pauraque_bk | GoF 3 (Reply)

I've made no secret of the fact that I think the pacing of GoF is pretty bad. You start off with one of the most interesting chapters in canon and then get immediately bogged down in short, exposition-heavy chapters where not a whole lot happens. I actually considered doubling up some of these early chapters to get to the "good parts" faster, but that'd be cheating. I'm sure if we devote our analytic powers to the task, we can find points of interest. Onward!

GoF 3: The Invitation

No matter how much Aunt Petunia wailed that Dudley was big-boned, and that his poundage was really puppy-fat, and that he was a growing boy who needed plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfitters didn't stock knickerbockers big enough for him any more. [...] Dudley had reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale. (29-30)

And so Petunia puts Dudley (and Harry and Vernon) on a diet. I understand the point JKR's making about Dudley's parents spoiling him, but the characterization of fat people in the HP books still bums me out. (Yes, I know I say this every book. I'm sure I'll say it again when we get around to Umbridge in OotP.) What starts out as Dahlesque grotesquerie in the earlier books starts to sound nastier as the portrayal of the Dursleys becomes increasingly realistic. I understand that Dudley isn't a nice guy and that Harry has reason to be resentful, but it still makes me cringe.

Harry had sent Hedwig to his friends with please for help, and they had risen to the occasion magnificently. [...] Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of his own home-made rock cakes (Harry hadn't touched these; he had had too much experience of Hagrid's cooking. (30)

If he knows Hagrid can't cook, why would he ask him to send food? Maybe he literally asked Hedwig to send word to "his friends", and she decided who that meant. I really wouldn't mind hearing more about the way post owls work.

[Harry] had received four superb birthday cakes, one each from Ron, Hermione, Hagrid and Sirius. (31)

Others have suggested that Sirius must have stolen a cake to send to him, but that's not necessarily true if his bank account is still intact, as it was in PoA.

[Molly's letter:] It would be best for Harry to send us your answer as quickly as possible in the normal way, because the Muggle postman has never delivered to our house, and I am not sure he even knows where it is. (32)

Molly's letter is very courteous and reasonable, and perhaps even "the normal way" is forgivable, since she's not the one who's supposed to be an expert on Muggle culture, but you have to wonder why Arthur let her put a hundred stamps on the thing. Well, maybe you don't wonder... His ignorance is pretty pervasive in the books. I guess it's a point about just how remote the wizarding world has kept itself from Muggles, if the man who's supposed to know the most is still astonishingly clueless.

A slight spasm crossed Uncle Vernon's large, purple face. The moustache bristled. Harry thought he knew what was going on behind the moustache: a furious battle as two of Uncle Vernon's most fundamental instincts came into conflict. Allowing Harry to go [to the World Cup] would make Harry happy, something Uncle Vernon had struggled against for thirteen years. On the other hand, allowing Harry to disappear to the Weasleys' for the rest of the summer would get rid of him two weeks earlier than anyone could have hoped, and Uncle Vernon hated having Harry in the house. (33-34)

Thinking more critically than Harry does, we can come up with a better motivation for Vernon. He isn't motivated by a desire to make Harry unhappy, but to maintain the fiction that magic doesn't exist. Sending him off to a magical game doesn't exactly help that.

Harry plays his trump card -- he says he's going to write to Sirius.

[Harry] could almost see the cogs working under Uncle Vernon's thick, dark, neatly parted hair. If he tried to stop Harry writing to Sirius, Sirius would think Harry was being mistreated. If he told Harry he couldn't go to the Quidditch World Cup, Harry would write and tell Sirius, who would know he was being mistreated. (35-36)

Oh, get real. Being told you can't go to a sporting event is not "being mistreated". You might think Harry, who actually has been mistreated, would know that. Instead, his resentment carries over to irritating but not abusive behavior. Anything the Dursleys do must be abusive and sadistically motivated.

It's interesting that Vernon accepts Sirius (whom he still believes to be a mass murderer) as more frightening than your average wizard. Even within his continual overreaction to magic, he can distinguish between a dark wizard and a good one.

[Ron's letter:] Mum's writing to the Muggles to ask you to stay. (37)

[Harry's letter:] Ron, it's all OK, the Muggles say I can come. (38)

Harry echoes Ron's way of referring to his family. It seems more innocent coming from Ron, who's barely even met a Muggle, but markedly distancing/depersonalizing when Harry says it. Link that back to "Wormtail", and you have a pattern of Harry finding dehumanizing ways to refer to people whose true motivations he doesn't want to contemplate.

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