Brian Cole’s Reviews > Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows > Status Update

There had to have been some serious emotional abuse and neglect in the Evans home for Petunia to have turned out that way. It doesn't really justify how she treated Harry, but the way she talked her parents' pride in having "a witch in the family" spoke volumes. And I mean really though, who wouldn't build an infinite store of resentment over being left out of something like that?

I mean, sure I like the idea of Dudley being a chill dude at the end but there's no build up. No letters sent by Dudley to Harry while he's at Hogwarts in secret wanting to know what he's up to or anything tying them together at all. This should have had some lead-up. It could have hit harder and felt more meaningful if Dudley had started coming around by book 5 or 6.

Hmm, no. No. Sorry, but no. I've been binging the series from book one until now without pause and no, you can trick me with this sudden face-turn of Dudley's. He's a piece of shit, he's always been a piece of shit, he'll grow up to be a piece of shit. He probably grew up to be the Harry Potter universe's Boris Johnson. You can't have a character like this just all of the sudden turn out okay. It doesn't work.