[ SECRET POST #5618 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5618 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 18 secrets from Secret Submission Post #804.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

... okay, I admit it's been years since I read the book, but how on earth was Harriet a sociopath in HTS? She was a young child who was going through a period of major upheaval to her life and didn't know how to handle it in healthy ways (and also didn't have good adult support), and the entire plot of the novel was her learning that what she had done wasn't okay and how to redirect her feelings into more healthy outputs. Her friends didn't forgive her until she apologized and meant it and showed that she recognized that what she had done to them was wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

It's been a long-ass time since I read that book but I remember being weirded out by her obsessive need to know every damn thing that was none of her business and literally spying on strangers in their homes, while displaying very little empathy towards others

[(Anonymous)]

That's... totally normal kid behavior, though? Kids aren't born with empathy, it's something they need to learn through interacting with other people and realizing that the things they say and do can hurt others.

Also, I take it you have never really been around children because I babysat when I was in college and it was very common for the kids I watched to be able to rattle off things like the scientific names of twenty different dinosaurs/the stats of different Yu-Gi-Oh cards/all of the types of Pokemon/different models of trains. Kids are sponges, if something interests them they want to learn EVERYTHING about it.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT, but I've been around a lot of kids. It's not normal child behavior to break into someone's house and hide in the dumbwaiter to spy on them. That's disturbed child behavior.

Also, not only do most children have the capacity to be kind, many of them are inclined toward it. Sorry the kids you babysat were little shitheels, but that's not "just how kids are."

[(Anonymous)]

literally no one said kids can't be kind? they said they don't always realize that their actions can hurt others, which is completely true. lack of empathy and deliberate malice aren't the same thing and a lot of times kids will do stuff without having any concept of how it might affect someone else, which is why they need adults to guide them.

[(Anonymous)]

This

[(Anonymous)]

Yup this.

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt

lmao I'm the oldest of 4 and have spent a shit ton of time around children. Not fully understanding their effects on others' feelings, sure, I'll give you that. Craftily plotting to sneak into multiple strangers' homes on a regular basis and write down every blessed thing they do and keep dossiers on them? That's not normal child behavior.

[(Anonymous)]

DA - seriously, this. And even if you want to go the "she was just that obsessed with being a spy" route it still doesn't work because all those famous spies had missions. They weren't just picking random strangers to spy on for fun. If Harriet was spying on the vice principal of the school because she'd decided he was rigging grades to help out the football team or something, it would still be a bad course of action but it would at least be more plausible than just "this girl's a voyeur and we're supposed to think it's precocious." Also, the whole plot just falls apart if you make Harriet act like a kid who's obsessed with secret agent/spy games instead of a short adult with a kink. She's carrying a secret notebook full of "spy notes" around with her at school and it's not a journal with a lock (and yes, those existed in the 50s and 60s) or in code? Not buying it.

[greghousesgf]

this. Plus Harriet's mother didn't seem to care about her, no wonder she was much closer to Ole Golly.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know if I would necessarily say that her parents didn't care about her (since they did take her to a therapist once they realized something was wrong), I think it was more that they just didn't know how to handle a child once Ole Golly was gone because she had been the one who had done the majority of the child-raising. I felt like by the end of the book they were taking steps to be better, more involved parents who were invested in her life.

But yeah, there was nothing weird or bad about Harriet's behavior in light of all that. She was just a kid who was trying her best to cope.

[greghousesgf]

In fact, I find one thing about Harriet's mother really confusing. She doesn't have a job and she has a cook and maids so she doesn't do housewife stuff. Harriet even asks her directly what she does and she never answers her, all she says is "a lot of unseen, unappreciated things."