Join hosts Sam and Sierra and special guests Katie and Tiffany from Swish and Flick Podcast as they discuss the third chapter of Deathly Hallows: The Dursleys Departing
In this episode:
- Deathly Hallows is the best?
- Dursleys, Dursleys, Dursleys
- Vernon and Petunia’s relationship
- Is one redeeming moment enough?
- Dedalus and His Hat
- Poetic Storyline v. Realistic Storyline
- Big D’s new outlook on life
- Give your parents a grandchild… for revenge
- #noclosure
- Forever crying over Hedwig
In fairness to Vernon (not that he deserves much), his knee-jerk suspicion of “abnormal” people has been reinforced by basically every interaction he’s had with wizards, who have all been confusing and/or frightening. And the common-or-garden middle-aged englishman does not respond well to being frightened.
I find it a rather nice analogue that the Dursley’s open-ness to magic is aligned with their level of personal experience with it. Petunia knows more than Vernon, and is grudgingly accepting where he blusters, but Dudley has had the most magic actually affecting him. And even though it’s almost all been negative (pig tail, ton-tongue toffee, dementor), he’s the one able to put aside his prejudice and see Harry as a person.
It’s interesting that the dementor is what causes Dudley to realise that he has been a horrible person towards Harry previously. Do you think he would have otherwise come to see that eventually himself or would his parent’s influence and upbringing prevented that?
Because the irony is that all the negative magical things that happened to him have ultimately made him a more likable person.
That is indeed delicious irony.
I’m always hopeful, but I suspect it would have taken longer for Dudley to come around without the dementor encounter. People, even bullies, do gain maturity, but it can definitely help to have something shock you out of your limited worldview.
Dudley and Draco make an interesting contrast as bullies who get shocked into maturity. Dudley had no problem hurting people, but needed to learn to see them as people (rather than sources of entertainment/pocket money), whereas Draco was fine with the idea of hurting others until it was him that had to do it.
I really love that parallel and want to build on it. In both cases, it’s not that they suddenly learned empathy or to care for others, it was much more about them. For Dudley, the dementor showed him how other people see him. For Draco, it was learning that he himself is not a killer nor a sadist. (And for both, Dumbledore helpfully pointed it out in HBP.)
It’s not a very optimistic outlook in terms of curing bullies – you can’t convince them that “other people matter,” it has to be “you, bully, suck in this specific way. hence, you shouldn’t bully.”
I agree with the “poetic vs. realistic” discussion, and I’ll add that Harry and Dudley are breaking the cycle through allowing their kids to interact. See all the proverbs about planting trees in whose shade you will never sit. Or the Red Skull meme from Infinity War.
Personally, I really like that DH went far more for the realistic route than the poetic one. Extending to no proper redemption for Draco, no poetic justice against Fenrir/Bellatrix/etc, and so on. I think it makes DH a far stronger and far more interesting book than one where the characters and events are molded into fitting the dictates of poetry.
I thought the discussion regarding Dedalus and Hestia was interesting. It made me think, does the Order really have the numbers to dedicate two members to the protection of the Dursleys? I doubt it. I always assumed that Dedalus and Hestia were tasked with transporting the Durselys to a safe location and then would continue their Order duty and check in on them intermittently. Kind of like the witness protection program. I wonder if that was Moddy’s eventual plan, to have Dedalus and Hestia perform other duties for the Order, but upon his untimely death, they were just forgotten about and left to hang out with the Durselys for about a year. Yikes. After Moody dies, the order seems to be lacking leadership, so i fear this is entirely possible.
I’m in total agreement here. The Order’s numbers are perplexing… how are they SO short-staffed that they have to use Mundungus and the entire Weasley family in the Seven Potters debacle, yet they’re devoting two members to Dursley watch?
Having listened to Sam’s chapter summary, I’m on two minds…
On the one hand, I feel bad because I think we broke Sam.
On the other hand, I’m sorely tempted to schedule lots more Dursley episodes just to see Sam’s reaction. I’m sure we can find a few more chapters starring them, and then do a topic episode for each Dursley (including Aunt Marge). This is now “The Three
BroomsticksDurlseys Podcast.”Bahahahahaaha… please don’t. I will picket outside your apartment building.
Pfffft, as if I’d hear it even if you did.
Even though I’m not on this episode, I have some recommended reading! On the topic of Harry packing up his rucksack, I wrote two essays a few years back about the significance of the items he packs:
https://www.mugglenet.com/2021/12/alivening-harry-potter-through-the-christmas-pig/
https://www.mugglenet.com/2022/03/broken-knick-knacks-vs-horcruxes/