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

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 94638

Laura Ingalls Huntley wrote:
 
(major snip, sorry, had to :-)

> So . . . Hermione wants to talk to Harry about Sirius . . . and 
> Ron *stops* her?!  

(minor snip)

> If Book Six rolls around and Harry is (once again) battling 
> depression and self-doubt to the point that he blows up at 
> innocent bystanders, I will not be one bit surprised or 
> disappointed with him.  Because, you know what?  They *aren't* 
> innocent.  Harry's friends and mentors know him well enough, I 
> think, to recognize when he needs help and to understand that he 
> doesn't know how to ask for it.  Yet, somehow, when our boy really 
> *needs* somebody, everyone around him is either too afraid to 
> confront him or under orders from Dumbledore not to talk to him.
> 
> Strange, huh?

Del :

Maybe not actually :-(
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 !!

Del