Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In this video, we’re going to be
discussing a character who has one of the worst reputations in the entire franchise
- behind perhaps only Umbridge, Pettigrew, Cornelius Fudge, and her husband. I am of
course talking about Petunia Dursley aka Petunia Evans.
Petunia Evans was an English Muggle woman- the daughter of Mrs and Mrs Evans, the sister
of Lily Evans, and the aunt of Harry Potter. Despite her obvious despicable nature, the
cold-hearted, evil Petunia that we’re introduced to in the books and films wasn’t always
so bad. In fact, nearer the beginning of her childhood she was actually just a normal young
girl that got a long with her sister- the same sister that she would later despise.
The pair grew up in the town of Cokeworth, close to the town of Spinner’s End where
Snape grew up, and as they grew older Petunia’s sister Lily began to show more and more signs
of magical ability-where Petunia did not. LIly’s magical accomplishments started off
quite small, and though Petunia didn’t think much of them at first, she eventually began
to feel the onset of jealousy. As Lily’s magic grew stronger, she received a considerable
amount of attention from her parents for her gifts, and I think that Petunia, who had none,
just felt left out. Though Petunia was jealous at this stage, she didn’t yet hate her sister.
However, in the year 1971, that would change- as it was the year that Lily received her
letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was a momentous occasion for
the family- most of them anyway - the youngest daughter of the Evans’ family was a witch!
When Petunia saw Lily receive her letter, she felt a rush of emotions - confusion, anger-
but most of all, jealousy, and despite not being magical, she felt compelled to write
a letter to none other than Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts headmaster. Hoping to be a part of
the magical school herself, Petunia stated her case to Dumbledore- and asked if she could
study there with her sister. However, given that Petunia was not magical in any way, Dumbledore
had to politely decline Petunia’s request to attend the school. Though she was declined
entrance for a good reason, Petunia felt hurt and left out, and on this day the jealousy
that Petunia felt toward her sister reached new, darker heights. From that day onward,
Petunia denounced magic entirely- it was a world that rejected her- and the pain that
she felt from her rejection manifested itself in the form of anger toward her sister- whom
she would now refer to as a ‘freak’.
"Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that... that school — and came home
every holiday with her pockets full of frog-spawn, turning tea-cups into rats. I was the only
one who saw her for what she was... a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was
Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"
In the 1970s, Petunia eventually left Cokeworth in pursuit of a career in London. This is
when she first met her would-be husband, Vernon Dursley, the bane of Harry’s existence and
one of the foulest men in the entire franchise. Disgusted with completely bizarre world of
magic, Petunia sought the opposite- the ordinary, and in Vernon she certainly found it. Vernon
was a particularly narrow-minded man, and the majority of their dates were comprised
of Vernon ranting and expressing his shallow outlook on the world around them. However,
nonetheless, the pair bonded over their normalcy- and the pursuit of normalcy. It was the union
of two people who came from very different backgrounds, but both cherished the mundane,
and the predictable. Vernon provided Petunia with the stable, safe environment that she
sought after, and Petunia provided Vernon with an outlet- an ear that he could complain
to.
As their relationship progressed, Vernon proposed, and Petunia recognized that she would eventually
have to tell Vernon about the whole ‘magic’ thing- something which she was sure he would
have strong opinions about. Her main concern was that it would hurt his perception of her,
but when she told him she realized very quickly that it was quite the opposite- it was something
that they could bond over. One day, Petunia confessed to Vernon that her sister was in
fact, a witch. Unsurprisingly, Vernon had a low opinion of magic and the magical world
almost immediately, and, after some discussion - they eventually bonded over Petunia’s
sister, Lily, being a ‘freak’. After Petunia and Vernon had wed they simply moved forward
with their lives pretending that Lily had never existed at all:
“Mrs Potter was Mrs Dursley’s sister, but they hadn’t met for several years; in
fact, Mrs Dursley pretended she didn’t have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing
husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be.”
Eventually, Petunia and Vernon even had a son- Dudley, and they were insistent from
the beginning that, despite knowing that her sister Lily had a son as well, they would
not have Dudley fraternizing with him.
Vernon and Petunia did everything in their power to live the most ordinary, vanilla,
boring life possible, but when Lily and James Potter were murdered in 1981, the magical
world would arrive right at their doorstep- whether they liked it or not.
James and Lily’s brutal murder at the hands of Voldemort meant that the Dursleys were
now responsible for taking care of baby Harry. However, though they ‘raised’ Harry, I’m
not sure that ‘care’ is the right word for the treatment that they gave him.
Instead of celebrating Harry’s magical background, the Dursleys hated Harry for it- and even
worse than that, they hid it from him. They hated any and all things that weren’t normal,
and they were unusually cruel to him, an innocent young boy whose parents had been murdered.
They forced him to live in a cupboard under the stairs, put bars on his windows, tried
to prevent him from going to Hogwarts, and told him that his parents had been murdered
in a ‘car crash’- they were horrible to Harry.
But one thing that I can’t accept at face value in the Harry Potter franchise is that
Petunia truly blindly hated Harry. She was bitter, full of resentment and jealousy- and
determined to banish anything magical in nature from her life, but had she not met Vernon
Dursley, a particularly intolerant man, I’m not sure that this attitude would have been
perpetuated to the extent that we see in the books and films. Did Petunia make Harry’s
life a complete misery? Yes. But was she TRULY rotten to the core? Or was she just a damaged
person with a sort of, tragic existence.
There is one passage from the Deathly Hallows that alludes to all of this and really sticks
out to me:
"She stopped and looked back. For a moment Harry had the strangest feeling that she wanted
to say something to him. She gave him an odd, tremulous look and seemed to teeter on the
edge of speech, but then, with a little jerk of her head, she bustled out of the room after
her husband and son."
In an interview, Rowling actually explains what this meant:
"I think that for one moment she trembled on the verge of wishing Harry luck; that she
almost acknowledged that her loathing of his world, and of him, was born out of jealousy.
But she couldn’t do it; years of pretending that ‘normal’ was best had hardened her
too much."
She had convinced everyone, even herself, that she hated the magical world, but Petunia’s
deepest darkest secret was that she wanted to be a part of it- perhaps more than anything
else. She lived this ordinary life with this ordinary man in an ordinary home, but deep
within her heart, Petunia always had a strong pull towards the exceptionally unordinary-
the magical. Not only that, but Petunia also secretly loved the boy that she always tried
to give the impression of outwardly hating. Harry was the son of the sister that she lost
and loved, he was her family, but in order to cope with her own jealousy and bitterness
she told herself “No” time and time again - “No, I do not care for this boy”.
Rowling had a little more to say on this:
“Petunia had some latent feelings of guilt about the way she had cut Lily (whom she knew,
in her secret heart, had always loved her) out of her life, but these were buried under
considerable jealousy and bitterness. Petunia had also buried deep inside her (and never
confessed to Vernon) her long ago hope that she, too, would show signs of magic, and be
spirited off to Hogwarts.”
So there you have it- Petunia Dursley, one of the most hated people in the entire Harry
Potter franchise, was really just a damaged person who couldn’t cope with the card that
she had been dealt. In a way, despite all of the terrible things that she did to Harry,
I sort of feel bad for Petunia. She felt neglect when her parents devoted their attention to
Lily’s magical nature, and she felt rejection when Dumbledore informed her that there was
no way that she would be able to attend Hogwarts. She was a little girl who likely felt stunted
in the way that she would be able to express herself- as nothing would compare to magic,
and this jealous manifested itself in the worst way possible-sending her down a dark
path.
And that’s it for this video! What do you guys think? Does this change your perception
of Petunia at all? Or is she still just the same lady that made Harry’s life hell?
Let me know down in the comment section below
Until next time
YER A WIZARD ARRY