“listen… harry’s in trouble, and we could tell mum and dad, but I reckon we should just steal the flying car and go kidnap him in his muggle neighborhood, even though I’m 12 and you’re both 14 and this is a crime and the three of us cant drive”
“excellent”
This is bullshit.
Nobody in Harry’s life – no ADULT – ever did anything about the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Dursleys. Nobody did anything when they were told he was being starved, that there were bars on the windows, that they. Albus Fucking Dumbledore didn’t do anything about it.
Nobody in canon, or JKR herself in interviews or on Pottermore, even uses the word “abuse”. It’s all about how “the Durlseys treated him badly”. Nobody says abuse.
What Ron, Fred, and George did was nothing short of heroic. That they needed to do it is an indictment of every adult in Harry’s life, magical and non-magical alike.
@deadcatwithaflamethrower Need some back-up here because I’m hitting that point of “I want to set something on fire.”
I thought you did a pretty good job, actually. Even when adults are told about the conditions Harry was found in (literally IMPRISONED: remember, folks, the Dursleys were not going to let him go back to Hogwarts in book 2) nobody does anything. Nobody acts on the fact that a family literally imprisoned a child.
Someone I used to follow on LJ/DW was literally imprisoned by their parent. Nobody ever did anything. No one would believe them when they told other adults. No one wanted to believe it.
This shit happens and adults do nothing because it might interfere with their worldview that everything is just fuckin’ peachy…or someone in *power* that they respect/fear has told them not to interfere for the good of some cause/reason or another. That is one of the most terrifyingly realistic aspects of JKR’s books, but it’s glossed over by everyone who doesn’t believe that could ever possibly happen in real life.
And hey: there is more than one way to imprison someone.
(Aside from the fact that my mother locked the door and literally stood in front of it in an attempt to keep me from leaving the house once. Afterwards she pretended it had never happened.)
JK is actually on record (a radio interview, I think, but don’t quote me) as saying she doesn’t think the way Harry was treated by the Dursley’s was abuse.
That was the moment I lost all respect for her.
I do not care that she donated millions to charity, I care that she clearly thinks starvation and swinging a frying pan at a child’s head is an okay thing to do. That it’s okay to put bars on a child’s window to keep them in, and bolts the door shut.
@jabberwockypie Now I feel like setting something on fire too. *passes the chocolate and marshmallows*
Just … *SCREAMING* So. Much. Screaming and FIRE.
See, when I learn things like this, I also become somewhat Concerned about the person’s children. (Jude Watson has a daughter and considering the Jedi Apprentice stuff, I’m ALSO worried there.)
Do I think JKR would lock her kids in their rooms with bars on the window? Probably not, but if you’re not willing to admit that withholding food and is abuse, if you’re not willing to address emotional abuse and gaslighting AT ALL, trying to make a child hate themselves (like with what the Dursleys do with magic). I’m extremely concerned about what you think appropriate parenting looks like.
Frankly I also think it’s extremely irresponsible when your intended audience consists of children and teenagers. At some point somebody needs to say “This thing that happened to this character was wrong”. Because children who are being abused? we don’t KNOW. Or we don’t necessarily process it that way. It’s “not that bad” or it’s “It’s not like they’re beating me.” and every time it gets worse (the time my mother gave me a black eye), you move the goalposts of Not That Bad “It’s not like it’s ALL THE TIME”.
Published
knitting in the dark 