T.L.K. is based on a 1953 movie by the same name which I haven't watched yet, but intend to at some point. It's on You Tube, as is the 1990 version I'm talking about today, which is a good thing, because it's almost impossible to buy. A few years back, one of my sisters wanted to buy it as a Christmas gift for another family member. She searched far and wide online for a copy, and eventually tracked down a VHS tape of it in Australia, of all places. It's even hard to locate photos online from the production- I've literally used all the ones I could find. Fun fact: the movie was actually posted to You Tube by Charlie Miller, who played Davy, the younger MacKenzie brother.
Harry, on the other hand, is just old enough to be able to understand what is happening and why. In some ways, he is older than his years, due to having had to take care of his brother since their parents died, first at the orphanage and then on the trip to Canada. But no matter how mature he's had to be he's still eight years old, too young to be able to process all the traumas and upheavals in his life. His perspectives and opinions are molded by the adults around him. We can see this in his words to Maggie when speaking of his parents' deaths- he is obviously parroting statements he has heard from adults, saying that the Boers killed his father in "that forsaken foreign war" and saying that now their mother has "gone to heaven to be by his side".