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

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"IMO for most ordinary people war and similar extreme situations change exactly these “little things” – even for otherwise very honest people it suddenly isn't so much of a problem not to tell the truth, steal a little thing, or cut a few corners via the Prince's book..."

But Harry's not a normal person -- he's the hero of the series and JKR's chosen Christ-figure. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned in my literary tastes, but I've always felt that protagonists should be slightly more moral than the average person, to give readers something to aspire to (while not, obviously, being so moral as to seem annoying and priggish, or impossibly, Mary-Sue-ishly pure).

Also, as Condwiramurs says, "everybody does it" is not a valid excuse, especially in a series which supposedly supports questioning authority and thinking for yourself. "The one thing that doesn't abide by a majority vote is a man's conscience," and all that.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Exactly - he's not an everyman no matter how much JKR wants him to be that. And while I'm personally fine with antiheroes and less-than-saintly protagonists, it doesn't work here IMO precisely because, as you point out, he's supposed to be the Christ-figure of the series. He's supposed to be *better* than the normal guy, at least in so far as being tolerant and loving and treating the people around him with basic human respect. That's supposedly the way he's to defeat Voldie. And for me at least that image of him is seriously undermined when he can't even be bothered to make the effort to treat the people around him with basic decency over relative trifles. If he can't be bothered to do it on the small scale (and it's repeatedly; one or two isolated lapses would be more understandable) how am I to believe that he's suddenly willing to die for them all out of pure love and the cause of tolerance and respect for differences? As opposed to getting revenge on his enemies and all that.