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

[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.

Re: good guys/ scum-of-earth enemies

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

And Draco had sex appeal that is even conveyed through the medium of text (though all his character is lost in Deathly Hallows). I was never a fan of Tom Felton. Draco was not supposed to be photogenic. He was clearly supposed to be an unpleasant boy, but with animal magnetism. Much as I have been slating JKR's writing in these commentaries, she clearly is not an incapable author.

Surely you saw Hermione as a character who really had to go? Even more so than Umbridge or Voldemort? If she had come to a really, really horrible end it would have saved Deathly Hallows a little.

Hermione

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

You're kidding me, right? Some of you castigate JKR for the Marietta business (not a fan of that myself) and yet you want Hermione to die a really, really horrible death?? That's some disconnect. ...

There are members of this comm who like Hermione so, no, I'm not beholden to think that Hermione had to go.

Re: Hermione

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

And there's no character I hate more than Umbridge. Even if JKR overdoes it a bit.

Re: Hermione

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean that I would want anyone in real life to die even if they were evildoers...! It is a good thing that the UK doesn't even have the death penalty anymore. I meant from the point of view of reading the story and it being a good read - you know, good escapism!

And Umbridge did go to Azkaban in the end if you were wondering, but it can only be ascertained from JKR's interviews, not the text.

Re: good guys/ scum-of-earth enemies

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

True, but remember everyone is described through the Harry filter.

That frikkin Harry filter

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

The Harry filter doesn't stop racism from being racism though, does it? :)

Sometimes too much is made of the damn Harry filter, IMO. Yeah, it puts a limited perspective on the narrative, no doubt about that, and Harry isn't always the most imaginative person in this universe, but the Harry-centric perspective also enables the author to conceal her big reveals.

Plus, are we supposed to find the Harry filter suspect when he names his second son after Snape and says that Snape was "probably the bravest man he ever knew" ---???

Just sayin'.

Re: That frikkin Harry filter

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

Ah but Harry's descriptions of characters/actions are biased. Harry is not the sort to give people the benefit of the doubt when he doesn't like them. Nor does he see the bad in what his friends do.

As for Snape....only after seeing Snapes memories did he do a token gesture. However while the man was alive Harry never once looked at things from a neutral perspective nor felt guilt over anything he himself did.

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

Harry is not the sort to give people the benefit of the doubt when he doesn't like them.

If I were a 14 year old tied to a tombstone with the prospect of being tortured and killed, while Lucius Malfoy stood there laughing, I think I might have a few issues with Lucius too. ;)

As for Snape....only after seeing Snapes memories did he do a token gesture. However while the man was alive Harry never once looked at things from a neutral perspective nor felt guilt over anything he himself did.

Yes, well, Snape kind of made that pretty damned difficult for Harry, IMO.

And Snape is my favourite character, btw.

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

He made up his mind not to like Draco in the robe shop. Draco hadn't done anything to him and in fact, actually tried to befriend him. Yes...Draco has learned some "racism" but then again so have the Weasleys and he had no problem befriending Ron.

Snape wasn't that hard on Harry. And in fact Harry knew by the end of his first year Snape saved his life. Much of the problems with Snape were of Harry's own doing or his skewed perception. Snape happens to be my favorite as well.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"Much of the problems with Snape were of Harry's own doing or his skewed perception."

Most of Harry's problems with people seem to be of his own doing, TBH. He takes an instant dislike to Draco Malfoy for no apparent reason, he takes an instant dislike to the whole of Slytherin based on what Hagrid and Ron have told him, he takes an instant dislike to Snape, he's shockingly rude to Umbridge during their first lesson...

(And Snape's my favourite character too, BTW, even after the appalling mess that is "The Prince's Tale".)

Re: That frikkin Harry filter

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

The Harry filter doesn't stop racism from being racism though, does it? :)


It does when it's the good guys being racist, like when harry thinks Flint has "troll blood", Hagrid says the Malfoys have "bad blood", Ron says giants are "just savages" (perhaps they are, but Malfoy would be correct in saying that elves are "born to serve" - even Dobby loves a good massa) etc.

[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.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

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

I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you there. :)

First of all, we've got Harry, who essentially goes from a bland but basically likeable boy in the first three or four books to a spoiled brat who worries about nobody but himself (in HBP, for example, he sectumsempras Draco, and then spends the rest of the chapter worrying about Snape giving him detention rather than whether Malfoy's OK) and tortures people for such petty things as spitting at a teacher. Then we've got Hermione, who starts off as a nice if slightly bossy girl, before turning into a callous, manipulative Lady-Macbeth-in-training who seemingly thinks nothing of blackmailing Rita Skeeter, permanently disfiguring a fellow-student and mind-wiping her parents. Then we've got Ron, who's probably just as bad, although TBH he's so boring and annoying by the last few books that I've forgotten what he does. So yeah, I'd argue that there is a bit of a gulf between how JKR sees the trio and how the trio actually behave.

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

If you're telling me that the Trio have huge, stonking great flaws, then we are in agreement. :)

If you're telling me that those flaws make the Trio the moral equivalent of a racist, genocidal cult, I'd have to say ... NO.

(Harry's 'Crucio' in DH was a careless move on the part of the author, IMO. Either the Unforgivables are unforgivable or they aren't. The Potterverse is not the most consistent secondary world I've ever come across.)

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

The trio aren't as bad as Voldemort, no, but I'd argue that they are worse than some of the minor villains, such as Draco Malfoy or Pansy Parkinson.

That about sums it up.

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

For instance, Voldemort is the only important character who has an even more messed up relationship with his parents than Hermione has with hers.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say their flaws make them worse than any of the villains I can think of--but I do sometimes think they're flaws are worse because they're being presented as good. Though of course people do argue that a lot of the villains are good too. I don't think that's a good idea. I think the villains are usually if not always far worse. But that can sometimes be a distraction when it shouldn't be imo.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Um - yeah. I don't have a problem with flawed heroes; I have a problem with flawed heroes who never feel bad about what they do, apologize, try to rectify anything, etc.

That, in one sentence, is why I love Snape more than almost anyone else in these books. He did all of the above, however imperfectly.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, I think the kind of flaws Harry and Hermione display and the fact that they are never seriously criticized by anyone they respect but instead are praised or rewarded for that behavior makes them people with the potential of becoming despots of one kind or another. They will be cult-leaders without even realizing that's what they are becoming (because the wizarding world is a cult, and it will become the cult of Harry Potter soon enough). They are the pigs in Animal Farm.

[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.