01 HP Chamber of Secrets

[chantaldormand]

I promised, I deliver.

Ch1 The Worst Birthday

>Such melodramatic chapter title fits our protagonist. Well done Jo.

>Coincidentally CoS was the first HP book I read. It was... really confusing experience for me. Jo reminding reader basic facts like Harry being wizard doesn’t really work.

>We know that we aren’t reading fanfiction, because Harry stupidly kept Hedwig in cage instead of sending her off to Hermione.

>If I was Hedwig, I would take the first opportunity to pull runner and never look back.

>Harry being on purpose antagonistic towards his relatives is extra annoying to me. Yeah they are treating him poorly, but abusing advantage in such petty fashion is really stupid. +1 to Leap of Logic

>If I wasn’t sure that there is serious trauma from magic users in Vernon’s past, now it’s confirmed.

>One would think that Petunia would know that Hogwarts’ students cannot do magic at home. This means that: a) Lily was regularly breaking law; b) this law is recent; c) Jo couldn’t keep track of facts even this early in the game. Take your picks.

>According to Harry, proper methods of deactivating explosive materials include panicky shouting. +1 to Leap of Logic

>Damn, Harry is whining here like a kid who is annoyed that his parents dragged him away from his awesome secret base for dinner. Then again, to him Hogwarts probably is his private super special awesome secret base.

>Harry’s whining about his place on Quidditch team has me wondering: why in seven hells a Quidditch team would pick anyone who lives in urban area? As far as we can see WW is really small, so we probably can forget about hidden areas in cities where kids can train their skills .

>Also, Jo could have easily used this occasion to never ever write another Quidditch match. I bet that in later books she was cursing herself for not taking easy way out.

>Huh, narrative starts to be pretty judgmental about someone not having magic. And here I thought that we had a few more books before this sentiment started.

>Darn, Harry is such bratty drama queen. His main complaint against his abusive guardians? They dare to forget his birthday!! +1 to Leap of Logic

>No seriously, Harry mopes about Vernon preparing for dinner party that can decide his future income, instead of the brat’s birthday. Just how much self-centred can our hero be?

>Also, why Dursleys didn’t just decide to ask Arabella to babysit Harry for one evening? +1 to Leap of Logic

>Harry kicks himself out of house so he won’t be in Petunia’s way when she cleans house. According to fans and FF writers alike, this event never took place and instead Harry was slaving away, so his relatives could have fun.

>Eh, while I can understand Harry’s teenage angst over not hearing from his friends, you would think after this summer the trio would come up with some other way of communicating. +1 to Leap of Logic

>As I said in the last chapter of PS: Harry the most loving and merciful hero in history of literature enjoys tormenting his cousin. What a pleasant boy! +1 to Crime Count for bulling

>Harry has nightmares about escaping Voldemort yet not about Quirrell’s death. I suppose that burning someone alive is nowhere nearly as traumatic as seeing a random student being zapped by pretty lights. Or Quirrell wasn’t pretty enough to be memorable.

>Poor Dudley. He might be a walking caricature of character, but after sitting in Harry’s head for last… half year, I’m way more empathic toward Dudley than Harry.

>What? Tossing frying pan? At head? Jo you can’t ramp up abuse AND have your protag act like an entitled rich brat whose favourite toys were taken away. +1 to Death Count

>Eh, if “two slices of bread and lump of cheese” are “pitiful supper” then both our hero and author never experienced serious financial problems.

>I almost managed to forget Dobby’s existence. Almost. *Sigh*

Crime Count: 1

Death Count: 1

Freud Would Be Proud: 0

Leap of Logic: 5

Uncovered: 0

Spell Count: 0

Comments

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Such melodramatic chapter title fits our protagonist/

Also, when you look back on it, it doesn't make sense. None of the birthdays that Harry had before he found out that he was a wizard and made friends at Hogwarts were worse than this? Is this like how Draco is somehow worse than Dudley now?

/One would think that Petunia would know that Hogwarts’ students cannot do magic at home/

Except that in the first book, she ranted about how Lily was turning teacups into rats. Unless Lily did those things before she got her Hogwarts letter, I presume that she was doing that at home while still a student. So, I think that any of the three options that you suggested would work.

/WW is really small, so we probably can forget about hidden areas in cities where kids can train their skills/

How are Muggle-born students supposed to train their skills during the summer when they can't perform magic in front of the Muggles that they live with? This just points to another advantage that pureblood students (theoretically) would have: they live away from Muggles so they don't have to worry about secrecy laws when practicing and they presumably live in rural areas where they could practice Quidditch.

/Harry mopes about Vernon preparing for dinner party that can decide his future income/

Except why is Vernon conducting a business dinner at his house? Why isn't he meeting them at a fancy restaurant instead?

/why Dursleys didn’t just decide to ask Arabella to babysit Harry for one evening?/

Because then Arabella would've taken one look at Dobby and kicked the house elf out of her home before reporting him to Dumbledore.

/while I can understand Harry’s teenage angst over not hearing from his friends, you would think after this summer the trio would come up with some other way of communicating/

And this happens again in OOTP, only in that book, Harry gets on his high horse and screams at Hermione and Ron for not mailing him.

/I suppose that burning someone alive is nowhere nearly as traumatic as seeing a random student being zapped by pretty lights/

Yeah, that's why I never took the excuses for Harry's caps-lock rages in OOTP seriously. "It was after he just watched someone die!" Yeah, and he also watched and heard someone painfully die in front of him way back in the first book. Where were all his nightmares about Quirrell? He hadn't heard from Ron and Hermione all summer? He didn't hear from Ron and Hermione all summer in COS because Dobby was confiscating his mail. He'd nearly escaped from Voldemort killing him? Voldemort had tried to kill him twice before then, in PS/SS and COS. No, Harry was throwing temper tantrums left and right because JKR wanted OOTP to be the 'dark, gloomy, and angsty' book. Not because it was 'realistic.'

[chantaldormand]

/Is this like how Draco is somehow worse than Dudley now? /

I think that key to understanding Harry's though process lays in the next chapter, where narrative gives us this oh so wonderful line: "This makes the Dursleys sound almost human" (the line is in response to Dobby describing how Malfoy's treat him)
From what we can see in chapter 1, Harry's treatment (especially compared to Dobby's) is decent. Sure he cannot train his magical skills and his pet is on lock up, but he is fed, has roof over his head and Vernon hadn't kicked him out of the house for constantly threatening his traumatized son. Yet, Harry doesn't consider Durslays to be humans.
Considering how through whole series Durlays are portrayed as those caricatures of human beings and books being writen from Harry's POV I would go a step further and say that Harry doesn't consider his time outside magical parts of the world to be real.

/How are Muggle-born students supposed to train their skills during the summer when they can't perform magic in front of the Muggles that they live with?/

A few years ago I played a visual novel called Magical Diary. It's a game that clearly takes a lot of inspirations from HP books.
Author of said VN explored the problem of secrecy and muggle families and found a smart solution to this problem: students from non magical families are encouraged to integrate into magical society and to distance themselves from mundane world by atmosphere in the school and by enchantment placed on their families that caused them to gradually forget about magic and their kid being magical. In the end a lot of students from non-magical families ended up staying at the school all year-round.
Now I'm not saying it to promote the game or something, but to point out that thanks to Jo's Tunnel Vision, she not only fails to plug up her plot holes, but managed to once again walk pass a very interesting plot line.

/Except why is Vernon conducting a business dinner at his house? Why isn't he meeting them at a fancy restaurant instead? /

In my barbaric part of Europe that would be the case, but I must admit that I'm not exactly fluent in British culture so I decided to put it in "it's a British thing" box and do something more productive.

/ No, Harry was throwing temper tantrums left and right because JKR wanted OOTP to be the 'dark, gloomy, and angsty' book. Not because it was 'realistic.' /

Yup, either Jo doesn't have much contact with teenagers or all of her progeny were this capslock happy harpies.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

students from non magical families are encouraged to integrate into magical society and to distance themselves from mundane world by atmosphere in the school and by enchantment placed on their families that caused them to gradually forget about magic and their kid being magical. In the end a lot of students from non-magical families ended up staying at the school all year-round.

JKR never explains why Muggle borns are so cut off from their families that in the last book they are living on the streets of Hogsmeade in the last book.

What does Hogwarts do about muggle parents wanting things like report cards, parent teacher conferences, visits to the school? Do the Board of Governors or Dumbledore send some one to the homes the make the parent magical not care? Does Hermione feel like she can remove her parents memory because she has seen the minds already being tampered with by wizarding people she respects?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Hogwarts is modeled after the British boarding school literature. In those books parents are just as much out of the picture as in HP. Definitely no conferences. Maybe the occasional letter.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Except why is Vernon conducting a business dinner at his house? Why isn't he meeting them at a fancy restaurant instead?

Some people like to present a 'home-cooked' meal experience rather than the more traditional restaurant dinner. Or they might want to show off their happy family life. I suppose it would depend on the client and the client's preferences, but it's not a bad idea, just an alternate one. People who travel a lot probably get tired of eating in restaurants all the time.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

In sitcoms of the Fifties and Sixties, “bringing the boss home for dinner” was a standard trope, allowing for stressed-out husband, panicking wife, misbehaving children, and humorously humiliated authority figure. Who could ask for anything more?

It had to be a real practice in order for there to be a comedy trope making fun of it. One of the benefits of having a stay-at-home wife is that she can (given advance notice, Ricky!) create a really fancy dinner to impress the boss. My dad ran his own business, and my mom considered it part of her job as a stay-at-home wife to give him support, including maintaining good social contacts with his clients and their wives. I don’t remember having any of them over to dinner, but Mom provided homemade Christmas treats for them every year, delivered in person by the whole family.

A lot of JKR’s social assumptions are about twenty years out of date for the time period she’s writing about. Which makes them forty years out of date now.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, nowadays both partners would be out there killing the Corporate World. No one would have time for cooking up a fabulous dinner for the Important Client. Probably a good thing, given what poor Lucy had to go through. Good thing The Potential Boss's Wife told her that Ricky said he had her trained "like a trained seal" or we wouldn't have had such a funny episode. And, Ricky got the job! Not a good way to treat the wife but perfect for employees.

Aside from being a Terrible Person, Petunia is presented as a competent homemaker and Goddess of the Kitchen in the books. It makes sense for Vernon to bring an Important Client home - since so many people these days are part of a Power Couple, a homecooked meal a la 1950s sitcoms would be a special treat that few could provide.

[smirkingcat.livejournal.com]

and so it goes on!!
i knew it was coming because you said it would but it is still awesome to see it
and this is yet another really good assasement of a chapter
the first sentiment is already spot on!

Harry kicks himself out of house so he won’t be in Petunia’s way when she cleans house. According to fans and FF writers alike, this event never took place and instead Harry was slaving away, so his relatives could have fun.
this is so true, and i myself am making this mistake, because it is said that harry was abused, in hindsight there is very little actual evidence for that.

Eh, if “two slices of bread and lump of cheese” are “pitiful supper” then both our hero and author never experienced serious financial problems
oh boy can i attest to that, makes me wonder about all the jkr ‘was so poor’ while writing hp...

thank you so much for keeping this up! and for entertaining us with your spot on assessments of what is really being told

[chantaldormand]

/this is so true, and i myself am making this mistake, because it is said that harry was abused, in hindsight there is very little actual evidence for that. /

Rowling is good at telling reader how things are, so less experienced reader, like let's say children and teenagers, can easily overlook what really happens in the scene.
I'm kind of contrary reader, so when narrative tries tell me one thing and I see something else shown, I get really annoyed.

[smirkingcat.livejournal.com]

that is a very fair point, also i read it only once, i tried to read it a second time but the structure of the sentences got to me...
and in the audiobook version from stephen fry - he is amazing and totally awesome- but he portraits the characters as jkr intended- especially petunia comes away very badly

and you being so amazing at what you are doing jogs some gears in my mind too- as a fanfic writer i appreciate that a lot!

[chantaldormand]

/as a fanfic writer i appreciate that a lot! /

While I like reading good fanfiction, I prefer to work on my original works over writing FFs
If you or anyone else for that matter, likes ideas presented in my commentaries, you are welcome to use them. It's not like I'm going to use them, *shrugs*
Just give me link or something. I always look out for good ffs!

[smirkingcat.livejournal.com]

if i ever manage something good out of any of these thoughts i shall make sure to let you know ;)

[flibbertygigget.livejournal.com]

I'm going to admit that I have always been a bit kinder to the title of this chapter than you are :) For me the title is hyperbolic, yes, but it also shows how Harry's gone from a place where he has friends and a sense of belonging to a place where he is at best ignored. Coupled with the isolation of not being allowed to contact and not being contacted by his friends, not to mention the fact that his last birthday was pretty magical, I can totally see how he would consider this a terrible birthday.

[chantaldormand]

If this book was stand-alone, or if we didn't have worse examples of how horribly Harry's birthday can go, I wouldn't even mention it.
As it is we have: that one where after crazy escape from supernatural flood of letters, Harry was spending his birthday being hungry and trying to sleep on cold floor (PS), that one where Harry has to make crazy escape from terrorists and his familiar dies due his stupidity (DH) and that one where his beloved headmaster cut him off from any information and Harry almost got eaten by knock-off Nazgul (OOTP).
In context of the series this chapter title looks simply melodramatic. *shrugs*

[themightyflynn]

I've always wondered about the whole "Harry is a malnourished abuse survivor" line fandom has come up with. Yes, he was treated worse than he should have been. No one is denying that. But with all the ranting they do, you'd think he was dealing with broken bones that wouldn't heal and cuts that got infected. All JKR has shown is that they yell at him, occasionally throw things, which he does right back, and lock him in his room.
Also, that child is NOT malnourished! They feed him enough to keep him from being taken from them by child services. If things really were as bad as fandom makes out, he would have been taken from them.

In short, I totally agree with you on so many things! XD

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

// Coincidentally CoS was the first HP book I read.

Me too. May be, it's a partial reason for why it remained my favorite.

// Darn, Harry is such bratty drama queen. His main complaint against his abusive guardians? They dare to forget his birthday!!

I think the complaint should not be taken at face value but as representing the combination of hatred and neglect / ignoring Dursleys heap on him. In later books, I would agree with your points regarding melodramatic exaggerations, but here Harry is still very young, only 12. I read somewhere that abused children may choose even negative attention over being ignored.

Regarding the chapter's title, after Dobby's antics, Dursleys will put bars on his window and Harry may be afraid of being prevented to leave to Hogwarts. I thought "the worst" referred to that development rather than to Dursleys forgetting his birthday.

// One would think that Petunia would know that Hogwarts’ students cannot do magic at home. This means that:

d) Petunia keeps silent on purpose to prevent her husband and son from hurting Harrry too much.

Sadly, my interpretation seems to be OOC for canon Petunia.

[sunnyskywalker]

I read somewhere that abused children may choose even negative attention over being ignored.

Harry does seem to have gone the route of defiance rather than keeping his head down, which is definitely a thing. And since from everything I've read, emotional abuse does just as much (or more) damage as physical abuse, I don't find it particularly meaningful that they don't beat him (I mean, I'm glad they don't, but it doesn't mean everything's fine). I think JKR laid a lot of groundwork for Harry dealing with significant emotional scars, and then just... never really followed up on it? Other than having him being increasingly difficult after every year of getting jerked around and stressed by the latest plot to kill him, which is about what you'd expect. But he never gets to the "healing" stage (or even "beginning of healing" stage) that you would expect from this kind of story arc. I think that's what really bothers me. Either don't have him so damaged, or let him start to heal, but don't just leave him hanging like that!

I like your option (d), and it probably could still fit, since nothing explicitly contradicts it. And Lily's rat-teacups might have been Zonko's joke teacups rather than unauthorized underage Transfiguration, so she might not have gotten in trouble since technically she didn't do magic. So it could still work with the law against underage sorcery (which we know existed since little Sev and Lily talk about it).

[chantaldormand]

I must admit that I really, really don't like discussing Harry's abuse.
To me it's clear that Jo's idea of what is considered abuse is old fashioned and she has no idea how abuse influences abuse victims.
Cartoonish abuse like in this chapter, could have been easily excused in first 3 books as a trope, but by the time when more "serious" books roll in we still have Vernon trying to choke Harry in Simpsons-esque fashion.
Even when we encounter physical abuse in the books it's either for laughs or quickly dismissed.
Emotional abuse? Author doesn't want her characters to develop, so it has minimal impact on them.

I wish that d) would be correct answer, but considering that Harry spend the last few weeks tormenting her traumatised son, I don't think that Petunia would do something like that :(

[sunnyskywalker]

Her handling of it is very frustrating. She lays all the groundwork for showing how emotional abuse can be terrible, shows Harry acting in ways that could be consistent with suffering long-term effects--and then just never follows up, or makes it cartoonish.

So you technically can read it as definitely happening and being a major force shaping Harry, but as a story, it isn't at all satisfying because that part of the story is basically just, "Harry has emotional scars which grow worse thanks to further trauma and then he never overcomes or even recognizes them, then end." Which is incredibly bleak, and doesn't mesh well with the way I think the ending of DH is pushing us to think that he's overcome and the wizarding world is going to be better soon.

Like, I do not expect 17-year-old Harry to have miraculously overcome all his problems five minutes after Voldemort has died. Who would? That's just not how people work. But showing some signs that he's recognized the ways all his experiences have harmed him and that he at least plans to try to find a way to heal seems like a minimum requirement for even a vaguely hopeful ending.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

JKR does a good job of depicting characters who behave like they’ve been abused. Those characters are Severus Snape and Neville Longbottom. Harry Potter himself is apparently too brave for mere abuse to affect his character.

[sunnyskywalker]

She has a much easier time when she isn't in the character's head, doesn't she? Sigh.

Harry's utter lack of curiosity makes sense given how the Dursleys drilled "don't ask questions" into him for ten years, and his difficulty making friends--or even noticing people around him--could have gone somewhere, as could his black and white approach of "you're either with me or against me." If people don't believe whatever he says, then they're being horrible and unreasonable to accuse him of lying, just like the Dursleys!

But yeah, traits like that conveniently disappear whenever Jo needs them to.

[chantaldormand]

I find it interesting that Jo's characters act the most natural when she doesn't focus on them. It's like she writes stories by inserting herself into shoes of certain characters, but because she doesn't understand so many things (being attracted to women, effects of abuse, etc.) she ends up distorting those characters.
So we have Severus who hangs onto his highschool crush through his whole life, Harry whose character is all over the place and many other examples when interesting characters suddenly act OOC.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

Like, I do not expect 17-year-old Harry to have miraculously overcome all his problems five minutes after Voldemort has died. Who would?

Well don't forget that later in this book, "On the other hand, Ginny Weasley was perfectly happy again." This before the end of year feast!

Anyone remember that fanfic where the author actually delved into how fucked up the Tom/Ginny bond would be?

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Petunia mentions enchanted things. Since Mrs. Snape is a witch, as long as Lily does the actual spells close to Severus' home there would be no letters from the ministry.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

>Eh, while I can understand Harry’s teenage angst over not hearing from his friends, you would think after this summer the trio would come up with some other way of communicating.

Harry and Hermione are both Muggle-born. They both have a physical address the post office can find. They can use the regular mail to communicate, and Hermione can be a go-between between Harry and Ron.

The only problem I can come up with here is that the Dursleys might hide Hermione's letters. If Harry beats them to the mail slot, that could be circumvented.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Or Hermione could give Harry her phone number! Or if Harry was really smart he could look up Granger in the phone book. He knows her parents are dentists. How many dentists named Granger could there be?

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

There are so many ways that, as Muggle-borns, they could communicate without using Hedwig that I think it's down to a blind obligation to make Harry solely 'Wizard' and nothing else. They could meet at the park if Hermione lives close enough. They could talk on the phone, even if Harry uses the pay phone. Staying in the WW, Mrs Figg could facilitate some sort of communication. She doesn't have to be kept a Deep Dark Secret. Heck, the Grangers could even drop Hermione off if they live farther away than a simple walk for her to the park. They're dentists, too, a decent profession - would Vernon object to their acquaintance?

Maybe the Grangers were sorely under-used in the series.

[sunnyskywalker]

Now I'm imagining a story where Vernon goes to the dentist and the Grangers realize just who their new patient is, and they decide to take more of an interest in their daughter's friend.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

That would be an interesting story. Maybe the Dursleys could be softened up a little by the Grangers' obvious (or is that just in fanfic?) pride in their daughter's magical gift.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Or Vernon's business branching out to manufacturing dental drills?