Harry's disposition - the WW doesn't deal with pain

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 94754

> Del wrote:
><minor snip>
> I've been thinking about this, while reading the various posts of 
> this thread which all make very good points. And it became more and 
> more obvious that there's a very simple answer to all those points : 
> there's no such thing as emotional or psychological support in the 
> WW. Not just for Harry I mean, but for *anyone*.
> 
> We all keep wondering why Harry, or Sirius, or whoever, doesn't get 
> the emotional support they need. But in the books, nobody seems to 
> care or wonder about it. It just seems that people are *expected* to 
> just swallow whatever is thrown at them, smile, and go on. I mean, 
> how many times do we see anyone offering any kind of support to 
> someone else ? It does happen, but it's very rare.
> 
> I can think of Mrs Weasley for example, but even she's not terribly 
> good at it : she keeps wanting to hide things from Harry when 
> knowledge would be his best weapon, she doesn't seem to realise how 
> much help Sirius needs, she doesn't seem to see Ron's lack of self-
> confidence, etc... (Don't get me wrong : I truly appreciate 
> everything Molly does for Harry, and I wish I could personally thank 
> her for that hug she gave him at the end of GoF.) I just mean to 
> point out that she doesn't seem to be able to pinpoint very well who 
> might be in need of help, and when, and how to give it. And she's 
> the most caring person we know of in the entire WW... Scary, huh ?
> 
> The other one we see trying to help is Hermione. But Hermione is 
> *Muggle-born* ! She was raised in a world where people are supposed 
> to help friends in need, including emotionally. But because she's 
> got no adults around her to help her figure out *how* to do it, 
> she's sometimes too blunt about it, or on the contrary too subtle, 
> and her efforts fail. Or sometimes, Ron, who was raised in the WW 
> world, stops her, like in the example above.
> 
> One thing that really deeply struck me is that nobody among the 
> students knows about Neville's parents. I remember wondering, way 
> before GoF came out, how come Neville was raised by his Gran. I was 
> a bit surprised that nobody asked him. It's the kind of thing we 
> asked our friends/classmates when I was a kid. We didn't invade each 
> other's lives, but we did know the basics : whose dad was dead, 
> whose parents were divorced, etc... Of course, things like whose mom 
> was in prison, or whose little brother was killed in a car accident 
> didn't come out at first, but they often did in the end, after a few 
> months. So when I read the St Mungo's scene in OoP, and realised 
> that *nobody* at school, not even *Hermione*, knew about Neville's 
> parents, I knew something was very different with the WW. Alice and 
> Frank Longbottom were supposed to be very popular, what happened to 
> them is supposed to have traumatised the WW, and yet not one single 
> parent mentioned the thing to their kid !?!? Not even *Draco 
> Malfoy*, who always knows everything before everyone else, seems to 
> know about it, he never ever taunts Neville about it, and I don't 
> see why he wouldn't if he knew. I think this is very telling of the 
> WW's inability to face trauma and pain. They don't talk about it, 
> they don't help victims, they just pretend nothing happened and 
> expect victims to get better on their own.
> I remember being so glad to see an adult (Moody) taking care of an 
> obviously traumatised Neville after the Unforgivables lesson. But I 
> also remember being *surprised* somehow. Now I know why : it never 
> happened before (an adult giving spontaneous emotional support to 
> one of the kids, I mean). The closest I can remember is McGonagall's 
> gentleness with Harry and Ron when leading them to petrified 
> Hermione, and you can't really call that emotional support, can 
> you ? (I also remember being bitterly disappointed at the end of 
> GoF, when it appeared that Fake!Moody had taken care of Neville only 
> in order to advance his plans, but that's a whole other matter, and 
> at least it *did* do some good to Neville !)
> 
> Just look at Cho as one last example if you're not convinced. The 
> girl lost her boy-friend, she doesn't even know how, she suspects he 
> might have been killed by a mass murderer, the whole WW acts as 
> though it never happened, she's going out with the last person on 
> Earth she should be dating in those circumstances, she's melting in 
> big puddles every 5 feet, and yet I'm ready to bet the entire 
> content of my vault in Gringotts that she never received any help 
> beyond her mom's arms !!
>
Carol:
I couldn't bring myself to snip anything beyond the first few words of
this thoughtful post. I think you're right that the WW has a different
view of pain than we do (especially in the last two decades). As I
mentioned in another post, punishments we would consider barbaric were
still tolerated when Arthur and Molly were in school, so it's no
wonder that Dumbledore is so complaisant about Snape or that Snape
(IMO) thinks his teaching methods will force the students, especially
Harry, to learn what they need to know for VW2, or that students hex
each other in the corridors or the Hogwarts Express with no remorse,
or that Gran is so strict with Neville. What seems like abuse or
cruelty to us is normal to them (with the possible exception of
forcing a house-elf to iron his hands, which would be extreme even by
WW standards).

Snape and Gran aside, I agree that the WW either sees no need to
comfort those who suffer pain (it's part of life; you have to learn to
tolerate it) or they don't know how to do so. I think, too (and please
correct me if I'm wrong) that there's a bit of the stiff-upper-lip
British boys' school culture here. Harry won't complain about
Umbridge's cruel punishment; he won't let her see him suffer; even
when he finally tells Ron and Hermione about it, he won't go to
Dumbledore or McGonagall. (He doesn't want to "rat" on someone,
either, even if that person is wholly despicable like Umbridge.)

I haven't gone back to count, but I remember noticing the adjective
"bracingly" used rather frequently. George, for example, will say
something to Ron or Harry to "brace" or strengthen him to face
whatever the problem or challenge is. A few encouraging words and
everything will be all right. That, and an occasional hug from Mrs.
Weasley or a "I know yeh can do it!" from Hagrid appears to be all the
encouragement that harry or anyone else receives (unless we count a
"well done!" or two from Flitwick for Hermione).

The odd thing, though, is that the Muggle world as represented by the
Dursleys (the Grangers are no doubt a different matter) is in some
respects similar to the WW in its tolerance of abuse and bullying.
Dudley and his fellow students at Smeltings are taught to hit each
other with a Smelting stick to learn "manliness" (bullying) or pain
tolerance or both. Harry is punished rather than disciplined and
expected to accept his various punishments without protest. (Dudley
isn't disciplined at all, but that's another matter.) Maybe Harry's
placement with these particular Muggles has somehow prepared him for
the WW. I'm not saying that's right or good, only that there's a
strange similarity here.

To return to Del's point, I won't go quite so far as to say "there's
no such thing as emotional or psychological support in the WW," but
that support does seem to be limited and largely ineffectual. Their
world is not our world; their standards are not our standards. I've
said elsewhere that Wizards seem to be physically tougher than we are:
you can't kill them in a car accident or by burning at the stake.
Maybe (with the exception of Neville) they're emotionally tougher as well?

I'm not condoning abuse or neglect (as we define them) or advocating a
stiff upper lip, tough-love approach. I'm just trying to understand
why Harry and Neville and Cho are left to deal with their own grief
and why Dumbledore would allow the supposed Moody to Imperio his
students. It makes sense only in a world with the values we held a
century or more ago when corporal punishment was the norm in schools
and sensitve boys were regarded as sissies.

Comments, anybody? I'm trying to see the WW as it's presented in the
books, without judging it or imposing modern, RW standards on it.

Carol