Harrys Curiousity, was Re: The Elusive Harry Fortnight

[joym999 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 17742

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Magda Grantwich <mgrantwich at y...> wrote:

> I am rather surprised at Harry's lack of curiousity about his family
> past.  Now that he's had a few years to get used to the wizarding
> world, I would have thought he'd be spending some time researching
> his heritage.
> 
I wanted to respond to this, although we have discussed this before, 
because I meant to put this in my Harry Character Sketch.

My theory about Harrys curious lack of curiousity about his family is 
that he has decided not to think about them, so as to get on with his 
life.  There is a part in PoA, after one of the dementor-fighting 
sessions with Lupin, where Harry says to himself that is he wants to 
win the next Quidditch match and get on with his life he has to 
forget about his parents, since he has admitted to himself that part 
of him almost wants to face the dementors so as to hear his parents 
voices.  The wizarding world has far more reminders of the dead than 
the muggle world.  Shadows of the dead come out of wands, and can be 
retained by powerful spells (in diaries for example), talking images 
of the dead can exists in portraits, their photos move, their 
reflections can be found in the Mirror of Erised, etc.  If Harry 
didnt make an effort to put his family out of his head, he could 
easily be overwhelmed by all the reminders, as he was by the Mirror 
of Erised and the dementors.  I believe that this explains why Harry 
never makes any effort to research his family; he has made a 
conscious decision not to.  I would love to hear any other theories 
people have about this.

Incidently, I want to say that Ebony was completely right in her 
constructively and gentley offered criticism of my Harry Character 
Sketch; I gave a lot of space to Harry and Rons friendship and almost 
none to Harry and Hermiones.  I apologize, and agree that Harry and 
Hermiones friendship deserves at least as much analysis, I just ran 
out of steam.


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    /   \       Joywitch M. Curmudgeon
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  "How come the Muggles don't hear the bus?" said Harry.
  "Them!" said Stan contemptuously.  "Don't listen properly, do 
they?  Don't look properly either.  Never notice nuffink, they don'."

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