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[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
Harry is quite cheeky in this chapter and so is JKR. I love the way she wrote Vernon slowly going mad each day, tiny little moments that show him coming unhinged.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"He might have still been allowed to go to school, but was forced to stay in his cupboard whenever he was back home. Otherwise, the school would have been calling up on the Dursleys inquiring why Harry was absent for so long. Sure the Dursleys could have tried pretending that Harry was sick, but would such a charade be able to last that long? Also, the fact that it’s brought up that Harry was supposed to be going to Stone Wall High suggests that Harry did graduate Grade School.
Ah, that’s probably the case, true. Though, I still have questions about how the Dursley’s envisioned Harry’s future (read: getting him out of their house). We never even have Harry thinking about his future. Did he ever picture what his life would be post high school? What did Harry want to be when he grew up?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Something else I wanted to mention to go along with the “ignorance” theme we see in this chapter–by the time Harry is released from his “jail sentence” it’s the summer holiday. According to the Harry Potter wikia, Dudley was born in June. As an American, I’m not 100% sure this is right (maybe POM can clarify) but my brief research suggests that British school summer holidays begin in July.
This means a few things
1) Harry was locked up (sneaking out for food at night presumably) for probably a month
2) Harry missed all his final exams and, at least, the final month of school.
Vernon and Petunia don’t care if Harry receives any sort of proper education; they care about what is best for them and in this case, it’s keeping Harry out of sight and out of mind. I’m curious as to what Vernon and Petunia thought Harry’s future would be (if they thought of it at all.) Did they imagine that he’d get a good job and be able to move out after graduation? Did they picture him going to university and moving out? If they deny him an education, or at least don’t concern themselves with it, then how did they picture ridding themselves of Harry once and for all?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"What’s interesting is that they also don’t let Dudley see the letters’ contents, either. This is a boy who had probably never been denied anything in his life. Yet, for the first time, he’s in the dark, too, and he doesn’t like it. No amount of fussing, complaining or crying is going to sway his parents’ minds.
Yeah Dudley has an interesting role in this chapter. He’s obnoxious as normal but he’s also a bit sympathetic. He seems to be both in awe of Harry (who wants to talk to Harry this badly?? Even Dudley isn’t used to *this* much attention, which really says a lot) and angered by his parents response. For the first time, Dudley and his wants/needs are on the back burner and it’s all about Harry. Vernon is even trying to be nicer to Harry which ipso facto, leads Vernon to demand more of Dudley–getting the mail, giving up his second room, ignoring his requests for food and TV. That’s a first for Dudley.
Is Rumple Once’s Dumbledore? *runs away for bringing Once into HP talk*
Yes. More or less. He’s the “Wizard” of the OUAT series, in the archetype sense. We talked about this over in the Savior thread I made a few months back, but what makes Rumple more complicated is that his real archetype isn’t really Wizard of Trickster (though, he fills both roles when he needs to) but it’s the Father.
Dumbledore becomes a sort of father (or grandfather) figure to Harry, much like Sirius will. But Dumbledore and Rumple are alike in one other aspect as well; it’s less about preparing the hero because it’s the right thing to do and “Good” demands it. It’s more about their own needs and wants AND most importantly, they both have something to atone for and they need the Savior and the Savior’s magical abilities in order to get them that forgiveness they so long for. For Dumbledore, it’s about his sister. For Rumple, it’s all about Baelfire
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Great write up Macy! (and thanks for agreeing to speed up the process since we’ve decided to do biweekly analysis)
It is far more effective for us to know that, no matter what, someone is trying to get these letters to him, than for us to actually find out what the contents are.
Yes, very good point. At this stage, we know that the magical world exists and, more importantly, Harry is apart of it, even if he doesn’t know it. We do.
What the letters demonstrate, and moreover the insistence of getting those letter to Harry, show is that he hasn’t been forgotten. Someone (or something) out there in the magical world is coming for him. This is a rather big deal given that the Dursley’s try their darndest to forget Harry even exists, and if they had it their way…he simply wouldn’t exist.
There is this question that I think exists in human beings about what confirms identity. Or rather, how do you know you are a important, but even baser than that, that you simply exist. How do we confirm human existence? Yes, breathing and speaking go a long way (though, JKR is clever and has rarely had Harry speak out loud in these few chapters. He’s very silent which might be driving home my point here) but I think it’s more than that. It’s having someone acknowledge that you exist in any manner. That’s the sum of human existence, interacting with others to confirm you are in fact alive. That’s why being alone is so dangerous; how can we confirm or establish identity without another person? The Dursley’s rarely acknowledge him and we saw this in Chapter 2 where Vernon and Petunia talk about him as if he wasn’t in the room and Harry thinks that this is a fairly common occurrence.
We might come back to this with Voldemort and everyone’s demands that he be called He Who Must Not Be Named and You Know Who.
But Harry, suddenly, is being acknowledged by an outside force and thus his own identity (not only as a magical being but just as Harry Potter) begins to surface. We see his wit and charm, his sass come through for really the first time in the wake of the letters. He speaks more, he is loudly vocal in this chapter because for the first time in his life, someone wants him to be Harry Potter.
Defiantly, the Dursleys go to extraordinary lengths to ensure their life is “normal”, rather than letting Harry know the truth. They decide to ignore the problem, and eventually it would go away.
And by ignoring it, maybe they can make Harry go away too! Their constant ignoring of Harry goes to the point I was making above about Harry’s identity and sense of self finally breaking through because at long last someone is trying to connect.
We know from future chapters that Petunia is a neat freak, and that she often stayed up until after midnight cleaning the kitchen. Surely, it would have been easier to just buy Harry new clothes, rather than dying old clothes for his uniform? It was mentioned numerous times how awful it smelled, offending everyone in the family. For me this, solidifies the fact that Petunia went out of her way to make Harry miserable, when it would have been in everyone’s best interest to just buy him some cheap clothes
Never considered that before, but yeah, good point. She’s going out of her way to make life as terrible for him as possible. It makes you wonder who first had the idea to stick a baby in the cupboard.
he didn’t belong to the library, so he’d never even got rude notes asking for books back.”
The Dursely’s are trying to keep him ignorant as well. They don’t want him learning or exploring the world. General education is enough and then they’ll throw him to the wolves/world. But let his imagination go, and who knows what sort of “perversity” he could undertake. This is a fairly common tactic with oppressive majority groups, by the way. There’s a reason you don’t let the slaves learn to read…
– Who do you think is sending the letters, and how do they know where Henry is at all times?
I’m trying to remember who I first thought when I read the book when it first came out. Obviously, now, I know EXACTLY who is sending these letters. But back then, I think I just assumed it was Dumbledore from chapter one. Hogwarts has not yet been mentioned “on screen”. A crest appears on the back of the letters so it seems something official.
As for the second part of this question, I’ve wondered that. I almost think that the letter writer is having a bit of fun at the Dursley’s expense. He’s (whoever “he” or “it” is) trying to throw them off their game.
– Why do you think the Dursleys won’t let Harry read the letters?
Ignorance. They want him in the dark as much as possible–to a scary literal level where they keep him locked in a cupboard. It’s also worth noting that Vernon and Petunia read the letter and they GET it. They seem to know exactly what is written in these mysterious letters and what it will mean for their family, whatever that means. Whatever is in the letters scares them because they understand it so perfectly.
Misc Thoughts
–I want to talk about liminality, mostly because it comes up quite a bit in the next few chapters so it’s a good idea to introduce it now. Liminal spaces usually refer to something in ritual but over the years it has come to be associated with a lot of other topics like ethnography, folklore and and actual places. For me, I’m going to use it as a metaphor and as a place. I’m using it thus: a threshold, a turning point, a place that exists “in between” what was and what will be, or place that is between this world (the known) and the next world (the unknown).
Harry in the hut on the rock by the sea is in such a place. Metaphorically, he’s on the cusp of his next birthday, and right when he transitions to his next age, the big BOOM happens. But before then, for a brief moment in time he is between 10 (the known) and 11 (the unknown). He doesn’t know what the future holds, but he knows that the past was sheer crap.
Now as far as a literal place, the hut, on the rock, by the sea, is removed from the mundane world–or about as far from it as Vernon Dursley could get. They are cut off and so remote that Vernon is convinced that no one will ever find them–including the post and letters. But the family has not moved into another world. They are betwixt the two, hence why one of the worlds has to come to them–loudly. We’re going to keep seeing these liminal spaces–a point at which you haven’t yet crossed over but you aren’t in the previous world either. It’s worth pointing out that these liminal spaces can be delineated by a landmark–a river, an archway or other door, a crossroads, an inn, a train station…
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Also it’s possible I just found my next rainy day craft project
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Ugh. Overslept. At least I didn’t have to work this morning.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Also in response to the article how important are VOD and DVR numbers? Isn’t a shows renewal and cancelation based on its commercial value? As in ad revenue so if you can skip the ads how does that benefit the channel and isn’t that the most important thing benefiting the brand with commercial gain
Everything is looked at but for ads the live, live+SD, and to a lesser extent Live +3 are the focus. Online viewing is important but not nearly as much as live TV viewing for the obvious reason that there are far less commercials in online viewing. ABC probably cares far more about those online numbers than the ad buyers, but it does come down to how much money they can get out of ad buyers which largely depends on live TV viewing.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
