Basic Information
- ID: I0100
Analysis
Every fan fiction author who attempts to deal with the problem of Harry’s home situation has to account for Arabella Figg. What, exactly, was her role? Different authors have different takes on this, and much of the answer depends fairly heavily on how they interpret Dumbledore. We ultimately have a few possibilities:
- If Dumbledore
is aware of how bad things are
- Dumbledore’s instructions on when to report are focused on external threats. She is not to report on internal threats.
- Arabella reports things regularly, but like most adults, is so locked into trusting Dumbledore that she does nothing else.
- Arabella reports things regularly and is massively upset that nothing happens, but as a squib, she has no recourse to the magical government and whatever it is that prevents other, normal, adults from noticing something is wrong with [Harry]’s living situation also prevents her from effectively alerting the non-magical government.
- Arabella is complicit in making things bad on Dumbledore’s orders.
- If Dumbledore
is not aware of how bad things are
- Arabella reports things regularly, but Dumbledore discounts her reports. See above on her status as a squib.
- Arabella is complicit in making things bad, and Dumbledore is wrong to have trusted her with this mission.
- Arabella is herself not aware of how bad things are.
- Arabella is an old lady from a by-gone era who does not consider Harry’s experiences worthy of intervention.
- Arabella is not mentally capable of noticing things are problematic.
- Arabella shares with the rest of the wizarding world a certain cluelessness about non-magical fashion and so does not realise that Harry’s clothing is odd. The Dursleys successfully hide their abusive behaviour from the neighbourhood. Arabella does not understand why Harry has the reputation he does, but does not associate that reputation with deliberate malice on the Dursley’s part. In other words, she is in part taken in by their act, and in part hopelessly naive.1
This view is taken by r2r4l in Yet Another Harry Potter Goes To Hogwarts Story (YAHPGTHS) Published 2014-10-29. Updated: 2015-09-24. Last Viewed: 2021-08-31.↩︎