Vernon Dursley

**Vernon Dursley** is a recurring antagonist in *Harry Potter*. He is Harry's cruel uncle.

In the movies he was portrayed by the late Richard Griffiths.

## What Makes Him a Hated Character?

* Along with his wife Petunia, he is very cruel to his nephew, forcing him to sleep in a tiny cupboard under the stairs for all of his childhood.
* He ignored most of Harry's birthdays, and even on the ones that he didn't he would give Harry something minor like a pair of his old socks.
* While Petunia has a tragic backstory explaining her dislike of Harry, as she's resentful of magic users for the fact her witch sister Lily was able to go to Hogwarts and was allegedly considered the favorite child by their parents, and Harry also serves as a walking reminder of the fact that Petunia was never able to reconcile with Lily after they had a falling out before Lily was murdered by Voldemort, something Petunia remains regretful of, Vernon's only reasons for hating Harry are that he considers wizards and witches freaks due to not being normal, as well as the fact that he had a bad experience with Harry's father. These reasons are very petty in comparison to Petunia's.
* While Petunia does seem to hold some genuine love for Harry deep down, as she feels a genuine obligation to take care of Harry despite her resentment of him and she kept his baby blanket and wanted Harry to have it after she died, Vernon for real hates his nephew. When Harry was going on trial for use of magic outside of Hogwarts, Vernon outright stated he hoped Harry got the death penalty. He was also perfectly willing to throw Harry out of the house and leave him at the mercy of the Dementors before Petunia stopped him.
* Even outside of how he treats Harry and the wizarding world, he's a horrible person in general; it's mentioned that he loves bullying his employees around at work, judges people based on how expensive their cars are, and supports capital punishment on alleged criminals.
* He encourages his son Dudley to bully Harry.
* He states that Harry's parents deserved to die and that the world was better off without them.
* When Harry sends the Dursley's away to safety in *Deathly Hallows*, despite the fact that Vernon started to respect Harry a little and was about to shake hands with him but couldn’t bring himself to do it, he is still a hated person since this was only in the very end, as majority of the series he treated Harry cruelly. Even Petunia and Dudley felt remorse for how they treated Harry (the former kept Harry's blanket and wanted to apologize, while the latter did say sorry and even patched up his terrible relationship).
* He never shows any gratitude towards Harry after he saved Dudley from Dementors.
* While his abuse methods were not as cruel as his sister Marge Dursley, he compensates by mistreating Harry for far longer, making him the quantity to Marge's quality.

## Trivia

* J.K. Rowling herself admitted that Vernon was her least favorite character, even ahead of Dolores Umbridge and the Carrows.
* In the movie adaptations, Vernon's negative traits and mistreatment of Harry were somewhat toned down. For example, he never says Harry's parents were freaks who got what they deserved, nor does he express hope that Harry be put to death or try to throw him out of the house after learning about the Dementors. However, he still qualifies as a Hated Character due to how horribly he treated Harry.