Dissecting the Dursleys (Part 1)

[angakkuq_01]

“You should keep an eye on Dudley. It’s probably too late for Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. I feel sorry for Dudley. I might joke about him, but I feel truly sorry for him because I see him as just as abused as Harry. Though, in probably a less obvious way. What they are doing to him is inept, really. I think children recognize that. Poor Dudley.

Comments

[mary_j_59]

Could you please, please, put this under a cut? It's very long.

[mollywobbles867]

+1

[keladry_lupin]

+2

[sollersuk]

+3

[celisnebula]

Echoing Mary here, please put this under a livejournal cut. It's taken my friends page hostage and made it all wonky. Thank you.

[catsintheattic]

Seconding the calls for a cut.

Thank you!

[angakkuq_01]

Cut. It was early and I forgot.

[rhiannon_black]

Looks like an interesting essay. I'd be inclined to read it if you would put it behind an LJ cut. It's an odd thing, I suppose, but when folks clog up my flist, I just scroll past their stuff (however long that scrolling takes) and will not read.

[mary_j_59]

Substantively, I do have a very minor comment. You say in your closing note: The only time we see them directly is through memories-and those can be biased as well. We see James at his worst in Snape’s memories, but never really at his best. This is incorrect if you are talking about the Pensieve memories. According to Rowling herself, the Pensieve is useful, among other reasons, because it shows the objective facts, without bias. It can also show the entire scene of a memory, including things you could not have known/were not consciously aware of at the time. Obviously, that's not possible in real life; all our real-life memories are from our POV. But hey! It's magic!

[juno_chan]

Hmmm, see, this confuses me - because they had to convince Slughorn to give them the REAL memory of what happened with Tom Riddle, and not the version where Slughorn is all "egads! Away with ye, o dark one!" So obviously the Pensieve can be fooled or influenced by memory. (Just a note that I am critizing Rowling, not you, on this discrepency.=) )

[snapes_witch]

Here's what JKR said in an interview on 07/16/05:

Q: Do the memories stored in a Pensieve reflect reality or the views of the person they belong to?
A: It's reality. It's important that I have got that across, because Slughorn gave Dumbledore this pathetic cut-and-paste memory. He didn't want to give the real thing, and he very obviously patched it up and cobbled it together. So, what you remember is accurate in the Pensieve.
(TLC)

In other words if Snape's pensieve memories weren't real, we'd see that they weren't.

[shyfoxling]

Unless he was extremely skilled at the alteration, which hypothetically he might be, but yes, generally I would agree that they are probably objectively accurate.