[HPforGrownups] Harry's POV?

[ender_w]

No: HPFGUIDX 15675


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Neil Ward 
  To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 3:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [HPforGrownups] Harry's POV? 


    >Even more amazing is his lack of
  knowledge about his parents and relatives.  How difficult >could it be for
  him to find more details once he'd escaped Privet Drive?  If >I were him, I'd
  be pumping Dumbledore, Hagrid and Ma and Pa Weasley for every >bit of
  information possible about my parents and my grandparents and >I'd demand to
  know why I was stuck living with the Dursleys.  Forget >Dumbledore's
  twinkling old eyes and wise advice - I'd bang my fists on his >well-polished
  desk and tell the old wrinkler to spill the beans, pronto!!!  >But, um, those beans are in Book 7, aren't they? Oh yeah


  I've been thinking a lot about Harry's seeming lack of interest in his parents and their background.  As someone who was adopted at birth (well, actually a month after), I, at first, thought it unrealistic for Harry to be so uncurious (is that a word?).  Ever since early childhood, I've fantasized about my birth parents and who they might be (my adoptive parents never hid the fact of our adoption from my brothers and me).  When I was small, I asked questions constantly, and my curiosity continues even now, but around the time I was Harry's age, I started to learn that birth parents were not something one discussed in casual conversation.  It is a very emotional subject for all parties involved.  Even now that I have made contact with my birth mother, I am very careful about what questions I ask her and what questions I ask about my father and the rest of my family.
      My point is that I imagine that Harry's parentage is a very emotional subject for him.  I would also surmise that any questions he may have had when he was young were met with anger or ridicule by the Dursleys.  He may have learned young that the subject of his parents was one he, himself, wanted to keep private, especially if Dudley teased him by saying things that my brothers and I heard from ill-mannered, Dudley-like, children.  He has met people who were close to James and Lily (Remus, Sirius, Dumbledore), but maybe he senses that discussing his parents, in detail, with them would be very emotional and even inappropriate.  He also has trust issues and, as asking about one's dead parents might expose one's emotions, he might be reluctant to have such an intimate conversation with any adult yet.
      Of course, it could all be just a literary device that Rowling is using to keep the important information out of our reach until book 7.

  ender
      


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