The purpose of the Question is not so much for Parzival to know what the Question is, so much as to test whether he's the kind of person who would ask the Question. So why is Parzival still out of luck?
The little courtly training Parzival has had served to curb his natural inquisitiveness. The little Parzival who asked the knight if he was God probably would have asked so many questions during the Gral procession that he would have hit the right one eventually. But the more grown up Parzival - the very same knight who gets welcomed to the Table Round - has other things on his mind. After the Gral comes out, the first we hear of Parzival is only peripherally related to the Gral: "This tale declares that Parzival gazed and wondered on that lady intently who had brought in that Gral, and well he might, since it was her cloak that he was wearing" (125-126). Parzival's thoughts are at least in the right direction, but he is distracted by the gesture he received from the Gral-bearer. Would he have thought of the Question if she had not given him her cloak?
It seems Parzival is put more at a disadvantage by the reception of his hosts than by incapability to ponder. "...they had come to know heartfelt grief. Parzival was not made to know this in any way" (121). Sure, Parzival should notice that the lord of the castle is incredibly ill, but he specifically says that God crippled his body - how was Parzival to know that his compassion could remedy that misery?
If Parzival was supposed to be the kind of person who would as the Question, I am not convinced that not being that person makes him quite the terrible churl that Sigune and Cundrie declare him to be. Parzival was acting in a perfectly rational and polite way given the information that was presented to him, so why should he have to bear such insults because the folks at Wildenberg were disappointed after hardly giving him a chance?
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