[HPforGrownups] Re: Calvinism - SB & SS - 3rd task - Playwizard - What's scary - Halloween

[Marianna Lvovsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 23723

 
> 
> The murder of 13 people is horrific, but that
> doesn't explain why 
> Sirius was treated differently. He was sent to
> Azkaban without the 
> benefit of a trial, while known Death Eaters were
> given trials. 
> (Except for Rozier, IIRC, who killed himself rather
> than being taken 
> in alive.) Furthermore, Sirius' betrayal of his best
> friend is 
> horrible, but what about the other Death Eaters? I
> assume they, too, 
> betrayed friends and family. For some reason, Sirius
> was held to a 
> different standard than the real Death Eaters. I
> think it's because 
> the wizarding community uses the House System as a
> way to determine 
> individual character and to anticipate/stereotype
> individual behavior. 
> A Ravenclaw is in Ravenclaw because he is
> intelligent. A Gryffindor is 
> in Gryffindor because he is brave. So a cowardly
> Gryffindor or a dumb 
> Ravenclaw is unknown (or uncommon). 

But even assuming house characteristics are fixed in
the popular conscious, if Sirius was a Gryffindor or
Ravenclaw, or even Hufflepuff, his becoming LV's right
hand man, and betraying Potters, PP, and blowing up a
street are not signs that he isn't  true to his house.
If only characterisitcs of bravery, cleverness,
loyalty are imprinted, his actions are not
inconsistent with any of those. I think we are making
a mental leap assuming more (Gryff are good, Rave are
good, Huff are good). 

GRYFFINDOR: Brave does not mean noble. One can be a
horrible person and still be brave. A suicide bomber,
a storm trooper, a gangster are warped, horrible but
are probably brave. Sirius' being a disloyal believer
in evil would have nothing to do with his bravery.

RAVENCLAW: The same goes for cleverness/learning. It
is a Ravenclaw characteristic, but it doesn't mean
that a Ravenclaw has to be good. Once again, Sirius
can be a perfect Ravenclaw and still murder 13 people
and betray L&J. Sirius is percieved as a clever,
bright wizard (killing 13 people with one curse is
certainly a complicated trick). And LV would certainly
want an intelligent, knowelegeable second in command.
LV can easily bribe a Ravenclaw with promises of
studies unknown in a legitimate wizard world. Tom
Riddle himself is rather Ravenclaw-like in one
respect: studied too much of the dark arts till they
absorbed him. Now, TR did it because of
domination/immortality, but I can see a purely
intellectual mind going down the same slipperly slope
(IMO Quirrell was in Ravenclaw). One can be clever,
love learning and be horrible. 

HUFFLEPUFF: Hufflepuffs are loyal, but nowhere it is
said that they have to be loyal toa  good ideal. Once
again, SS were loyal to Hitler, but hopefully no one
on this list would think that they were loyal to a
good ideal. The Lestranges were undoubtedly loyal:
they went to Azkaban for their master, tried to bring
him back. The definition of loyalty. Yet, they are
loyal to ultimate evil in wizard world, and tortured
to achieve their master's ressurection. No one's
loyalty necessarily stays with one person/group
through their entire life. Sirius could have switched
his loyalties (for whatever reasons) and became loyal
to V. Loyalty does not mean openness: he did not have
to be open to L&J. So he could switch loyalty and
conceal it from L&J and do his utmost to destroy them
out of loyalty to V, and thus be a good Hufflepuff.
Assuming he really was LV's right hand man, his
behavior to LV was very loyal. 

All four houses characterisitcs are neutral. we tend
to assume that Gryffs are good because it's HP house,
and so are Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff because HP and Co
seem to like them. But as above shows, this is not
necessarily true.

As to why Sirius did not get a trial: that very well
might have been the very first case after LV's fall
(committed immediately after LV's fall) and the trial
system not perfected yet. Later caught DVs were tried
properly (and maybe that's why no one thought to check
SB for black mark, since there were no other DE trials
and so the MoM didn't know about it yet, but only
learned during trials) (during the struggle the Aurors
had shoot-to-kill permission).

Marsha/Marianna 

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