{"id":65,"date":"2010-12-09T14:07:08","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T22:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=65"},"modified":"2010-12-09T14:07:18","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T22:07:18","slug":"mark-re-reads-harry-potter-and-the-sorcerers-stone-chapter-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2010\/12\/mark-re-reads-harry-potter-and-the-sorcerers-stone-chapter-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Re-Reads \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHarry Potter and the Sorcerer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Stone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122: Chapter 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the third chapter of <em>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Stone<\/em>, the Dursleys are the worst people ever. Seriously. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to re-read <em>Harry Potter<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->No, really. Aside from Dudley, the Dursleys <em>never<\/em> get better at all. I recall reading this chapter and thinking Uncle Vernon comes completely and irrationally unhinged by the end. In my head, it was a great idea to write a review that was made up entirely of a fake set of notes written by Vernon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s imaginary therapist. <em>What.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>That being said, Vernon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s breakdown once the letters overload his life is really frightening to read. I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6he took them to a shack on a rock in the ocean. <strong><em>WHERE WERE THEY GOING TO GO AFTER THAT<\/em><\/strong>. I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6were they to just stay there forever? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clearly exaggerated for the humor of the situation, but once you actually stop and think about it\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6man, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really, really creepy.<\/p>\n<p>This chapter solidifies my hatred for the Dursleys and somehow I hate them more than Voldemort. They play an active hand in giving Harry an awful, awful upbringing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insinuated at the beginning of this chapter that they left him in the cupboard for WEEKS. Maybe months? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know when Dudley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s birthday is, but still, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a really terrifying concept.<\/p>\n<p>The hints towards the hatred of magic are here in this chapter, though at first it seems to come more form Vernon. But even this early on, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t catch on to Petunia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction to all this.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Vernon,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153look at the address\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhow could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re watching the house?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reading a bit too much into this, but it feels as if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a subtext of Petunia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fear of Dumbledore here, especially the idea that she isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to get away with what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know, the way she focuses on the surveillance aspect seems to me that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worried the magical world has seen what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happened in the last ten years.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Should we write back?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tell them we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Petunia, you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have such good luck the last time you did that.<\/p>\n<p>I feel that this entire chapter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theme is of denial: Vernon and Petunia are in denial that Harry is going to return from the world he came from and that magic is going to be in their house. Their prejudice against magical people binds everything, but they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to ever truly face it. Until now.<\/p>\n<p>This is a short review for a short chapter, and I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m comfortable posting a review for each chapter, even if they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t too long. It might take a long time to get through this book again, but we do have <em>Deathly Hallows: Part II<\/em> to look forward to. Maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get done by then!<\/p>\n<p>Next up: The introduction of my astral plane, leather daddy boyfriend Hagrid. Also known as the moment I started falling in love with the <em>Harry Potter<\/em> series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the third chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Stone, the Dursleys are the worst people ever. Seriously. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to re-read Harry Potter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,8,7],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harry-potter","tag-harry-potter-and-the-sorcerers-stone","tag-jk-rowling","tag-mark-reads-harry-potter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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