[HPFGU-Movie] Re: Harry and Sirius

[Sherry Gomes]

Richard
The point I was making is why Harry should feel anything for Sirius at the 
end of PoA. He's spent the months since he first heard of him despising the 
man. In one moment in the shack, the relationship does an about-turn (which 
is fine as such), but what gets me is the depth of Harry's affection for 
Sirius *at that moment*. Several non-HP-reading people I know came out of 
PoA and asked not "who wrote the map?" or "why a stag?", but "why does 
Harry suddenly like Sirius so much?". The second question frequently was 
"how much of the book's dialogue was overlooked from that relationship?", 
because the change simply didn't work (the answer is, there's more dialogue 
in the film than the book).

At the same time, the significant relationship Harry's built up with Lupin 
over the months all but disappears. Just because Sirius has a legal "claim" 
to Harry doesn't explain why Harry should immediately fall for his charms 
while side-lining Lupin. As far as I'm concerned, this is somewhat fixed in 
that the final scene with Lupin (both in the book and film) are more 
touching and seem more intimate than the scene with Sirius, but 
nevertheless, to get back to where all this started, it doesn't explain why 
Harry should consider Sirius to be a better correspondent in GoF than Lupin 
- or, for that matter, Dumbledore, who presumably knows more than anyone 
what's going on, and is more readily to hand.



Sherry now:

I'll make a crack at explaining it.  both Lupin and Dumbledore are
professors, teachers of Harry's not personally close enough.  Suddenly, in
Sirius, Harry has someone he can think of as all his.  his thinking at the
beginning of GOF the book, since the movie didn't bring this out, was that
he wanted someone like a parent.  Neither Lupin nor Dumbledore filled that
role for him.  Hmmm, how to explain it?  Sirius is his father's best friend,
even closer than Lupin.  He has a link to the parents Harry desperately
wants.  He offers Harry a home, Harry's own home, a place where he would be
wanted and loved.  Harry's longed for that.  Neither Lupin nor Dumbledore
would offer him that.  And even though Sirius can't follow through at the
time, Harry has that dream.  It's so hard to find the right words to explain
it, because it's something I understood instinctively.  much of my affection
for Sirius is based on my instinctive sympathy with Harry's reaction to him.
Sirius would have been all his, his godfather and guardian, the one his
parents appointed for him, the one his parents wanted for him.  his
relationship with Lupin, though warm and wonderful is still too much teacher
and student for him to feel parental toward him.  And Lupin drops out of his
life in the whole year between the end of POA and the beginning of OOTP.
Whereas Sirius has been in touch.  Sorry, it makes perfect sense to me, and
I don't think i've helped clarify it for you.  

Sherry