PS Chapter Two

[hafl.livejournal.com]

- The manner in which Dursleys abuse Harry is so over the top, it is hard to take seriously.

- Harry can't understand why would Dudley want to get a bicycle, since he apparently hates sports and is fat. Clearly, Dudley is morally deficient.

- Harry's glasses are held together only by Scotch tape, because Dudley punches him into nose so often. In the previous paragraph, it was stated that Harry is so fast, Dudley can't often catch him. These two sentences don't mesh together well.

- Not only is Harry not afraid of spiders, but also likes his scar. A true Gryffindor.

- Dudley is so fat he is like a pig. Hahaha, fat people are pathetic. Unless they're matronly of course.

- Okay, Dudley has no trouble while counting his gifts one by one, but when he has to add two at once, he is suddenly having problems?

- Harry find it hard to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg has broken her leg. The power of love at work, ladies and gentlemen.

- Petunia "looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this" is actually pretty interesting. If I remember Deathly Hallows correctly, Snape had some measure of control over his magic even before he entered Hogwarts and Petunia knew about it. As far as she knows, Harry may have caused Mrs. Figg to break her leg.

- Dudley is so spoiled he knows he only needs to pretend to cry to get all he wants.

- Again, Vernon warns Harry about doing anything weird. This and all the accounts of Harry's mishaps really reinforces the idea that the Dursleys are scared of Harry and think he is in control of his magic.

- Now that's Harry's school is mentioned, how come nobody noticed him being abused by the Dursleys? I don't mean classmates, I mean the school administration. They should know that both Harry and Dudley have the same address and they should know that Dursleys are Harry's legal guardians. Why didn't anyone the teachers notice that Harry's probably malnourished, wears only old clothes and his glasses are constantly getting broken, while Dudley's fat and owns only new things? I don't know that much about British educational system, especially in the eighties, but it probably wasn't that bad.

- In the zoo, Harry feels compassionate towards the snake. At this point, he's still a sympathetic kid.

- Now, after the snake incident, Piers claims that Harry was talking to the snake. Okay, but Parseltongue is apparently just hissing. So is Piers saying that Harry was talking just a simplification to avoid the revelation that Parseltongue is hissing? Or, if Harry was using human speech, why did the snake understand him?

- The Dursleys reaction is actually completely understandable. From their point of view, Harry was using is magic and from all the incidents that were mentioned, this one is the only one, where Dursleys could reasonably think that Harry was trying to attack them.

- And at the end of the chapter, we are again reminded that Harry is lonely and abused and that there's something mysterious about him.

Comments

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

But why though? Even if Merope was legally an adult, Ogden clearly saw that she was abused, impoverished, and in poor health (mentally and physically). The dire circumstances that she was in weren't going to magically go away just because her father and brother were temporarily out of the picture. Even if she were forty years old, she merited help by her condition alone. I guess that the Ministry just isn't that big on social services.

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

JKR seems fairly anti-intervention - look at how she treats the Ministry investigating accidents caused by teachers at Hogwarts.
(Not that they go about it particularly well, but then, she chose to write it that way - inept government interferes in independent school.)
Her thing seems to be more that Merope should have pulled herself up by her bootstraps or something (I love the comparison Dumbledore makes about how she wasn't as strong as Lily, as if their situations were in any way comparable, apart from both possessing uteruses. Oh, and the mention of how the Gaunts spent their money, like if the Weasleys are poor it's noble, but the Gaunts are just wasteful) and if she didn't, it was probably her icky Slytherin genes, but definitely nothing anyone could have affected, or should feel like they should.
(The end part in DH about Harry still hearing the helpless baby crying, but it becoming less and less important is probably the most chilling part of the books for me, but it's pretty emblematic of the series, imho.)

Types of Courage

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"I love the comparison Dumbledore makes about how she wasn't as strong as Lily, as if their situations were in any way comparable, apart from both possessing uteruses."

You mean the bit where Harry says, "Why didn't she stay alive for Tom's sake," and Dumbledore replies, "She didn't have Lily's courage"? Because that's one of my least favourite parts of HBP (second only to the Sectumsempra scene). Somebody should tell JKR that the sort of courage required to carry on when you seemingly have nothing to live for is a completely different sort to the sort of courage required to stand up to a homicidal maniac. There's no way of telling how Lily would have coped in Merope's situation, or vice versa.

Re: Types of Courage

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

You mean the bit where Harry says, "Why didn't she stay alive for Tom's sake," and Dumbledore replies, "She didn't have Lily's courage"?

That bit is actually my absolute least favorite part of HBP, and is in competition for the part I most disliked in the series. Merope did not lack courage. She decided that she wanted to have the baby rather than abort it, and she had to struggle just to stay alive long enough to give birth. I'm pro-choice, so I'd never judge Merope if she'd chosen to have an abortion. (I'm sure there are magical ways to get an abortion in the WW, and whatever they cost, they'd be more affordable than remaining pregnant.) But to denigrate her for dying in childbirth rather than managing to continue to live for her child after it was born?

Dumbledore's imposition of the "courage" thing on the situation is inappropriate to begin with, since Dumbledore never met Merope, and had no way of being certain of why she died. Frankly, I think it's crazy to look at a starving woman who received no prenatal care, and who died in childbirth, and conclude that the problem had to do with the woman's *attitude*. Either Dumbledore was being an idiot, or he was feeding Harry a line.

But even if you're going to insist on viewing things in terms of courage, you're stacking the deck if you focus on Merope's death to the exclusion of her struggle to stay alive without sacrificing her son to do so. Lily was never presented with an ongoing struggle like the one Merope faced in the last few months of her life.

Re: Types of Courage

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Either Dumbledore was being an idiot, or he was feeding Harry a line.

Probably the latter - Dumbledore also says something along the lines of "surely you're not feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort" in that conversation. Compassionate assassins aren't a good investment of time.

Re: Types of Courage

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I hated that line. "Are you feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort?"

And so what if he is, Dumbledore? What's wrong with feeling sympathy for the devil? Sympathizing with someone doesn't always mean that you condone their actions. I can feel sorry for Adolf Hitler having an awful childhood, that doesn't mean that I condone what he did once he grew up.

Why wouldn't Harry feel sorry for Voldemort, especially since he also grew up without parents and without a sense of belonging? If anything, he should have told Dumbledore, "You knew that he considered Hogwarts his home and didn't like staying in the orphanage, but you still sent him back there year after year. You know that I consider Hogwarts my home and that I hate living with the Dursleys, but you send *me* back there year after year. What is *wrong* with you?"

Re: Types of Courage

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Exactly. This bit of HBP and the bit of DH where DD tells him to ignore the screaming babyMort are two of the bits I most loathe about the series. Harry is supposedly a Christ-figure and his wonderful Love Power is supposed to be what sets him apart, yet he *listens* when he's told not to feel compassion for his enemies. JKR completely flips the notion of love on its head and twists the entire traditional story into a pretzel. I thought that Harry having to struggle and come to love even his enemies was going to be the thing that enabled him to be victorious. Silly me.

Re: Types of Courage

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, because showing compassion for your enemies just shows that you're a sentimental sap who deserves to be beaten by the enemy for being so naive and stupid. *sarcasm*

During the course of the series, we were repeatedly told that the main thing that separated Harry and Voldemort was love. Ironically, in the same book where Dumbledore questioned Harry's sympathy for Voldemort, he stressed that Harry's ability to love was the one thing that set him apart from Voldemort and that could help defeat him.

Yet what ultimately defeats Voldemort at the end? A technicality about wand ownership. If Harry hadn't happened to take Draco's wand at the moment he did, sacrifice or no sacrifice, he would have lost. The power the Dark Lord knows not was the power of the Elder Wand and wand ownership, apparently.

I mean, good grief, I wasn't expecting Harry and Voldemort to end up hugging each other by the end while singing "Kumbaya," but I thought that Power of Love would somehow play a role. Doesn't anyone in the book at least feel sorry in the sense that Voldemort's life was a waste? That he had all that talent, all that potential, all that promise to turn his life around and chose to squander it all in favor of killing people to gain immortality? Would it have been so bad for Harry to spare a few words, a few thoughts about that?

But no, as soon as Voldemort's dead, that's it. Harry beats him, people celebrate, and then Harry turns around and leaves. No more reflection, no more thinking, now Voldemort's just an afterthought. As well as the Death Eaters who fought for him.

Re: Types of Courage

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Frankly, I think it's crazy to look at a starving woman who received no prenatal care, and who died in childbirth, and conclude that the problem had to do with the woman's *attitude*./

I agree. Thousands of women around the world die in childbirth because of complications, because they don't have prenatal care, because they can't afford good midwives or doctors, etc. It has nothing to do with the amount of "courage" that they may have. Just the fact that Merope went to an orphanage so that her child could grow up in a place with caretakers instead of on the streets shows that she did care for Tom.

And I'm sorry, but the whole scene in DH of what actually happened the night that Voldemort attacked the Potters really disappointed me. What "courage" did Lily show there? Instead of Apparating with her baby or trying to fight off Voldemort, she screamed like an idiot and barricaded herself in the room, as if Voldemort couldn't have Apparated or blasted his way inside. And once he had cornered her, all Lily did was plead and cry. No insults, no defiance, no magic, no bargain, nothing. Her actions, along with her husband's stupidity in trying to attack Voldemort without a wand (where was the "courageous fight" that Voldemort told Harry about in the first book?), were really underwhelming.

Re: Types of Courage

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. But then, JKR's idea of courageous fighting women seems to be gacked from movies from the fifties or the early James Bond films (don't know about the later instalments): beautiful female throws a showy but completely ineffectual hissy fit meaning she either needs rescuing by the hero (like Ginny in HBP) or dies tragically and must be revenged by said hero (Lily). I've always suspected one of the main reasons for JKR not to pair Harry with Hermione was that she wanted the latter to BE effective but couldn't think of a way for Harry to still remain the Big Hero in comparison to her. Her earlier attempts are inconvincing enough (giving her an E instead of an O in DADA when logically there is no reason for it)and as of DH it's even weirder why the books were not called after her.

[oryx_leucoryx]

JKR seems fairly anti-intervention

Which is so consistent of a former single mother who herself relied on government support.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Rowling's politics are even worse than her worldbuilding. On the one hand, she's a big supporter of the Labour Party; on the other, her books constantly portray the government as inept and bungling, and any government control is always portrayed as an unequivocal bad thing. Possibly she's one of those people who just vote Labour because of its reputation as the "nice" party, but who, if they really thought about it, don't have much in common with Labour at all.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I have the feeling that JKR is not a particularly reflective person. It shows in her politics and her worldbuilding.

For all that she claims that Hermione and/or DD is her stand-in, I really see a lot of similarities between JKR and Harry. Very emotionally-oriented.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

JKR seems fairly anti-intervention - look at how she treats the Ministry investigating accidents caused by teachers at Hogwarts.

Seems odd that, for all her dislike of "big government" and state intervention, she goes and gives a million pounds to Labour...