GOF Chapter 3: The Invitation

[oryx_leucoryx]

This is the obligatory Dursley chapter, in which we are treated to the home life of this family and learn how inferior they are to wizard families.

Dudley takes up a whole side of the square kitchen table. Ahem, I doubt a square kitchen table (as opposed to a dining room table) was designed to seat 8 people, 2 on a side. His parents excuse away his teachers' accusations of bullying. As opposed to the Weasleys who never receive reports making such heinous accusations against the twins (we'll see the school does occasionally owl their parents, but I don't see any awareness that some of what the twins do is bullying behavior). (This starts the theme of parents dealing with wayward sons in this book.) Dudley is forced into a diet of fruit and vegetables rather than his favorites. From the descriptions we get of the food Harry eats at Hogwarts I get the feeling Harry's favorites are closer to Dudley's than to the health foods, nor does he limit his intake. But somehow Harry remains thin, regardless of whether he gets starved by Petunia or stuffed by Molly or the House-elves.

Changing the food choices of the entire family is a good thing! However adjusting Harry's serving size to Dudley's (perceived?) emotional needs isn't. I don't begrudge Harry for working around a diet he doesn't need, but then I also sympathize with Dudley who does. Changing eating habits of years is hard.
This is also the place to say Dudley must have grown up as an emotional wreck. Knowing that his parents were capable of such physical and emotional deprivation of someone in their care - what if he ever failed to please them? I think a big part of his misbehavior is both making sure his parents know he *isn't* Harry as well as wanting the reassurance that they still love him, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Of Harry's 4 sources of help only one sends food he appreciates. Odd that even Hagrid managed to send an edible birthday cake. But how edible is it (or any of the others) 3 weeks later?

Harry is surprised that the Weasleys wrote directly to the Dursleys. Vernon is embarrassed that they didn't know how many stamps to use. But really, how hard is it to find out? Didn't they go to the post office to buy the stamps? What does it say about the exchange rate between Galleons and pounds that a family so poor finds it reasonable to spend on so many stamps for one letter? Molly's letter sounds as if she is trying too hard to make the Quidditch World Cup sound special and to make Arthur sound important. And of course she doesn't have enough imagination to realize that sending a letter by owl isn't normal for the Dursleys.

Harry is offended on Molly's behalf when Vernon calls her 'dumpy'. Since Molly likes Harry nobody is allowed to notice she is overweight.

I must say that the scene where Harry threatens Vernon with Sirius looks a lot less humorous now that I have seen Harry enjoy torturing a man for punishment, and Sirius engaging in Muggle-baiting.

If I am correct in my understanding that Ron is claiming that he and Molly wrote their respective letters at about the same time, then I am impressed with the UK post. Molly's letter arrived on Saturday morning. Pig arrived the same morning. Considering the speed of owls elsewhere, it looks as though Ron's letter was sent earlier that morning. So a letter got delivered the morning it was sent?

I am less impressed with the Weasleys. They plan on taking Harry regardless of the Dursleys' consent. One could argue that eventually Molly and Arthur realized their sons were not exaggerating when they said Harry had been imprisoned and starved, but seeing how Arthur views the treatment of Muggles, both in this book and in COS, I doubt this made a difference.

Harry is happy specifically because Dudley is suffering and he isn't. The seeds of the bully of HBP and war criminal of DH.

Comments

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

If Harry had cited his work, it would not have been cheating. Harry did not cite his work. He allowed Slughorn to believe that he came up with it on his own. The penalty for academic dishonesty is a re-do of the class and a wiping of the grades for that class at the least, expulsion and a permanent mark on one's academic record at a more extreme end. You said you teach. Would you allow your students to use someone else's academic work and pass it off as their own?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Because honestly, how could I fail a student just for working with a book that has the mistakes in it corrected?

If the source isn't cited? Writing a proper bibliography is just as much part of the work as any other stage.

Besides, the original book isn't mistaken. Following the instructions correctly results in an adequate product, as Hermione's brewing demonstrates. We do not know if there is no trade-off between the two sets of instructions. For instance, while Severus' instructions tend to result in a superior product we don't know if the brewing itself may be more risky.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

If they found the resources you weren't aware of and used them but did not cite them, would you mind?

I'm back in school, too. :P Getting geared up for the new semester after three glorious weeks of nothing academic to do is a real chore.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

It is a source even if it isn't formally published. (Here is where the difference between potions and chemistry is important: potions seems to have that scale of quality and creativity that is found in things like literature more than chemistry or math with one right or wrong answer. But even chemistry works here, in the sense of doing research to discover more about the subject.) Say your mother used to do biology work, and you copied her old research notes from an experiment in a class assignment. Say won you a prize and top grade for it because you got closer to solving the problem than anyone else due to the research your mother had done, which was better or more advanced than the information in the textbook. You would still be academically dishonest if you didn't cite your mother's notes as a source regardless of her relation to you (and it would also be cheating in the contest since the playing field wasn't level). It's information about the subject that nobody else had access to and which was instrumental in allowing you to come to the conclusion you did about solving the problem.

It's the same wrt Harry and the potion. The problem is 'how to brew the best possible draught of living death' given the information available. Harry gets closest to 'the best possible' potion because of the notes in the book - there is information about how potions work and are created there whether he fully understands its applications or not. The Prince was only able to create that recipe because of his own research efforts, the knowledge he gained about potions. He's a source of knowledge about potions and to be academically honest Harry would have had to state where he got the information he used, no matter where it came from. (It's not common knowledge such as that normally passed down by parents, etc. It's research within a field of knowledge.)

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

But the Prince's book isn't a source in this sense

That would be like copying someone's answers though. It's not a source per se. He wasn't given the book by the author. He took it. Even when he was told to buy his own book...he kept the book.

[oryx_leucoryx]

But the Prince's book isn't a source in this sense.

It's called 'personal communication'. If I publish a paper in a scientific field and my work relies at some point on a little-known unpublished factoid I received from a colleague, I cite it as: person's name, person's professional affiliation (personal communication). And I'd better have the person's permission to cite hir like that. I'm sure the social sciences and the humanities have their ways of dealing with such things.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I've used info from an interview paper I did in an earlier semester. Citation for that would be interviewee's name; professional information (professor of _______ at ______ University;) any specialization that is relevant to the paper; my name; the word, 'interview.'