bugger.

What's more he's vulnerable. It's that blood protection thing. There's 
protection in the place that Lily's blood calls home. It would be 
reasonable to assume that this protection applies to all who can lay 
claim to belonging to the same blood-line, which would include Petunia 
and Dudders. Not so Vernon. He's out on a limb and since JKR has 
evinced a dislike for the man, I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't 
busy sawing it off.
Vernon for the Black Spot?

Kneasy