this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Harry Potter
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Hey look, there it is again in the one I’m at now. Hermoine to Potter: “What’s wrong with your hand?” Potter: “Nothing.” (This was the Dolores torture). Hermoine actually finds out, which is refreshing. "You've got to tell Dumbledore." Harry: "No. Dumbledore's got enough on his mind right now." Freaking stupid, Harry.
This “is anything happening?” “No, nothing.” exchange with Potter is constant in this series.
Dude the ball tops of my thigh bones were literally sliding off the bones (they failed to fuse for me) in middle school. I was limping and would have insane attacks if pain when they moved a fraction of a millimeter.
Parents, teachers, friends: what's wrong? Me: nothing
Kids hiding bad things is the most real part.
People hide important things for dumb reasons in the real world, but it's unsatisfying, lazy and overused in fiction. Especially in HP.
Oh no no.... I was the opposite. I was a whiny little bitch. Broke a finger nail? "Moooooooooom!!!!"
Most kids don't hide blatant injuries or health problems people are just trying to cope with bad writing.
Hate this fucking site it's full of contrarian bullshit just like reddit
Most healthy kids. Kids who grow up in supportive homes. But abused kids? They hide injuries all the time. In fact, they'll hide anything that has a chance of putting them in the spotlight of adults they think even might potentially abuse them, let alone the adults who actually do.
I think people forget that Harry was physically at times and definitely emotionally/verbally abused for the first 11 years of his life. He has a lot of responses that are conditioned into kids who grow up with abuse. He doesn't want to be a bother because he's psychologically predisposed to believe that doing so will make them care less about him and that's the last thing he wants. It's a lot of the reason Hermione and Ron both have such a decent relationship and friendship with him. They both in their own way go out of their way to show to Harry that they do care. And that they aren't going anywhere (despite some growing pains during the GoF, and the bit in the Deathly Hallows where Ron storms off and gets caught by the snatchers. Despite the few times they don't see eye to eye and argue they do show that they value each other.
But when you're conditioned to think you aren't valuable you go out of your way to protect the people who see value in you, even in misguided ways like saying nothing is wrong when everything is.
I cannot overstate how much not only does Harry do it every movie, but all the other characters as well.
"Kids hiding bad things is the most real part".
You're watching a story set from the kids point of view. We (the audience) aren't privvy to what the adults/teachers are doing, just like the kids.
And from Harry's perspective, he's got a lot going on, and this is just "another removed teacher". Keep in mind this is a Brit story - ask a Brit what their schooling was like (had some insightful discussions 20 years ago with my older Brit coworkers).
JK was what, 30-40 when she wrote this? So went to school in the 70's.
Lol, I love the "removed" bot. It almost makes things taste better!
Give me a break man. I was sick for most of my childhood. You know what I did? I told my parents when I was getting sick. I guess that must be a shock to the morons in this thread trying to pretend that kids are utter dumbasses so they don't have to criticize a story.
Who said kids are dumbasses? Project much?
My experience, as a kid, was that asking adults about things, or trying to tell them anything, was pointless. They were a bunch of thickheaded idiots. This was my experience with practically every teacher too, through college (which was 30+ years ago for me).
We're all flawed, imperfect. Effective ommunication is hard.
Can't say it any better than Marcus Aurelius:
His point is that everyone contends with the apparatus of a quite imperfect, continually breaking down physical being, on top of anything going on in our heads, making everything that much more difficult.
Kids don't grok this yet, so can't comprehend what being old like Dumbledore (or hell, even 45) is like.
Plus, Harry would naturally have a distrust of authority figures due to his upbringing. I'm sure he got used to hiding stuff from the Dursleys.
Dumbledore thought Harry was a Horcrux mate, he was avoiding him since the start of the year.