Welcome, Toy4x4!
I will probably get ninja'd because I'm a slow typist.
1. You deal your starting hand out of your character deck. Harsk's hand is five cards. The hand size is found on each character card. Those are the ones you can look at, play, give to another character, etc.
2. You do not get to close the location for monsters, only henchmen and villains. The bane cards are marked as such.
3. You are correct with that.
I have only been playing for a short time as well. I am on the first adventure deck of RotR and have been loving it. You will find the community here to be very helpful and knowledgeable.
I am also playing Harsk. Very durable and well-rounded in my opinion.
Hope this helps.
~WCSD