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

Fanatics and Merope the Rapist

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

No, I'm trying to point out that there are people out there (who consider themselves to be good people), who reject their children, abuse them, even kill them, because the children behave in a way the parents think abhorrent. And THOSE people consider ME abhorrent (and presumably you) for saying that kids shouldn't be rejected, abused, or killed.

See, we all agree that pathological parents would abuse their kids. What I'm adding is that certain ideologies promote behavior towards errant children that I (and apparently you) consider absolutely unacceptable. And people who otherwise would never harm their child, in fact do so, when the ideology insists.

Sorry, in your circles--and mine--it would undoubtedly be unthinkable to torture or murder a teen daughter for having sex. But there are countries NOW--in 2010--in which it's the law that this should be done. And there are people who emigrate from those countries who keep those beliefs (I'm thinking of that Swedish case).

I'm just saying, people can do terrible things to each other, even to their children, if they've fallen under an belief system that persuades them It's the Right Thing to Do.

Modern Britain is, I've been told, on the whole less religious than the U.S., where I live. Here, I can imagine some people--not most, but a significant minority--(the same ones who think fantasy evil for promoting witchcraft and want to ban or burn JKR's books--the ones who vote for the Tea-Partiers) reacting to the manifestation of magic... well, negatively.

If you're British, and want to say that no native-born Brits would do so, and that we Americans are culturally backwards for having such troglodytes among us--well, okay. Can't argue there.

I can't argue that's it's COMMENDABLE that a society have such citizens. Just that it's reality that mine, at least, does.

*

As to Tonks and Merope, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle," right?

But regarding Merope--DD suggests that she perked up when her abusive father and brother were gone, BEFORE she induced Tom Sr. to run off with her. If she'd been treated all her life the way Ogden witnessed, she would have grown up perennially depressed and repressed in her development--mentally, emotionally, and no doubt magically. We're told--by Albus, who isn't always truthful--that she seemed a Squib when she was being systematically crushed by her father and brother, blossomed briefly with hope, love, and magical powers (and the impulse to commit rape on the man she fancied) when her persecutors were removed to Azkaban, and lost or refused to use her powers when she loosed Tom from her control and he revealed that he really didn't love her. In fact, utterly the reverse.

Really, if it was true that she REFUSED to use her powers afterwards, it might have been due to a crushing sense of guilt that she'd raped poor defenseless Tom. Because she did, and when she finally let him off her leash he told her so. (Almost certainly not in those words.)

And, you know, if she'd really WANTED to Merope could have found some way to take Tom back. If it weren't that she'd come to realize that she'd raped him, and repented, and wanted nothing more of him but his stolen child....

And Tom, of course, was apparently scarred badly enough by Merope that he never let himself love a woman. He never married again.

The plot bunnies breed. Curse you, Trixie!

Re: Fanatics and Merope the Rapist

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Here, I can imagine some people--not most, but a significant minority--(the same ones who think fantasy evil for promoting witchcraft and want to ban or burn JKR's books--the ones who vote for the Tea-Partiers) reacting to the manifestation of magic... well, negatively.

Periodically there will be news reports of some fundie thumpers getting their panties in a twist because someone who designates themselves as "wiccan", or someone who reads tarot cards for a living decides to move to their area.

Here in Connecticut, we have what are called "Blue Laws", so-called because they are bound up in many blue-covered volumes, dating from Puritan times. The laws are still on the books because there are so many of them.

So technically a baker can still be put into stocks on the town green (if any town green in the state still HAS stocks) for selling a loaf of bread that does not weigh at least a pound; ditto a man for kissing his wife on the Sabbath.

Up until the mid 1980s the Blue Laws still had a statute prohibiting witchcraft; it had been last modified in 1913, and was primarily used to prosecute con artists who'd tell someone they had a curse on them and if you paid them your life savings they'd remove the curse for you.

But by the 1980s there were other laws to prosecute such con artists, and there were now a growing number of New Age types who practiced card reading and astrology and other types of "fortune telling" who were being prosecuted under the old law by any neighbor who didn't like them.

Now the New Age types didn't have a strong organized lobby to get the old law repealed -- but it turned out that that last modification to the law in 1913 resulted in the New Agers gaining one of THE largest lobbying groups in the country.

Because that modification in 1913 took the phrase in the law that basically stated something to the effect that "witchcraft, astrology, tea-leaf and card reading, phrenology, and other so-called occult arts are prohibited", and inserted "psychiatry" before "and other so-called occult arts"!!! LOL

So the New Agers pointed out that if the state was going to prosecute someone for casting horoscopes, that it would also have to arrest every practicing psychiatrist in the state. Hence the entrance of the American Medical Association's lobbyists into the fray, and Connecticut's anti-witchcraft law, dating from the 1600s, was finally repealed in the late 1980s...

But if it weren't for the AMA, it's questionable whether the law would have been repealed at all, because there WERE a significant amount of thumpers who argued that repealing the law would encourage devil worship... :-/

Re: Fanatics and Merope the Rapist

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Can't stand your neighbor? Say she's a witch and she'll be out of your way in no time. :) (Sounds like an exaggeration, but I studied this subject for quite a bit and this was pretty much reality. Only the reason was more often money than just hate.)

Indeed. Depending on the locality, either the accusing neighbor would be granted the convicted witch/warlock's property, or it would be taken by the governing powers. So there was a definite economic incentive to accusing and/or convicting people of witchcraft.


' "psychiatry" before "and other so-called occult arts" !!!' LOL, indeed! Can't wait to tell my friend who studies psychiatry. :D

Someday when I have the time I want to research just what was going on in Connecticut back around 1913 that resulted in psychiatry being deemed an "occult art"!! ;-)

Re: Fanatics and Merope the Rapist

[oryx_leucoryx]

But note that Merope and Neville show the opposite effect to abuse-for-not-displaying-magic-on-schedule. I don't know if that's because of their different genders or different House associations.

At least Hermione didn't lose power during the Ron/Lavender phase.

Re: Fanatics and Merope the Rapist

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

I don't know if that's because of their different genders or different House associations.

If you're Gryffindor you know the abuse is good for you?