in our rags of light

[lotesse]

random thought (I'm not panicking, I'm not): now that I'm old enough to identify more with the adult Harry Potter characters than the teen ones, I think maybe the reason why I found capslock!Harry in the books so upsetting, and the fandom dismissal of the issue with "yes teenagers are often little shits this is realism" so utterly didn't work for me, is that I see that sort of sullen withdrawn angry stuff in a canonically abused child character and think "this kid needs help that's too much pain." Which would have been a fine direction for the books to go in, if anyone ever actually acknowledged that Harry was fucked up, if the books in any way dealt with his damage, either by forcing him to struggle against it or by working to process it and heal. But they don't. And that feels really dismissive, to me, of abuse survivors' pain. Not to mention teenagers' pain, which is routinely denigrated and normalized.

Comments

[lannamichaels]

+1

One of my biggest issues with the books is how it treated (and generally didn't) Harry as abuse survivor. I think the most poignant moment was when he asked Sirius if he could move in with him. Harry's just met Sirius, until that day he'd thought Sirius was an enemy, and now he wants to move in. Because anyone's better than the Dursleys.

The abuse he suffers is treated almost cartoonishly. It's so so so horrible, but it's just brushed off like a cartoon character getting hit over the head with a piano. As someone who self-identifies as a survivor of child abuse, yeah, I really dislike it.

[anthimeria]

Yeah, I agree with lannamichaels--it was always a failing of the books for me--or rather, a way in which the books could've broken with the traditional "orphan with terrible childhood" narrative and didn't--that Harry isn't even acknowledged textually as being abused. A ton of symptoms and tells are there, and it definitely shapes how he reacts to things, but none of the adults ever textually even question the choice to value Harry's "safety" from Voldemort via the Dursleys over his mental/possibly physical neglect and abuse at the hands of the Dursleys.

There might be a reason Stealing Harry is my preferred "canon" . . .

[anthimeria]

. . . also, I'm watching HTTYD and reminded that one of the reasons I love that movie is that it's important that people--including and especially adults!--admit they were wrong and apologize, and then go on to change and make amends. Seriously, how often do we get that story, if ever?

[msilverstar]

Having read it as an adult, I was appalled at the abuse and the way it was ignored, and that none of the grownups was willing to help him properly.