GOF Chapter 3: The Invitation
Jan. 17th, 2011 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockThis 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.
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.
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Date: 2011-01-23 08:51 pm (UTC)My sister and I were walking thru this overgrown field when we heard this screech; we turned to look at the sound, and this very large "thing" was flying out from a group of old-growth oaks about 300 yards from us.
It was gray, leathery, and had a crest on its head. Based on the size of the trees, I'd guesstimate that it was about 15-20 feet long from beak to the tip of its outstretched toes, because it was as big as at least two of the treetops...the wingspan was perhaps 25-30 feet. It may have been larger, but I don't think it was smaller than those estimates.
It was flying away from us, and my older sister just pointed at it and stared at me, speechless. To my eight y.o. mind it looked like the movie monster Rodan, from the Godzilla movies.
As extremely odd as this whole thing was, what is even more strange is what I then said to my sister:
"Don't worry, it's a mother Rodan trying to protect her nest. If we just keep going in this direction," -- which was away from those group of trees -- "she'll know we aren't a threat and won't bother us."
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Why I "knew" it was a female, and that there was a nest of baby Rodan's, Lord knows. But we did continue to walk away from that area, and we weren't bothered.
Of course my parents didn't believe us when we told them what had happened, and within weeks my sister refused to talk about it, and in later years claimed that she didn't even remember the incident.
There was an Audubon sanctuary barely a mile away, maybe they were attracting rather exotic varieties of flying critters! LOL
Anyway, it wasn't until we started studying dinosaurs in school two or so years later that I realized that what I saw wasn't an escaped movie extra, but a pterodactyl that's been extint for 65 million years...
Or is it? ;-)
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Date: 2011-01-24 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 06:58 pm (UTC)To be accurate, what I saw differed somewhat from the image of Rodan in this icon I found...
What I saw had a crest on its skull that was a full triangle/pyramid shape, rather than the crescent-shaped crest in the picture. And the legs were much longer and thinner on what I saw, and I don't remember "armor plating" on the underside like in the picture.
Like I said, it wasn't until years later when I saw a picture of a pterodactyl that I realized that what I saw looked almost exactly like the extinct dinosaur...and for obvious reasons I decided not to tell anyone about it.
But a couple of decades later I read John Keel's introduction to The Mothman Prophecies where he mentioned the TWA pilot outside of Poughkeepsie who claimed his plane was "buzzed" by a giant pterodactyl that the pilot claimed was larger than the craft he was flying. Keel said that this happened the same year that I saw my strange creature, and like I said, Poughkeepsie's just over the border from Connecticut.
But what I saw wasn't as big as a plane, let alone larger. Maybe female Rodan's are smaller than males, and it was Daddy Rodan who buzzed the pilot in Poughkeepsie...
;-)