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They know that Harry is different, even if Harry doesn’t. And they’ve been lying to him for his whole life
To take this out of the magical world for a second, but I also think that JKR is trying to make a larger and more salient point. For those who track social media, JKR has become quite the outspoken advocate for LBGTQ rights and I think a lot of her social justice views can be found in her work (not surprising. Most authors insert their own personal stances on the “issues of the day” into their writings). What if Harry were not magical but gay? Or transgendered? The Dursely’s recognize that Harry is the “other” and they are treating him as an “other.” This type of “othering” is constant in our real, non literary world. I’m not going to get on a soapbox at this point and talk about social justice rights (cause that is a can-o-worms) but JKR is using magic vs mundane, I think, to make a point about the broader world and how we (the collective society) treat anyone that is perceived as different.
I would be shocked if no one was checking in on him somehow over the years. McGonagal stood outside their door for less than a day and knew they were terrible people. But if someone did check in on him, why did nobody see how they were treating him and do something about it? That is what astounds me.
I makes me wonder how…tyrannical…Dumbledore can really be. McGonagal knew (like you said) from the very first chapter the sort of people the Dursely’s were. She was clearly concerned, and certainly wasn’t mollified by the idea of a letter from Dumbledore. I keep coming back to this idea that Dumbledore is imposing very strict rules on those that follow him and live under his guidance. He might allow McGongal and the others to look in on Harry but tells that in no uncertain terms are they allowed to interfere in Harry’s life before the age of 11. Because can we really see Hagrid not stepping in had he known what was going on? McGonagal might have obeyed orders but surely it had to be a constant “Albus, we shouldn’t be doing this! He’s just a boy!” with Dumbledore. I think one of the larger questions we’ll be asking each book is not just “was Dumbledore right to do X?” but also, “how alike are Dumbledore and Voldemort?”
I think the point of the chapter is nature vs nurture, that Harry was a good, kind, soul despite being raised by jerks. If Harry had turned out to be like them, we wouldn’t all love the story so much.
Yup. And I think in about–oooh–5 books from now we’ll be coming back to this question of nature vs nurture when we visit a certain orphanage.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Another thing I found odd about this movie. They don’t give Snow White and her prince any visible offspring in the movie, but we get Dopey’s son Doug instead. Almost as if they intentionally avoided it because of Once Upon a Time’s Emma Swan. And speaking of Snow White…they make her a TV news reporter of all things?
LOL yes. When I saw that she was the new reporter I thought, “well, that’s random and not in keeping with anything Snow White-ish.” I could say it was because they had the Evil Queen and wanted to get her heroes into the story somehow, but the clearly left out any children by Aladdin/Jasmine and Roger/Anita. I actually thought that at some point we’d met Aladdin and Jasmine’s daughter (who would fall for Jay, clearly) and Roger and Anita’s daughter (who would fall for Carlos, obviously.)
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I’m hoping the search for Gallifrey comes up? It was such a HUGE part of the 50th and it’s barely been mentioned (has it even been mentioned?)
It *has* to. I just has to at this point. We’ve had an entire season since the 50th and nothing about Gallifrey which doesn’t…jive. The Doctor should be actively looking for it. I don’t know if Moff and the crew wanted to give 12 time to settle in and get through his first season and now they’ll address but since Missy is coming back, Gallifrey HAS to be next.
We were thinking Ramona, but I think Susan is a grand choice (good thinking RG).
Ooooh. I like the idea of Romana. I loved Romana II (she and Tom Baker’s 4th Doctor were fab. Helps that they were married in real life…)
Either way, there’s a lot of explosions apparently.
Of course. Sci Fi means lots of explosives. The JJ Abrams style of directing.
But once he was gone, I was over her again. I think it’s time for a new companion, in my own humble personal opinion.
Agreed and I really need it to not be a modern earth woman. It’s literally all this Regenerated Series has had in terms of long term, constant companions (Jack was around only for a short time, same with Mickey). Otherwise: Rose–Martha–Donna–Amy (okay, and Rory)–Clara. That’s it. Modern Earth women. Now, I get that Doctor Who more often than not does make the companion a modern earth woman (because TV thinks it needs the sex appeal angle) but the classic era did have its fair share of non-modern, non-women. Jamie is still one of the best companions and he was non modern and not a woman. Nyssa annoyed the living daylights out of me, but again, not modern, if a woman. Leela and Adric are another good example. It’s…bothersome that a show that has really reached the modern 21stc age and posits itself on pushing the envelope of morality and ethics (Lizard Lady from the Dawn of time and her wife, anyone?) is stuck on this rather un-modern approach to who should be traveling with the Doctor. (I’ll get off my soap box now)
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Baaaaaad CGI. Like OUAT level bad.
I checked the credits, and the same company (Zoic Studios) did the visual effects. Their Maleficent Dragon even looked similar, likely as a result of using the same company.
Yeah I saw you say that a page or so back. There was less CGI in this movie than in OUAT and the dragon did look quite similar. I guess it wasn’t horrific (not like EF village/town horrific) but still not exactly good either.
Also here is one of my big sticking points: so did none of the villains love their children? Like, not even one of them was capable of loving their child? (also, who…was the other parent in these situations? Who is Jafar’s wife/girlfriend/concubine? Who was Cruella sperm donor? Same with Mal and Evil Queen? Also, why does the Evil Queen not have a name.) If the main theme of the movie was that we can chose to be good or evil, it would have been much stronger if one of the villains (any of them) chose to love their good child instead of forcing them into a life of evil.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Another new promo poster
Darkness is upon us. #DarkSwan pic.twitter.com/vTGwwrqgtJ
— Once Upon A Time (@OnceABC) August 2, 2015
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Okay, I was at a family wedding when this aired live so I just now got to watch it (and provided snark as I did so some place else)
First off, I want these two hours of my life back. I mean, I’m going to demand recompense for those two hours of my life.
Wow. That was terrible. Terrible in a way that I was laughing half the time because it was just that bad. So totally cliche and common–of course the children of the villains are actually good and of course the children of the heroes are shallow, vain, mean spirited spoiled little brats. Audrey (Sleeping Beauty’s child) needed to be hit by a bus.
The entire movie was shallow–Jane thought she was ugly and therefore had no friends (wow, first off that girl was not ugly and way to make girls who suffer from low self esteem hate themselves even more) but then she got a new hair do and suddenly–friends galore!! Eek.
And then there’s Ben who was drugged by Mal and ended up falling in love with her anyway, even though he knew about–what amounts to–a date rape drug (dude, you went on ONE DATE and you tell Mal you love her and want to give her a ring?? Clingy much?)
Evie realized that you don’t have to be a prince with a big castle to be important and have her give you the time of day! Thanks for not being self centered and gold digging until the end, Evie!
Why are they crowning a 16 yr old boy king of an entire country when his father is clearly still very much alive?
“She shrunk to the size of the love in her heart.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. omg. How long until OUAT picks THAT up for a story?!
None of the villains even felt like their animated selves except in the most shallow way possible. The evil queen wanted to be pretty? Jafar wanted…well, I have no idea because I think he said a grand total of 5 words. Cruella was a very bad caricature. Maleficent was fine, though I hope Kristen Chenowith took home a huge paycheck for her time.
Baaaaaad CGI. Like OUAT level bad.
Even worse than that was the lip synching. Whoa. Like. Whoa. Also, I need to block “Be Our Guest” rap style from my mind forever. That didn’t happen. It was a thing that just did not happen.
If there’s a sequel I’m obviously going to watch because this is the the kind of TV that needs–nay, deserves–my snark.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I’ll try to answer my own questions
1. How is Missy coming back? Are you excited for Missy to come back?
No idea how. Excited? Yes and no. I ended up loving how bananas she was and I think she needs to come back in order to answer questions–like where is Gallifrey and how she came back in the first place (in S8). But I don’t want it to turn into the Doctor vs The Master (Mistress) again and again and again.
5. Clara: yay or nay? (Still mostly a nay from me, but willing to sit through another season of her so long as the focus returns to the Doctor)
I described my relationship with Clara like this one time: I liked Rory better than Amy but I prefer both of them to Clara. I really disliked S7 Clara because she was weepy and way too…lackluster. I enjoyed in S8 that she got a bit of a backbone, which she needed to go toe to toe with 12; I also enjoyed Moff’s thesis about abusive and addictive relationships that he was working through with Clara but she is still made out to be “the important person EVER” and it BUGS me. I also really don’t like how she’s taken the place of the Doctor as being the center of the story.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Excellent write up Jo!
Two boys of the same age reside in the house, yet only one’s pictures grace the mantelpiece–and it is not Harry’s. When we finally meet the young boy the extraordinary baby has turned into, it is with Mrs. Dursley yelling at him to wake up from his ‘bedroom’ which is revealed to be a dark cupboard under the stairs
This breaks my heart. He’s a young boy and he’s being forced to live under a staircase in a dark closet. It’s abuse. People have often talked about how HP in general is “kids” literature to which JKR once replied, “you know opens with a double homicide, right?” This another example of how HP is a darker children’s tale (if, indeed, we even want to classify it as children’s lit)–Harry is being abused and it’s not a sort of magical abuse that exists outside our frame of reference as mundane humans. This is actual everyday abuse. There are kids who are beaten and punished and neglected and Harry is one of them.
Meanwhile his ungrateful cousin Dudley is lavished with presents for his birthday and indulged in activities of amusement and fun:
Sometimes I ponder which Dursley I dislike the most. Vernon is almost a caricature. He’s gruff and corpulent but he’s also…stereotypical for middle class suburban males, I think. Dudley I dislike a lot but I almost can’t hate him because he’s the product of his environment. They spoiled him and gave into his every whim and children learn through these experiences what works and what doesn’t. It has been years since Dudley really cried, but he knows how to manipulate the situation because it’s worked in the past. There has never been any sort of correcting him and his behavior. Petunia…Petunia I loathe. She knows what her sister is, she knows how her sister died (the letter Dumbledore left back in Chapter 1) and yet she keeps her sister’s son in a closet.
He yearns for something else and even imagines that strangers sometimes seem to know him. Not only does the neglect happen at home, but because of Dudley’s bullying, nobody at school wants to be friends with him. Not necessarily because of Harry, himself, but because the other kids don’t want to be targets of Dudley and his gang themselves.
This is a large portion of the hero’s journey like I said a page or so back–they must be alone. Either through circumstance or neglect, they often are totally alone in the world until they start down their monomyth path. Take a look at Emma Swan. She was alone for a good portion of her life and when she did met someone (Lily, Neal) it ended badly and reinforced her own (negative) self-worth. Remember the pilot where she describes herself as a friendless orphan and her wish on the blue star that she wouldn’t be alone on her birthday? It’s like Harry who wishes that someone–anyone–would come and save him from this life of being neglected.
One last point is that even J. K. Rowling’s nomenclature in the book further illustrates the differences between Harry and others. Harry, who is destined to be this great figure, has a perfectly ordinary name. Nothing unusual or eye-catching about it. And yet the family that is obsessed with normality is given the name Dursley.
Excellent point. And this is something Petunia even brings up in the first chapter, that Harry is a nasty common name.
1. Could one or multiple people be watching over Harry through his childhood?
A lot of our Chapter 1 discussion centered on Dumbledore and his rather odd behavior leaving Harry alone on the doorstep. I have to wonder if he just left Harry alone, never spied on him or looked in on him. If Dumbledore ever did look in on him, then he KNEW what was going on with the Dursley’s and did nothing. It’s one thing to be worried that the most famous wizard in the world could have his head turned by all that fame, but it is another to leave a little boy in a household where he was neglected, abused, ill fed and ill treated. This is another thing to look out for: how JKR carefully subverts archetypes. Dumbledore is, without question, the wise old wizard who guides the hero on his journey. But given what we’ve been talking about and the implications of Dumbledore knowing what the Dursely’s were doing and not interfering, we have to wonder if he’s not a bit more ruthless and cold than he appears.
2. How would Harry have turned out if the Dursleys had treated him fairly and like a family member as he was growing up and not like an outcast?
I think this is one of the great “ifs” of the HP world. It is so hard to say because on the one hand, his whole life could have been different, in a positive way. He could have known love and joy and not been so depressed at the tender age of 11. On other hand, they could have treated him like Dudley and Harry would effectively become Dudley 2.0. (Or, in the magical world, a Draco Malfoy).
Another passing note, but Harry dreams of a flying motorbike. Infants don’t exactly retain memories at that young of age. I think the general consensus is that we start to form lasting memories around 3? Either JKR is using literary license or Harry’s abilities have manifested way earlier because of his trauma.
Finally, the snake and the glass. It’s worth pointing out, from a character standpoint, that even though Harry has had these magical experiences before he never thinks of himself as magical or special. He doesn’t start to wonder if he’s magical or has some sort of power deep within himself. We can argue it’s because he is unaware of the other world and therefore doesn’t even contemplate a world in which he could be magical, but it also speaks to his extremely low self esteem and the idea that he’s just Harry. Ordinary, everyday, run of the mill, nothing special, better if forgotten Harry.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
