Line up, line up, one and all! For a limited time only yours to enjoy is this deluxe-quality old rehashed debate: exactly how miserable should our old boy be? Please feast your eyes on the opinions below.

Caution: this thread will self-destruct in three days.

-Palindrome

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Does Harry ever show this kind of behavior in canon? Pretty sure the first hug he ever gets goes fine and doesn't involve him freezing up at the touch

 

Correct. Harry is despite book five a very plucky go-and-get-em type. It is probably his best quality and makes him a big joy to read/write.

In fact, he is explicitly pleased with contact from Mrs. Weasley, Hermione, etc.

And even with the Dursleys, Harry enjoys giving backtalk. He's not meek or afraid of them.

 

My biggest pet peeve is Harry becoming emotionally attached to the first person to provide him with any degree of comfort or assistance- this is usually explained as Harry being desperate for affection (which makes me severely uncomfortable in itself), but how hasn't Harry developed defense mechanisms to shield him from false hope and developing unhealthy attachments to people? It's (I believe) not canon but in 10 years of being emotionally and verbally abused by the Dursleys (if not physically), surely Harry had tried to talk to someone? Or even if not, it would have been quite obvious to other muggles that Harry was not living the same quality of life as Dudley?

 

I thought Petunia hit him with a frying pan in canon? They called him "freak", is that not considered verbal abuse to you?

 

I don't recall Harry ever getting hit by anyone other than Dudley, and, other than the time he was half out of his mind with panic because of a Dementor, that was entirely implied, rather than shown. He was made to do most of the chores and otherwise largely ignored, not beaten or anything. The closest the Dursley came to actual physical abuse was his food, where they'd give him small(er) portions, especially compared to the rest of the family. From the text, he clearly wasn't being starved, but there were probably times he was pretty hungry and wasn't given enough to satisfy. I wouldn't call that abuse, but someone could probably argue the point.

As for verbal abuse, I'd certainly say the Dursley's behavior qualifies. There was no gaslighting and the like, but it was definitely made clear he was neither wanted nor welcome, when they weren't outright ignoring his existence. And as far as I know, that's a pretty solid part of most definitions of verbal abuse, especially against children.

That said, Harry Potter pretty much never exhibited signs of trauma or developmental issues. He was a fairly well adjusted and normal teenager, with zero emotional, social, or physical issues associated with his upbringing. You could chalk that up to several things, from Harry Potter simply being unusually well-adjusted to Rowling not really getting child psychology to that aspect being entirely irrelevant to the story Rowling was trying to tell, but at the end of the day, the Dursleys didn't manage to do any actual harm to Harry Potter either way.

 

What qualifies "actual harm"? Harry's upbringing made him desperate for affection, and the first "friend" he made led him to danger and underachievement (though that is debatable). If Harry hadn't been influenced like that, he might have been in Slytherin, an different enough environment that Harry might not have been pressured to be "couragous" by running into danger like a Gryffindor.

 

Oh fuck it's 2007 again.

 

She swings a pan at him, but - and can't believe I'm saying this - in her defense...

There is no indication that Vernon or Petunia ever hit Harry. Dudley obviously did. But by the time we get to Petunia swinging frying pans, she has had to witness Hagrid cursing her son with a pig tail that they then had to get surgically removed.

So to be fair, when Harry starts telling Dudley that's he's going to set the garden on fire and starts spouting nonsense, one can see why Petunia acted the way she did. It's not like she just attacked him for the thrill of it or because he burnt toast or some such.

The Dursley's are shitty people who then actually experience magic in a way that justifies their hatred and fear of it and its practitioners: pig tail, tongue toffee, etc. etc.

Also Plotless, might I remind you that I am DLP's perpetually stuck in 2007 living archive of kewlz.

 

This thread has three days to live. Purge style.

 

Thingz Palindrome likes doing:
1. Oppressing and Censoring and purging vlad's posts
2. ???
3. Being much moar awesumz than Vlad

 

You're too kind.

Dictatorships and the movie The Purge are the two tried-and-true methods to running a tight ship. But they must be in balance. Remember mugglenet? Too much purge, not enough dictator

 

I posted this link in another thread. Consider looking over it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yjpdubg7nPY-Lz8h0qKfuzoq47L3d0kG8P4a6KpoYcY/edit

 

My I shamelessly whore and drop this as an exmple of how I regard the Durselys and their general attitude towards Harry.

 

Its perfectly realistic to write him as having some level of resentment for being treated as a burden to the family, and for being kept in the dark about his parents. But the tendency to write the Dursleys as pure sadists who get their jollies by tormenting and torturing Harry is appalling, since its almost always used for cheap angst and drama. And I wouldn't expect 99% of fanfic writers to know how to accurately represent what that kind of abuse does to a developing child.

 

Look it's very clear to me that Harry was not abused by the Dursleys. Was he penetrated by Vernon and Dudley as a family tag team? Undoubtedly. It crops up in too many fanfics to dismiss the suggestion. But Harry is a dirty little slut and obviously enjoyed it. You can't even try to swing it as a statutory rape piece, because as we all know the wizarding age of consent is eleven.

 

It's kind of cheating though, isn't it? After all, Harry's parents signed a marriage contract with Daphne Greengrass.

 

Must be another effect of the the mother's sacrifice buff he has. His parental validation is set permanently at 100%.