Snapedom

Absolutely WORD!!

I so agree with everything you've said here! Reading the Potter books are an execise in doublethink, knowing what right and wrong is and yet having to believe that right is wrong when the wrong person is doing it and wrong is right when the right person is doing it. And I so, *so* detest the way the author is *nudging* me all the time; "look, look, the fat boy is choking on a toffee! hah hah! Isn't it funny how his stupid parents flap around like distraught animals flapping around their wounded offspring?! hah hah! The fat kid's tongue is all thick and gross and he is getting all purply and blue! This is even better than *last* time when we gave him a pigs tail! Hah hah!"
I swear, every time I read a scene like that I feel as if I have to scrub my eyes with bleach. Ugh.

I really shouldn't say this, because it is not done to psychoanalyze authors by their works, but reading the Potter books and reading JKR's interviews I sometimes wonder if JKR doesn't have a touch of Aspergers herself... (yes, yes, I know people will whack me down for making personal remarks) She simply *does* *not* *seem* *to* *get* that people really don't enjoy watching bullies 'playing jokes' on their victims. She really does not get that what people *do* says more about them than what they *say*. She really does not get that teachers that are 'mean' to you can really be good and even kind people (suddenly a scene from the 'Love Actually' dvd comes to mind. It's one of the deleted scenes where the Headmistress of a school, who has been shown in one scene to be very strict and feared by parents and children alike, comes home to her very ill partner. The scene is so poignant, with them chitchatting about sausages, whilst they both know that one of them is dying. Wonderful movie! *snif*)
I find it very telling that a fully grown, adult woman feels the need to publicly declare that she has created a character (whom she loathes and whom everybody is *meant* to loathe) as a revenge upon her old chemistry teacher because he was 'mean' to her.
Hello? Talk about schoolgirl grudges! Grow the hell up, woman!

I've read your post about Petunia, and I *love* it! JKR is playing such a devious (although devious isn't really the word since JKR seems to do this without actually meaning to) game where she has two parties, a party of nazis and a party of Old Southern Cottongrowing Slave owners. When you say that slavery is wrong, that to kill somebody for insulting a lady (he spits at her, you lynch him), that both the ideologies of Slave owning and fascism are based on the idea that people are unequal, that there are ubermenschen and untermenschen and that's its okay to harass, torture or kill untermenschen because they don't count, then people will shout at you: "if you are against the Slave owners you are for the nazis!! You filthy fascist #@%!!!!"
It's enough to make you bang your head against your desk.

Actually, I've got a few ideas about JKR and her inspirations for the Potterverse which might explain a few things, but I've been typing away for several *hours* now, in response to all the replies I've gotten to my humble post, so it will wait until another day. Hugz!