Philosopher's Stone Chapter Three

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Well here it is everyone - a prolonged pause in the action

PS Chapter Three

 

*Dudley has flattened Ms Figg.  I bet Harry was pleased.

 

*So Harry’s longest ever imprisonment in the cupboard took from Dud’s birthday to shortly before his own?  So about a month.  But then, given JKR’s maths, it could really be any length of time.

 

*Following on from the discussion about the previous chapter, it really is the case that Harry does not have a victim’s personality.  If he really found Dudley intimidating he wouldn’t be able to answer him back like this.

 

*Hmm the cake was stale though... bet Harry wishes Dud had killed the old squib outright.

 

*Smeltings boys wear ridiculous uniforms and have sticks of wood for attacking each other which is supposed to be good training for later life.  Sound like an all boys version of Hogwarts much?

 

*I presume Harry was just being a smart alec when he goes “I didn’t realise it had to be so wet.”  Otherwise he would seem dumber than Dudley.

 

*Harry could have read the letter quickly when he was in the hall, but no – he had to ensure that this chapter is really drawn out and the plot suspended for its duration. 

 

*It is evident that the Dursleys have received no communication from the magical world since the letter that Dumblesnore dropped off with Harry on their doorstep.  Evidently they infer from McGonagall’s letter that somebody from the magical community – they don’t know who - might now have them under surveillance and it changes their whole approach towards Harry completely.  Not only do they move him into a bedroom, but they don’t even attempt to favour Dudley anymore.  So the merest hint of magical intervention is sufficient to prevent them from keeping Harry downtrodden.  It is highly likely that Dumblesnore’s first letter gave them permission, perhaps even recommended, that they keep Harry downtrodden.  If he didn’t want them to do that it would have been very easy to check up on Harry on a regular basis in a way that Vernon and Petunia would notice.  This letter’s defining feature is that it is from someone magical besides Dumbledore.

 

*Dudley’s a right little slob :p  Nothing like Harry of course.  Oh wait... *remembers later in the series* Well Dud never reads anything, unlike Harry... *remembers all the rest of the series again* I’ll stop trying to compare Harry favourably to Dudley.

 

*Animals have a harrowing time around Dudley.  But I recall agreeing with another member of deathtocapslocks who pointed out that JKR wasted an opportunity to make Harry more likeable than Dudley by making him kind to animals. 

 

*The Smeltings stick certainly gets put to good use here.

 

*It’s just as well Vernon is referring to Hagrid *although he doesn’t know it* with his ironic remark about the delivery person’s mind working in strange ways.  Hagrid really is dumber than Vernon and bizarre to say the best of it.

 

*Dudley becomes a lot sharper in this chapter, asking Harry the question which is perplexing us all; “who on Earth wants to talk to you this badly?” Compare to chapter two, when he could not count.

 

*A minimum of intervention from the magical community also prevents Dudley from being indulged or spoiled in any way.  Vernon doesn’t even put up with his unconventional packing methods anymore.

 

*A generic seedy hotel!

 

*Hagrid’s line of thinking dictates that if Harry doesn’t receive a letter by one delivery, then the solution is to send twice as many by the following delivery.  If a character with even rudimentary intelligence had been in charge of delivering the letter then this chapter would have been very short indeed.

 

*Dud is now the one supplying the spontaneous witticisms.

 

*Dud only remembers the days of the week because of TV, but Harry can’t keep track of them at all. 

 

*So nothing has progressed in the way of plot during this chapter, but the location has shifted from Privet Drive to a hut on the rock in what seems like a different genre...

 

*Again, if Dudley were a successful bully, or if Harry had a victim’s mentality, Harry would not be prepared to wake Dud up simply to annoy him.

 

*Hagrid’s here!  Brace yourselves everyone...

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Certainly Rowling didn't try to hide the personal feelings and opinions that she embedded within her series. She always said she was writing something that she would want to read herself (is that the quote? Something like that). And she proudly told us how she was Hermione, how she married her Harry Potter, how she loathes traitors, so on and so forth. So I can see what you're saying here. No doubt there are essays out there completely psychoanalysing Rowling from her work and interviews.

She's a typical middleclass borish person who absolutely hates the upperclass (see the Malfoys --

But she let the Malfoys go! If you accept her interview words.

Vernon might have owned a gun, but the Dursleys were smack bang middle class, I would have thought; only with *pretensions* to being upper class. They're the sort who would join a gun club, golf club, etc, just to try and wrangle their way into upper society.

hence her love for the Weasleys, who are 'poor' - but have a ginormous house with own quidditch-field

That's like the comment for the last chapter, where Harry is plonked into the 'victim' slot but shows absolutely no personality traits of being such. Here the Weasleys are ostensibly poor but, as you say, really don't lack for much.

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

But she let the Malfoys go! If you accept her interview words.

And killed the working class bloke (Snape)!

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

She let them go after totally stripping them of their money, position and their power. After totally humiliating them and grinding them beneath Harry's heel. After having to be *grateful* and bow their heads to Harry, she let them go.

LOL.

Yeah, that Harry! He should have THANKED Lucius for nearly handing him over to Voldemort for torture and execution, eh? The little bastard!

Yes, DH shows the Malfoys living in lifelong, miserable servitude to Harry ever after.

Except not.

Thanks for the laugh, Marion. ;)

[lissa2.livejournal.com]

Did you come here from the hms stfu like chalts?

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

No. :) I have lurked here on and off because I know Sister Magpie of old from Tolkien fandom. I have often chuckled at her sporkings of the HP books. I particularly like the Jabootu scores. ;)

But when someone makes a daft comment about the series in the threads, do you not challenge it? :)

Because if this is a sporking-the-text comm, as I understand it to be, then sporking Really Bad literary analysis would also seem fair game.

IMO.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*waves to Pearl*--and agrees.

Seems like the Malfoys suffered purely from their own bad decisions. Which seemed to be coming early on, at least for Draco. He dreamed of Voldemort's return and then had to deal with...Voldemort's return. Lucius' tried to manipulate and play with a psycho and wound up with him living in his house. They were so pro-Voldemort they had to get burned by it some way.

The Malfoys did lose some power and position--Lucius no longer has the Minster's ear, and they all spend a year as prisoners in their own house. But I didn't get the impression that Draco would now not be able to get a job or would have to leave the country in disgrace. Money didn't seem to come into it at all. I think they've got as much money as they ever did. My impression at the end of DH was that the Malfoys were like cockroaches--they'd survive and flourish again. Not because they were worse than the Blacks, but because they ultimately found love/family more important than power. (Unlike the Blacks.) And I thought JKR's interview quote about how Draco was maybe a better parent than his father was backed up by the canon. The Malfoys were one aspect of the WW that actually did seem put on a path that could eventually lead to redemption at the end of the book.

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

Totally agree with this, Mags. :) This is why the Malfoys are human and believable. I do really like how they all went Team Malfoy at the end and 'stuff you Voldemort' ... however dubious their motives!

I don't have much hope for Lucius's worldview changing, who seems as stuck in his beliefs as Nick Griffin (leader of the British National Party, our own nasty little homegrown racists) but I do hold out some hope for Draco.

I can't see his conviction that purebloods really are the best kind of wizard ever changing, but there's no way that guy would ever want to be involved in violence ever again, or that he would teach Scorpius that was acceptable. IMO.

A Draco suddenly converting to a Gryffindor POV would not have been ... credible. (I struggle a bit with Percy's lightning switch.)

Like you, I see the Malfoys as born survivors.

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

This is fantastic. :D

She, in fact, has killed off the Working Class and the Upperclass in her books, and shows her idea of Utopia where everyone who is anyone is Middleclass. Just like JKR herself.

The moral corruption and horror of it all!

Everyone gets to be Middleclass, and the rest gets ground under jackbooted Harry's heel.

Lord, yes, that kid is such a NAZI. Killing people, torturing them into insanity ... ordering them to fetch him a sandwich. *dies laughing*

There are two reasons why I read this comm: a) Magpie's sporkery and b) THIS kind of entertainment.

[night-train-fm.livejournal.com]

I fail to see how the Malfoys are particularly "well-mannered". Draco throws around the wizard equivalent of the n-word, Lucius insults Hermione's parents and sneers at those with less "wizarding pride" than him, and Narcissa just acts as if everything around her smells awful.

'laughable and sad bc he thinks he could be good enough for Lily'

IMHO, the 'sad' part was that he was deluded enough to think he could be friends with Lily and people who thought she was subhuman...and that he could still be friends with her after calling her the aforementioned n-word-equivalent.

'vulgar yobbos, such as the Weasleys'

So the Malfoys are "well-mannered" and the Weasleys are "vulgar"? Ah, Weasley-bashing, how I adore thee.

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

So the Malfoys are "well-mannered" and the Weasleys are "vulgar"? Ah, Weasley-bashing, how I adore thee.

Yes, the class issues emerging in the thread are quite an education, aren't they? :D

[lissa2.livejournal.com]

"Being well-mannered, well-educated and cultured is a sure sign of Evil in the Potter books"
Weren't Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle (talk about behaving like vulgar yobbos...) also upper class?

"the WW would have no more problems because 'pure blood got more and more diluted'. Ie: no more aristocratic families"
No, she said that the Slytherin house has improved because it got more diluted and was no longer a basin of pure blood.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

I don't think we ever learn Crabbe and Goyle's class. What we do know is that they were purebloods. But they come across as lower-class/servants to me.

[night-train-fm.livejournal.com]

LOLwut?

If the Malfoys were ground beneath anyone's heel, it was Voldemort's, and they wouldn't have been in that position if Lucius and Narcissa had known better than to throw their lot in with him in the first place.

Lucius was a Death Eater during the first war and wormed his way out of paying for his crimes. During the fifteen-year-interim he assaulted Muggles at least once and tried to turn an eleven-year-old-girl into a murder weapon just so he could discredit Dumbledore and Arthur. He may have rejoined Voldemort out of fear, but he never hesitated to hand Harry and his friends over to him.

You could possibly make a case for Narcissa and Draco but Lucius, at least, is not a victim or a woobie. Nevermind whatever money he lost, he was spectacularly lucky to avoid Azkaban.

[lissa2.livejournal.com]

I agree, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" isn't always true. Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your enemy too. Now after DH I've come to dislike (or even hate) some of the "good guys" in HP- Harry, Hermione, Dumbledore, Minerva, Molly etc. But does that mean that because of that I'm supposed to start liking Harry's scum-of-earth enemies like the Malfoys? sorry, but no.

good guys/ scum-of-earth enemies

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

The only ones I, personally, would actually hate of your list are Hermione and possibly Dumblesnore.

The Malfoys are scum, but to give JKR some credit, don't you find them to be engaging scum at least?

Re: good guys/ scum-of-earth enemies

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

The Malfoys are my favourite villains in this series. I luuuuurve the Malfoys.

But not their politics.

Marion_ros's comment about the Malfoys suffering under the iron heel of Harry just cracked me up.

I like Hermione a lot. Not overfond of Dumbledore - but I don't see him as evil.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

I personally think the Malfoys are great, although TBH that's more due to reactance against JKR's constantly telling us that they're evil whilst making the good guys look even worse than anything else.

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

The good guys don't look worse to me. (And I am NOT a Dumbledore fan, let me add.)

The Malfoys are well-drawn, three-dimensional 'baddies': that's why I enjoy them as characters. Voldemort, OTOH, is a bit of a one-note sociopath.

I know some Draco fans were disappointed with his arc in DH, but I thought what we got was pretty believable. He and Narcissa certainly showed their humanity, flawed as it is.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Strictly speaking we only have Albus and Dobby as sources for Lucius' intent regarding the diary. We know Albus lies whenever it suits him and Dobby is the elf who thought cursing a bludger to target Harry repeatedly was a good way of protecting him. Lucius certainly wanted to get rid of the diary before it was caught in his possession and discredit Arthur. But we don't know he knew the properties of the diary or how it would work. He certainly didn't know it contained his master's soul-bit. One reason to doubt Albus and Dobby conveyed his intent accurately is that he did not pull Draco out of school, even let him stay for Christmas. For all I know the whole thing was Dobby's plot to discredit Lucius. For all I know all Lucius intended was to arrange for Ginny to get caught with a cursed Muggle artifact if he felt he needed leverage with Arthur. This doesn't make him a nice or good person but does cast doubt on his level of monstrosity.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think it was Elkins (*misses Elkins*) who compared the basic class outlook to Agatha Christie. The Dursleys really don't have pretentions to upper class if upper class is the Malfoys. The Malfoys are aristocrats and so probably getting up to god knows what. Basically the middle is the most acceptable, and you can move to either side of that for a bit, but at the extremes you get the crazy Gaunts and the crazy Blacks. Petunia wants to be in with the most fashionable ladies in her neighborhood, no doubt, but I don't think she needs to get much higher.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

Vernon might have owned a gun, but the Dursleys were smack bang middle class, I would have thought; only with *pretensions* to being upper class. They're the sort who would join a gun club, golf club, etc, just to try and wrangle their way into upper society.

I can't see Vernon hunting, somehow. I think she gave him a gun in the hut scene without thinking about how he owned one in the first place.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly. This *is* Rowling, after all.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I think she gave him a gun in the hut scene without thinking about how he owned one in the first place.

That's very likely. To some people, "gun owner" = "bad." If this had been written a century earlier he might have had a mustache he could twirl along with a black hat and a career as a ruthless mortgage banker.