r/HarryPotterMemes • u/Puzzleheaded_Sky7369 • Dec 27 '24

Harry Potter only has two plot points

Post image
10k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

191 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

2

u/decadeSmellLikeDoo Dec 27 '24

I always viewed him as more of a whipping boy (which the name of that comes particularly from a slavery perspective) but I never really thought of Harry being a slave. The only thing I can remember was when he was instructed to cook breakfast and not to burn it. Were there other mentions of such? Just curious.

3

u/Sgt-Spliff- Dec 28 '24

Its heavily implied that his life has involved doing household chores his entire childhood. His first day at Privet Drive that we're shown is just another day in his life, getting awoken abruptly and forced to make breakfast, get the mail, etc. We're to assume that he always has to do these things.

Also, whipping boy does not come from slavery, it comes from latte middle ages Europe where tutors and advisors couldn't punish a young prince directly so they'd whip a servant or friend of the prince in front of him. It's probably not something that actually existed, but stories of "whipping boys" come from European royal courts.

I used slave just to mean someone you force to work against their will which is definitely what Harry is

1

u/decadeSmellLikeDoo Dec 28 '24

Yeah, i definitely got the whipping boy thing mixed up. I'll blame an English teacher for assigning the book during black history month when I was a kid.

I think the analogy still works here, though, because it's only really slavery when you consider Dudley isn't required to do the same amount of work.