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Maybe Dumbledore placed some sort of enchantment over the basket or set people to watch over the baby to make sure he was taken in. Or he could have even waited it out himself
That’s possible but you have to wonder why Jo didn’t write it so that the audience sees Dumbledore doing that. Going back to this chapter for hints, she doesn’t bother to hide the magic, just the explanation for it. McGonagall turns from cat into a woman and while JKR does not offer a conversation between the characters to inform the readers that this is a practice known as Transfiguration and McGonagall is an Animagist, she at least lets the audience see the magic. Same with the puter-outer. We know, later, that most wizards do not speak their spells out loud but there is still a flick of the wrist/wand, however imperceptible it might be.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"*wakes up to see a tweet from Adam encouraging all ships to have a virtual hug*
Oh. Please. Spare me. An internet virtual hug is not going to end the bullying, the hatred, and the rampant toxicity that is this fandom. You burying your head in the sand and pretending it will isn’t helping either.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I require information on Once Upon a Time‘s Camelot crowd! –Meredith This casting notice would seem to apply: For Season 5’s fourth episode, Once is guest-casting the role of a medieval manservant who is devoted to his employer but harbors a deep resentment… that may lead him to do very bad things.
I keep thinking that episode 4 is going to be Merlin centric (titled The Sorcerer to go along with 404 “The Apprentice) so maybe this is OUAT’s take on Archimedes, the owl?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"He was so unconcerned that he then left Harry on the Dursleys’ front step for several hours at night. It’s a weird thing to do even if Dumbledore left other agents watching from the shadows.
This is a really really really good point. And I’ll be honest, I don’t know that it’s ever struck me as odd. We think of suburbia as safe, almost to the point of foolishness. Perhaps not in so much as people used to, but there was a time when people left their homes and didn’t bother locking their front doors if they were going to be out for only a short time.
My point is that all throughout the chapter, we are given to understand that the magical world has infiltrated the mundane. Where once the magical folk would attempt to blend in or even eschew the mundane, they are out in broad daylight, cloak and all. No place is SAFE right now because the normal restrictions and precautions about not intermixing with the mudnane world has been lifted by the events of the past 24 hours. Dumbledore should know that leaving this newly touted savior on a front porch for roughly 8 hours is a totally unwise move. Hagrid returns the motorbike; McGonagall is encouraged to leave; Dumbledore himself vanishes. Who in the world is watching baby Harry? Is anyone watching Baby Harry?
ETA: the fact that no one finds Harry and the fact that he isn’t swept up in the middle of the night by Voldemort’s men might come down to, as McGonagall said in the first movie, “sheer dumb luck!”
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"but every time I’m reminded of how this may be one of the best opening chapters, if not opening lines, in the history of the literary world.
It is a very well crafted English sentence; it even reads a snobbish, the snobbery of the Dursley’s is etched into every syllable. It actually reminds me a bit of the opening line to Anna Karenina
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
It’s a bit of a conundrum, is it not? We want to be happy. But do we want to be all alike? All cookie cutter copies of one another–is that what it takes to be happy? For the Dursley’s the answer is a rather resounding yes. In order for their family to be truly happy and content in their mundane little world they have to be just that: mundane, un-unique, and just like everyone else. I’m not sure if this exists in England or not but here in American the quintessential American dream is the 2.5 kids, the two car garage, and white picket fence. That is supposed to be the ideal. I would hazard a guess that something akin to that exists in English society. It’s like…Vernon and Petunia had an itemized checklist. Check mark for getting married to another perfectly mundane, equally vapid individual. Check mark for successful job. Check mark for one child whom they can spoil rotten. Check mark for the car in the garage and perfectly manicured lawn.
Harry is not on the check list. Harry disrupts the entire checklist. Suddenly, with Harry, there are questions. Suddenly Vernon and Petunia are not just like everyone else and they have to explain their situation to their neighbors; neighbors, who by contrast, never have to explain their situation.
Where the second part of Anna Karenina’s opening line comes in is that contrary to what the Dursley’s want to everyone to believe (prior to Harry) is they aren’t as normal, happy, or cookie cutter as they pretend to be. And they are unhappy (un-cookie cutter) in a way that no other neighbor can claim. No other neighbor can claim to have magical relatives. In this regard, they are unique. And that bothers the living daylights out of them.
That I didn’t know, RG, very interesting, even though I always thought of King Arthur when I think of Harry’s upbringing. A young boy, destined for greatness, whisked away from his family for safety and brought up with relatives (who aren’t necessarily likeable). In Disney’s “The Sword in the Stone”, we know Arthur’s foster family treats him terribly, and force him to do chores around the castle. They laugh at his aspirations to become a knight, and scoff his idea of studying and getting an education. I can’t speak for other versions of the story, as I am no Arthurian scholar by any means, but without going to further into later chapters, what a parallel.
Ooooh yes. The Arthurian parallels are great. But to broaden the horizon, this isn’t just an Arthur thing. It’s a mythic hero archetype thing (ok, in case after 4 years people haven’t figured this out..I have a thing for archetypes…) I mentioned in my analysis that the hero is always somehow marked–emotionally, physically, mentally. They are also typically very alone. They might have friends or family but they often feel like an outsider, like they don’t belong. Jesus is openly rejected by a good portion of the people he is preaching to; Luke Skywalker dreams of a day when he can be anywhere but Tattooine and is being raised by an uncle and aunt because his parents are dead (a much nicer uncle and aunt, by the way); Biblo (and Frodo) want to go on adventures which is rather un-Hobbitish; Buffy is lying to her mom about who and what she really is and for quite awhile Giles (and in future seasons Wesley) is unsure that having friends help the slayer is a good thing (Joss’s own unique twist on his mythic hero); Daenerys Targaryen is supposedly the last Dragon; Jon Snow lives in a world where last names are everything and his is a base-born one; Elric is marked as an albino and a forward thinking Melnibone in a city that frowns (ok, more than frowns) on distancing itself from tradition and is seen as a freak for this; Arthur is spirited away and raised in less than ideal (sometimes abusive) circumstances; Emma Swan in an orphan who keeps finding connections only to lose them. This is part of the mythic cycle. We should be keeping a close eye on the Hero’s Journey for Harry and the various stages he enters and completes along the way. This is the prelude, the set up. We must get out mythic hero to the first stage: the call to adventure.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Poldark 1×06
Or: Worst. Rescue. Ever.
I’m going to admit something. I found myself pretty frustrated by a lot of this episode. Or rather, by a lot of choices various characters were making because of a lot of those choices were straight up bad, even if they were coming from a good intentioned place. I find myself going back and forth on Ross quite a bit. He’s got the brooding Byronic Hero thing down pat, from the dark hair to the dark eyes, to the dark soul, but it’s coupled with a genuine love of the everyman which I find endearing. EXCEPT when it leads him to be a total…*insert your choice word here*. Doing something noble is great; I applaud trying to save a friend from what is truly the most appalling of conditions but I can’t help but think that Ross does these noble actions without fully thinking through the consequences of his actions.
For example. You are a brand new father. You are struggling to enter the workforce as a lucrative business to provide for your wife and child. You have cousins who are currently down on their luck and no clear indication that they intend or even can better themselves. Thus you have taken on the responsibility of these family members. In other words, you have a lot of balls in the air and are dangerously close to dropping one should you misjudge one tiny thing. What could you misjudge? I don’t know…walking into a plague ridden cell? Yes, it was noble. Yes, it was well intentioned. It was also fool hardy and rash. Ross even admits to Ennis that he has no plan. They go in willy nilly, guns a’blazing, knowing full well that inside is nothing but death and disease. Do you know who could catch that disease? Your BABY, Ross. I know you think you can be Mr. Social Justice and right the wrongs of the world yourself but maybe you start at home. You took Demelza in, you loved her, you married her…do you really want to leave her and little Julie alone because you are determined to save the universe, one egregiously incarcerated peasant at a time? I’m not hating on Ross but rather pointing out that he does act rashly and without thought of the larger scope sometimes.
The consequences of his actions thus far has stayed within the confines of his little circle–he is drunk and verbally abusive and you can tell that Demelza is bothered by it, even though she too mourns Ross’s friend. The wonderful exchange between them in the kitchens with her trying to be the concerned friend is overshadowed by the almost childlike glee she feels at the sight of the pretty new dress. She knows what Ross has not yet figured out; his class isn’t the only one with irresponsible, petty, and greedy men. Her class has them too. They exist everywhere. They exist in the Justice who serves no Peace. They exist in George Warleggen who is determined to take down the Poldark family, one gambling drunk at a time. But they also exist in Demelza’s father. Ross suffers a bit from a sort of selective myopia. He chooses to see the poor class as impoverished but ultimately good and in need of help. Mostly that is because he has surrounded himself with impoverished but ultimately good people, like Jim and Mark. But he chooses to write off those like Demelza’s father as an oddity and not part of the larger poor class. Demelza’s father isn’t the exception to the rule; he is, sad enough, part of the rule. For every good hearted Mark and Jim, there is a drunk man who beats his wife and children and spends any coin he gets on drink. And that’s what Demelza is trying to tell him. Noble intentions are great but there is a much larger picture.
Ross chooses to go after the Warleggen cousin, the cheater, without realizing that the cheater IS a Warleggen cousin. He thinks he is righting another wrong, this one done to Francis and then to Ross himself. But again, he misses the larger picture that by embarrassing the Cheater, he is speeding up the Warleggen desire to see the Poldark downfall. Rash, brash, and noble. Deadly combination.
I don’t have a whole lot else this week except I have to touch on Verity and Captain. This is doomed love story. Either they run off together and Verity is shunned from society and there is always the looming anger management issues Captain seems to have. Or they never end up together. At this stage, Demelza needs to back off trying to get them together. Hm. She has that in common with Ross, no? Noble intentioned but still quite fool hardy. Just like in telling the Actress (who is now The Hussy) to keep her eye from wandering to the Doctor. She thinks she is helping but ultimately is she only picking at a scab until it festers?
MISC NOTES
–Still love the string music
–“What is wrong with the women in this family?” “The men.” BEST. LINE. EVER.
–Demelza’s dress was lovely
–The quick passing of time is still disconcerting. So in the 6 months or so since Julie was born, Ross formed an entire company?
–We saw the Lady of the Night. She was wearing red.
–Verity had quite a showy hat while walking around with Captain. It’s like she’s coming out of her shell. And of course at the ball, she was wearing a pink feather which was all symbolic of love and happiness and being “out.”
–Can Francis die and take his blisters with him already?
–Elizabeth and George. I smell a love triangle.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"It’s interesting that a book titled “Harry Potter” begins by focusing on a family called the Dursleys. Is it a gamble to start a story without the title character being mentioned until the end of the chapter? Evidently not, but it is intriguing.
Very good point. We begin, very much, in media res (in he middle). We are plunged into the world after the big climatic scene of Voldemort and Lily/James/Baby Potter. And we are given only small hints and clues as to what we are in the middle of.
I immediately got a flashback to Disney’s “The Sword and the Stone” version of Merlin.
Again, a very good point. Especially since part of Voldemort’s name comes from the evil doer Voldemortis from Authrian legend who once tried to destroy Merlin and was taken down by King Arthur.
I was pondering this the other day. What would the outcome be if Harry was raised by someone else? It was quite a gamble for Dumbledore to leave him to the custody (I won’t say care) of these two. I can understand his conviction that the boy, famous for something beyond his control, should be raised apart from it. Just look at celebrities’ children. Countless offspring grow up to be famous for no accomplishments or talent. Reality shows are filled with them. They are materialistic, entitled and spoiled. This could have very well happen to Harry if he grows up in the world to which he was born.
Dumbledore makes it out like Harry would be spoiled and have his head turned by living with any wizarding family. But…this can’t really be true. I mean small jump here, but imagine if Harry grew up with the Weasleys.
We don’t know much about Dumbledore yet but can surmise he was close to the baby’s parents. He must have know that there was a chasm between the sisters and yet he’s assured the note he left will ensure that couple will accede to wishes. What we don’t know is exactly what is in that note. It had to be something powerful to make a couple, who would have nothing to do with this branch of the family, make an about face and raise their orphaned nephew. And we don’t know how they will raise Harry. We already see that Petunia dotes on her little Dudley and he’s a spoiled baby. What’s to say she won’t do the same to Harry? However, when it comes down to brass tacks it was really the only choice with the sparse information we, the reader, have been given that Dumbledore could have made.
From an archetypical standpoint we have to assume, for the moment, that Dumbledore is “good.” (such a subjective term, I know). McGonagall points out that while they are evenly matched, Dumbledore would never dream of using the powers Voldemort does because “nobility.” Since Harry is set up as some sort of savior figure in the first chapter, at least by those who exist in the magical world, then Dumbledore, for all intents and purposes is the wise old wizard who guides the hero on his journey. There is always a wise old wizard (Merlin, Gandalf, Obi Wan, Giles from Buffy). And across the board, those figures are good. This isn’t to say that they are some sort of divine good (though Gandalf….anyway…) but that they fight for some sort of noble cause and are preparing the hero to take up that noble cause because good should always win. What we have to keep in mind and keep pondering is whether or not Dumbledore is doing this out of nobility or something else.
My confusion is who actually reported the death and was first on the scene after the fact? If Hagrid is the first to the house, then how did anyone report the deaths earlier? How did Dumbledore know? If Hagrid wasn’t the first to the house, why was a baby left all alone? Now I know we’ve all read the books, and information will be revealed as we continue our reread, but it’s been a while since I read the books and I no longer remember every minutiae of the series.
Good questions and while we could probably answer it–though, I’m struggling to remember all the layers–what you raise is a very valid point. There is a mystery surrounding all of this–and not just the magical mystery of “why Harry survived.” But an actual detective type story because there is a very space of time between the Potters death (McGonagall is already in place as a cat when Vernon leaves the house) and when Harry Potter arrives on the doorstep. Jo is intentionally wanting us to ask what actually happened. If Harry Potter is so important, then why didn’t Dumbledore get Harry himself? Why didn’t Dumbledore bring Harry to the Dursley’s right away? Why does Dumbledore seem to know way more than anyone and why is he so reticent in discussing it.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
