Chapter Three

[sassafras-root.livejournal.com]

*I'm guessing Harry still had to go school here, seeing as how we get a mention about him being glad that it was over. So I'm guessing that outside of school hours he was shoved back into the cupboard? In that case, I'd be very glad to go to school.

*Dudley is of course the leader due to being the biggest (more fat!) and stupidest. He has no leadership qualities at all, it’s just because he and his friends are supposedly morons. Harry’s the only born leader here, but it’s all Dudley’s fault Harry has no friends, don’t forget!

*Dudley’s gang love to play Harry Hunting-but Harry’s too fast for them in order to showcase his inherent superiority. However, it’s there for the angst-give Harry a break for being a jerk; he’s had it rougher than anyone else!

*Harry’s as witty with the insults as ever, I see.

*Harry notes that Mrs. Figg wasn’t as bad as usual-again, Harry sounds like an ungrateful brat here. She’s the only one who treats him decently, but we can’t have Harry getting fond of her, now can we? She’s like Neville that way, too uncool to be appreciated, really. Harry’s clearly been perfecting the ability to tell who’s not good enough since childhood.

*I’m guessing we’re supposed to be outraged at the fact that Dudley is going to an evil school where they allow kids to hit each other in order for training in life. Hah, this faux- conservative mocking really cracks me up-as if the WW doesn’t think the same way? Let these kids break all the rules and nearly get themselves killed, it’s good training for later life! Wouldn’t want them to grow into cowards.

*Harry’s almost!new uniform is seriously ugly, but we all know Harry’s not going to go to boring old Muggle school (no, he’s off to learn useful stuff like turning beetles into buttons! Sign me up!). Please, like Harry would ever have to look bad unless it’s an attempt to make him an underdog (and even then it fails). Ron’s more likely to be the one getting his Hogwarts robes dyed due to him not being allowed to look better than Harry, ever.

*Aw, Harry’s first capslock in canon and it’s a childish “I WANT MY LETTER!”.

*I wonder if wizards have a device that lets them know where anyone they want to send a letter is at any given time. That sounds rather creepy to me-or maybe Harry’s just special and is being watched 24/7. DD did say in OotP he watched Harry more closely than anyone. ;)

*Seriously, though, it’s odd how Harry’s resentment at DD never really stretched that much to being left on Privet Drive in a cupboard for ten years. In OotP he was mainly angry at DD keeping important information from him, but in HBP they’re BFF again. It’s just strange to me-Harry’s not above blaming other people, has DD gotten Harry that loyal to him? Because the fact that DD knows Harry’s address is the cupboard under the stairs and doesn’t do shit is seriously screwy-was he that certain Harry wouldn’t grow up like Tom. Wait, my mistake, Harry’s mother was Lily Evans! It’s his mother’s Mary-Sue genes coming out of him again!

*Books are the only thins that hasn’t been touched in Dudley’s room-do you get that he’s a dumbass yet, guys? DO YOU? Loathe him, dammit! We all know how well-read Harry is, after all, don’t we?

*Harry thinking about how he’d rather been in the cupboard with that letter makes me wish that the letter was junk mail or something. Yup, I’m in a crappy little cupboard, but at least I’ve still got my only letter evar!

*“Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?”-Dudley, I concur.

*I wonder if they’d go to this much trouble for any kid or is it just because it’s Harry? If there was a Muggleborn who did not want to attend Hogwarts (I know, that’s probably unheard of-who wouldn’t want to be a l337 wizard and all??), would they make them go? The theory about them obliviating Muggleborn parents is seriously creepy yet I can see it happening.

*Vernon is spreading marmalade on his newspapers-isn’t it amusing, watching people going nuts? I can’t wait for the alcoholism so funny jokes we’ll get with Hagrid.

*Dudley is missing television and the computer. Remember, technology=evil. Learn to trade some Chocolate Frog cards, Dudley, geez. Who’d want to blow up aliens on their computer when they can watch wizarding pictures blink at them?

*You can always count on Dudley knowing the days of the week thanks to television, thinks Harry. All right, thank you, narrative voice, I get that we’re supposed to find Dudley a spoiled brat and the fact that he loves television is the evol (Mike Teevee, anyone?). The WW has no televisions or any such substitute, probably a sign of their inherent superiority. Just look at their society and how safe it is (but whatever do they blame violence on?)!

*Harry gets useless stuff like coat hangers for his birthday. Quick, let’s discuss the reference to Harry’s odd present and socks and their impact on the septology! Vernon’s socks=missing Horcrux! LOL, anyone else remember the Galadriel Waters theories or is it just me?

*I am sad that this is the last chapter before knowing Hagrid. How less hatey my feelings for these chapter were. Man, is he ever a pain in his debut chapter.

Comments

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

in order for training in life.

How useless. Not like the lessons offered at Hogwarts by Hagrid, Lockhart, Trelawney and Umbridge!

LOL, anyone else remember the Galadriel Waters theories or is it just me?

Not me, and now I’m kinda curious…

Harry gets useless stuff like coat hangers for his birthday.

I’m sure they’re intended as insults or else something the Dursleys are forced to do, but I’ve always found the presents oddly touching. They don’t really like Harry, but they can’t just give nothing. (Heh, I suppose it’s still a cruel comparison compared to the no doubt luxurious and expensive gifts Harry lavishes upon them on their birthdays.)

Harry thinking about how he’d rather been in the cupboard with that letter makes me wish that the letter was junk mail or something.

LOL. All I can say is, thank goodness Harry wasn’t happy or grateful about something for even a single second.

Who’d want to blow up aliens on their computer when they can watch wizarding pictures blink at them?

Or you could just participate in the one other hobby of the entire WW, and watch people try to throw metal balls at each other’s heads in Quidditch.

You can always count on Dudley knowing the days of the week thanks to television, thinks Harry.

I’m impressed Dudley has the memory retention to recall week-long television schedules, considering he couldn’t add 2 in the earlier chapter.

All right, thank you, narrative voice, I get that we’re supposed to find Dudley a spoiled brat and the fact that he loves television is the evol (Mike Teevee, anyone?)

Someone write that cross-over. I will pay many Internet dollars.
My favourite part of the technology hate is the part in GoF where Dudley’s playing the subtly named ‘Mega Mutilation 3’. Funnily enough, there’s a licensed HP video game (as well as a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory one!) and it doesn’t featured building pacifist ideals.

I wonder if wizards have a device that lets them know where anyone they want to send a letter is at any given time.

I wonder if they magically know the letters aren’t being received by Harry, or whether they’re just assuming that of course once he knows he’s one of the elite, he’ll jump at the chance and RVSP immediately.

I’m guessing we’re supposed to be outraged at the fact that Dudley is going to an evil school where they allow kids to hit each other in order for training in life.

I imagine Smeltings at least would hold the same policies on DADA as Moody and Dumbledore, if they taught it.
And yeah, no-one’s ever gotten away with hurting another student at Hogwarts. Remember how outraged everyone was over the Sectumsempra?
And how awful that the pretentious Dursleys are trying to attain the dizzy heights set by true legacies like the Potters. For a second there, I was really scared that poor Harry would have to go to the grim public school threatened, and not a private school even richer and older than Smeltings!

[saraswathi-rani.livejournal.com]

I’m sure they’re intended as insults or else something the Dursleys are forced to do, but I’ve always found the presents oddly touching. They don’t really like Harry, but they can’t just give nothing. (Heh, I suppose it’s still a cruel comparison compared to the no doubt luxurious and expensive gifts Harry lavishes upon them on their birthdays.)
Come now, that's a little unfair. Maybe I'm just a bad example, but I could never give my parents anything for their birthdays/anniversary for a long time because I was broke, pure and simple. I don't even know if I could have afforded a coat hanger. ;) And how many 10-year-olds have money? There's no way the Dursleys gave Harry an allowance, and I seriously doubt that Harry could have held a job while the Dursleys were locking him the cupboard, even if he wasn't only 10 years old.

I mean, Harry's an obnoxious little shit, but there's no denying that the Dursleys would be considered to be incredibly cruel parents if they were real. Granted, they're meant to be caricatures, but still- there's no getting around the fact that giving a 10-year-old a coat hanger for his birthday is just not on.

My favourite part of the technology hate is the part in GoF where Dudley’s playing the subtly named ‘Mega Mutilation 3’.
Hee. I'd play that. Yeah, seriously! Why should we want to play terrible games like Halo or KOTOR when we could be collecting jelly beans? Or even better, pushing boxes around? Exciting!

Yeah, I played the PS/SS videogame with my younger cousin. Bad, bad idea- oy.

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

Or chasing that fucking peacock around the back of Ollivander's! Such FUN!

[saraswathi-rani.livejournal.com]

Whoa- I'd actually forgotten about that bit, and now it's coming back to me. 0_0

Man, that game was just a vortex of suck, wasn't it? I do remember the bit where the game was pathetically easy for the most part, and then fighting Voldemort was so incredibly hard that I had to use health-regaining cheats just to keep Harry from dying in the first two seconds of the fight, and even then it took me like fifteen tries before I beat him.

Serves me right for playing a game based on a terrible children's book franchise, I suppose. Good thing I didn't actually pay for it. And I have the excuse that I was playing it just to make my cousin happy, so my personal reputation is not impinged! Mwa ha.

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

I am so the lamerz. I bought all four HP games just because I'm a video game whore and wanted to see how things adapted from the movies into games.

I despised the first one. The whole devil's snare thing? That sucked but that was nothing compared to the crappy gameplay that screwed you over while running from the troll. To say nothing of how you had to help Hagrid out at Gringotts and Ollivander's. I think that contributed to my Hagrid hate significantly. And performing an Incendio spell was next to impossible.

The second game was a bit more reasonable. By which I mean, I didn't have to use any cheat codes on it. In fact, it was obnoxiously easy, but I like it purely because they called Lucius, Loosh-us. And there were things in that game from the book that weren't in the movie. Such as Snape catching Potter and Ron instead of Filch. That and you got to zap the hell out of Snape.

The third one just sucked balls since you had to play as all of the trio and I despise Hermione. The very end of the game was ridiculous. Take a step, drag Sirius, cast a Patronus, take a step, drag Sirius, cast a Patronus, ad nauseum. Until you had to cast multiple Patronuses in a short period of time and that point made the game full of suck.

The fourth one could only be fully completed if you're playing with a friend. Such a joy that. The game is easy until you get to Voldie in the graveyard. The graphics are excellent. You get to see Voldemort raise up dead people from the graves and the skeletons come to attack you. He then tries to smash you over the head with various gravestones. It took me several tries to beat him, though most of that was because I kinda wanted him to win.

Ah, Potter games. Would it really kill them to create an rpg? Then again, based on the length of some rpgs, I'd much rather play as the DEs then have to deal with the angsting of Harry for over 20 hours. It'd be an exaggeration of Cloud, Squall, and Terra all lumped into one self-derogatory yet self-righteous character.

[saraswathi-rani.livejournal.com]

What console did you use for the first game? I played the PC version, so I had a hard enough time casting spells when I was using a mouse- I can't imagine what it was like when using an XBox controller or something. >_

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

I got the first one for the playstation and the other three for the PS2. In the PS version, you had to press one of the four right buttons at precisely the right time and they kept changing them around constantly. I think you had to do it four times consecutively for the spell to be cast. 'd think it'd be easier with a mouse solely because you had one button to click. How'd it play out on the PC?

[saraswathi-rani.livejournal.com]

Wow, it was a while ago. Let's see... I think that they couldn't really screw you over casting spells because I only had a mouse button, so you could just point and click and the appropriate spell would be cast. Convenient, yes, but annoying because you had like virtually no freedom. And to try and make up for it, when they first taught you to cast spells, you had to perfectly trace out the spell pattern with your mouse in a ridiculously short amount of time, while the teachers bitched at you if you didn't get it exactly right.

The PS2 thing sounds... nightmarish. I can't believe you even played through the whole game- I would have chucked it through a window after half an hour.

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

God, the teachers sucked in that first game. You had to run to each class, getting over obstacles and the like and they'd subtract points. At that point, I was all fuck the points, they're lucky I made it at all! Flying was the absolute worst. Ironically enough, potions was the easiest class. You had to enter in three buttons, all chosen at random, and you were given at least a minute to do so. Snape literally stood right over your shoulder and watched you do your work.

Playing the thing was horrible but after the first five friggin' hours due to the Invisibility Cloak and Filch, it became a personal battle of me versus the game. Oh, it tried to get me to hurl the PS out the window. It tried so very, very hard. But in the end, I won! I overcame that horrible, horrible game!

And now, I don't have to play it ever again. All I have are memories, memories that are still so vivid even after several years. The thing is traumatizing.

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

Ah, Potter games. Would it really kill them to create an rpg? Then again, based on the length of some rpgs, I'd much rather play as the DEs then have to deal with the angsting of Harry for over 20 hours. It'd be an exaggeration of Cloud, Squall, and Terra all lumped into one self-derogatory yet self-righteous character.

Oh God, now I've got this horrible image in my head: A HP RPG based on HBP including a CGI scene in the style of the pond scene in FF X with Yuna and Tidus. But instead we have Harry and Ginny and their several sunlit days, slowing running at each other, embracing and kissing, all the while a sappy love song plays in the background. *runs screaming into the night at the mere thought*

[galaxianomiko.livejournal.com]

The pushing of boxes in COS made me want to cry. Why did it have to be so exact?? What was the point?

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I would never expect Harry to do anything for the Dursleys in that way, and especially not here.
It's just kinda funny in later books when he's rich, and pouting that they've sent him like, a tissue, when of course, he'd never consider them the kind of family where you reciprocally (sp?) trade gifts.
(I mean, Harry's attitude to the Dursleys from birth has apparently always been that he recognises how awful/ridiculous they are and has never wanted them to love him or to let him love them, just that it'd be nice if they treated him better materially.
Which I can see the reasoning behind - it creates a very 'strong' hero figure - he's not emotionally connected to them, so he's stoic, and he knows instinctively what awful people they are, so he's got good taste; rather than someone more emotionally needy, who might have wanted to 'win them over'.
And the way this is plotted, obviously, Harry can't have any ties to the Muggle world.
But then, it does create slightly less sympathy, for me, anyhow, when there's examples of how little the Dursleys love him, when obviously he doesn't love them; than maybe it would if he seemed to want to impress them more; and maybe a little of the impression that none of this affects Harry much at all, like he's thrived to an unrealistic extent under such treatment.
I think Elkins made an interesting point once, about most other characters backgrounds have very clearly affected them - Neville, Ron and Draco act and are very much what you'd expect from their various families; whereas Harry has apparently innate social skills and lack of damage. http://www.theennead.com/elkins/hp/archives/000149.html)
And yes, I totally get the whole Dahl-esque 'We sent a TISSUE, mwhahaha!' cartoonish intention behind their gifts (and every other aspect of their characterization) I just find it sort of odd that they do anything at all, and it leads me right again to the two possibilities, that they have to (lord knows why, maybe it's part of the blood protection/family thing. You only have to stay two weeks out of every fifty-two, but presents are essential! ;) in which case the choices are almost witty, in a black way; or that they're insults to say how much they don't love Harry, but that would seem weird.
I don't think the Dursleys are subtle enough to do that, instead of just giving nothing; and the gifts do seem linked to him personally - he gets his worst present after the toffee thing, for example.
(Of course, all this analysation is pretty pointless when you're dealing with characters that are charicatures, but still.)

[saraswathi-rani.livejournal.com]

think Elkins made an interesting point once, about most other characters backgrounds have very clearly affected them - Neville, Ron and Draco act and are very much what you'd expect from their various families; whereas Harry has apparently innate social skills and lack of damage.

That's true. I never noticed that before. I don't know- that's one of the things that really bugs me about Harry Potter. It's like his background is just there are justification for when Harry acts like a jackass (OMG dun criticize him for shredding Draco into ribbons and then not feeling even a jot of regret! He's ABUSED!), but then it's like JKR was too much of a chicken to actually put in interesting things about how his resulting psychological make-up. Argh, overanalyzing- children's book, I know. But she could have at least done something about making him painfully shy and hesitant to reach out to anyone... Eh. She's not going to change, anyway. She's already like a multigazillionaire from writing crappy books, so maybe we're the ones who should be emulating her.

(Of course, all this analysation is pretty pointless when you're dealing with characters that are charicatures, but still.)
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. [/Bad quoting of Freud] :D I find it really amusing that everyone in this community treats the Harry Potter franchise with utmost scorn (I mean, it really is a terribly-written series for the most part, so that's justified), but then heavily overanalyzes everything that the characters do as if JKR were... I don't know, Gustave Flaubert. It's highly unlikely that JK Rowling is a master of subtlety of characterization- if anything, her books have shown exactly the opposite. The Dursleys = BAD (think the Aunts from James and the Giant Peach). The Trio = Obnoxious GOOD. Ginny/Lily/Molly = OMG SO PERFECT JKR self-inserts AND MATERNAL. AND SASSY. Anyone that Harry dislikes = PATHETIC. Or possibly EVIL. Insert some painfully obvious character turns (Snape, Draco, etc.) and awkward 'sort of, but not quite' misogyny and you've got a book.

I don't know, maybe it's amusing to play the What-If game- I know that you have fun doing that- but other people seem to take it so seriously.

Maybe we are all self-hating. ;)

(Sorry for reposting- I had completely forgotten to elaborate on the first point. Whoops.)

[q-spade.livejournal.com]

I find it really amusing that everyone in this community treats the Harry Potter franchise with utmost scorn (I mean, it really is a terribly-written series for the most part, so that's justified), but then heavily overanalyzes everything that the characters do as if JKR were... I don't know, Gustave Flaubert...I don't know, maybe it's amusing to play the What-If game- I know that you have fun doing that- but other people seem to take it so seriously.

Maybe we are all self-hating. ;)

Not sure what "we" you're referring to; I'm here because it's fun to discuss the books with people who don't insist on me worshipping the author. I also find the HP series fascinating from a marketing viewpoint - why are they so popular? What concepts are these books actually putting across, and why are companies like Bloomsbury, Scholastic & Warner Brothers throwing their weight behind them? JKR tends to tell more than show, but it's what she shows - and the dichotomy between what she shows and what she tells - that's interesting to talk about. I can really only speak for myself, but I doubt I'm alone.

I'm not sure why you feel "other people seem to take it so seriously" here; I was under the impression we're all having a bit of a laugh while exercising our collective intellect to either tease good ideas out of a mediocre text and see how they work, or uncover some decidedly dodgy ideas and wonder why they're there. People enjoy themselves in different ways, and what may seem earnest at first viewing may not actually be so.

Perhaps you're taking us too seriously? ;)