Harry's lack of curiosity

[Zarleycat at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 17752

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> Naama wrote:
> 
> > My feeling is that Harry, who went through a huge trauma, is 
> reacting
> > similarly. Yes, it's not quite the same, since he does want to 
see 
> his
> > parents and connect with them is some way. But he has barely 
reached
> > that basic level of connectedness with his dead parents. It is 
still
> > so emotionally raw for him. It seems quite reasonable to me that 
at
> > this stage he would instinctively recoil from investigating his
> > family's history.  

snip
 
Makes sense to me.  And add to that Harry's reluctance to confide in 
adults, so it's not surprising that he doesn't ask a lot of 
questions.  It's almost a "Which came first - the chicken or the 
egg"?" thing.  Harry's experience has shown him that he can't ask 
adults questions (life with the Dursleys) but that adults know more 
about him and his family than he knows, and won't necessarily tell 
him what he might want to know (Dursleys and various wizards).

> It stimulated a few other thoughts.  Harry has had an explanatory 
> story for his parents' absence for 10 years.  Whenever he thought 
of 
> them, he had the car crash story--that's how he assimilated the 
> difficult fact of having no parents.  Now that story has had to be 
> thrown out, which is traumatic in itself.  On top of that, the 
story 
> he now has (a) is more painful and frightening, (b) was told to him 
> at the same time that he got a boatload of new stuff to process 
about 
> himself, his family, and his world (i.e. the fact that the 
wizarding 
> world exists, that he and they are wizards, that the Dursleys have 
> been lying to him about his identity his entire life, etc.), and 
(c) 
> is STILL incomplete.  
> 
> This last point must be really hard to take.  No wonder learning 
> about Sirius Black's connection to them was such a blow; Harry 
> thought he knew at last what happened to his parents, but then a 
year 
> and a half later, he started to hear the details (literally, via 
the 
> Dementors); shortly afterwards and by sheer accident, he learned a 
> crucial part of the story that no one had seen fit to tell him.  A 
> part, mind you, that even his worst enemy knew.  Right about now, 
he 
> must be feeling as if he can't explore what happened to his parents 
> without walking into a minefield.
> 
snip
> Amy Z

OTOH, I think some of this is still driven by JKR's plot plans.  She 
has kept Sirius' interactions with Harry at a distance for the most 
part.  Relying on owl post would not be how you'd expect Harry to ask 
questions, and there is generally some other more immediate crisis at 
hand when the two of them meet face-to-face.  Also, with 
Snape's "accidental" revelation of Remus' lycanthropy, JKR has 
conveniently removed the only other close, living friend of the 
Potters from having frequent contact with Harry.  

Marianne