Ron/Sirius parallels

[Kimberly]

No: HPFGUIDX 11626

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer <pennylin at s...> 
wrote:

Oh, let me start out by saying I think I snipped a part about our 
interptetations of anger.  Penny, I'm sorry I misunderstood what you 
were saying.

I said:
> > Ok, I can buy that - it's true we don't know what motivated it   
>>[the werewolf prank by Sirius].  I was assuming it was anger 
>>because the alternative as I saw it was something far more 
>>frightening.  But I may be overlooking another more reasonable 
>>motivation.  What is your
> > suggestion?
> 

Penny:
> :::shrugs:::   I have no suggestions really.  <g>  I'm just noting 
that
> we don't know the full story; therefore, I don't think it's fair for
> people to make judgments about who was the wronged party in that
> scenario without having all the facts (or more of them than we do).
> Snape *appears* to be the aggrieved party, but things aren't always 
as
> they appear to be in the JKR universe IMO.

But then we go back to the thing that I've been trying to explain.  
I'm not interested in the least in who was the wronged party, only in 
what may or may not have motivated Sirius, and the facts we have are:
 
-Snape did not get along with James/Sirius et al
-Lupin was in werewolf mode.
-Sirius told Snape how to get past the Womping Willow to where Lupin 
was.
-By all accounts the above was a prank, but nobody makes motivation 
100% clear.
-James saw the danger in what was happening and stopped Snape from 
getting hurt.
All of the above points seem to be accepted by all parties involved.
What I was trying to do was extrapolate possible reasons for what 
Sirius did.  I came up with the options I mentioned previously, and 
of all of them I chose anger/hot-headedness as (in my opinion) the 
most reasonable and least heinous of the possibilities.  I wasn't 
trying to say poor defenseless Snape was attacked by horrible Sirius, 
just that the act of sending Snape after Lupin occurred, by all 
accounts, and the most reasonable explanation I could come up with 
was a rash or angry decision.

I said: 
> > I may be remembering wrong, but I'm pretty sure he says in PoA  
that
> > he went looking for him, and that he wanted to kill him, but that
> > Peter was too quick for him.  Can anyone tell me if I've made > > 
> >that up in my head?  It wouldn't be the first time, I admit.  But 
> >even if I got that wrong, as I understand it Sirius wasn't much of 
> >a suspect before Pettigrew created the scene, cried out that he'd 
> >betrayed James and Lily and then was 'killed' by him.
> 

Penny:
> Well, I think it's reasonable to assume that he *would* have been a
> prime suspect, even absent that scene with Pettigrew & the murders 
of
> the muggles.  At *that* point, Dumbledore and Remus (and presumably 
most
> anyone else with any knowledge of the situation) thinks Black was 
the
> Secret-Keeper.

Ok, but what about my primary point?  I leant out my books, so I'm 
relying on my memory, which tends to get 'creative' on me all the 
time.  Did I imagine the part about Sirius saying he wanted/intended 
to kill Pettigrew?

<snips for space>

Penny:
> Oh, I see those parallels too.  Really!  I just see *more* parallels
> between Hermione and Sirius.  Maybe it's just me.  I don't have much
> concrete evidence tonight -- sorry.  I think she does have parallels
> with both of those characters, but I just lean toward a Sirius 
parallel
> being a bit stronger.

I'm just trying to understand where you're getting the stronger 
parallels.  Do you mean you see them, but you just can't think of the 
examples right now, or that you feel them, like a gut thing?  I 
totally understand those kinds of things, it's the only thing I have 
to go on in my hopes of Harry/Ginny lovins :)- I know there's no 
evidence that they will have a relationship, I just kinda like the 
idea.  Is that kind of what you're experiencing here?  

I teased:
> >
> > Now now ;), if I can't know the details about the Sirius/Snape
> > incident, you can't know what Hermione told Ron - you can't have 
> >it both ways.
> 
Penny:
> I'm not trying to be intellectually dishonest.  I think I said
> originally (if I didn't -- I meant to) that I *assume* Hermione must
> have told Ron that Harry didn't enter himself into the Tournament.  
>I assume this because she did try to explain Ron's feelings to 
>Harry, so I logically infer that she would have tried to explain 
>Harry's position to Ron at some point.  That could very well be off-
>base, but it wouldn't be very much like Hermione to only give Harry 
>Ron's POV.

I can agree with that, you're probably right that she went back and 
forth between them throughout the fight trying to get them both to 
come around.  She is nothing if not persistant when it comes to 
people she cares about.

> 
> I think we do also know *alot* more about the Harry/Ron fight in 
>general than we do about the Sirius/Snape werewolf prank.  We know 
>enough about the Harry/Ron to make some inferences, but we have 
>absolutely no idea what motivated Sirius to play that prank on Snape.

True, that's why I was trying to understand what *did* motivate him.  
I wasn't trying to belittle Sirius, as I love him to death.  
Basically, we've got heaven knows how long before we get another 
book, and all the speculation is a fun way to pass the time, at least 
in my twisted :P brain.  So I came up with what I thought were the 
possible motivations, and narrowed it down based on what I know of 
Sirius so far.  As I love him, I'm hoping it wasn't cold-blooded 
cruelty, and I don't think he's just dumb.  I'm still open to other 
possible interpretations, and am bound to change my mind a few times 
before I can ever get my hands on book 5.

> 
> > Penny:<snip for length again>
> Harry needlessly prolonged that fight.  But, the
> fight itself was started by Ron.

Once again, you won't get an argument from me on that.

> 
> > Again, we don't know what Hermione said to him or what he was
> > thinking.  I agree it was probably about jealousy, but this is 
even
> > more speculative than my comments on Sirius and Snape as kids, 
since
> > we do have *some* account of that incident.
> 
> See above.  I do disagree with this.  We know what happened in the
> Sirius/Snape incident to be sure.  But, we know zero, zip, nada 
about
> what motivated Sirius to do it in the first place.

I don't know about zero, zip *and* nada ;)- that's an awful lot of 
nothing, after all.  But I don't think my interpretation is 
unreasonable, or even less reasonable than any alternative that's 
been mentioned.  I'm still more than willing to believe another more 
plausible interpretation should one present itself.  It's just I've 
exhausted my supply of ideas on the subject, and no others have been 
presented to me.

I said:
> > But I can't see how this makes him dissimilar to Sirius, as 
>>Sirius did the very same thing to Remus.  Lupin had done nothing to 
>>make his friends suspect him of being disloyal, but they distrusted 
>>him so much that they left him completely out of the decision to 
>>change secret-keepers.

Penny replied: 
> Dumbledore and others suspected that *someone* close to the Potters 
>was passing information to Voldemort.  Something convinced Sirius 
>that he should trust Pettigrew rather than Lupin.  It was a wrong 
>decision, but we still don't know all the facts surrounding how he 
>came to that decision.

And *everyone* at Hogwarts and from the other schools and from the 
ministry except for Harry himself, Hermione, I think Hagrid, and 
Dumbledore, suspected that Harry did something to get his name in 
that cup.  Ron wasn't just making up some wild accusation - he was, 
albeit wrongly, agreeing with all but 4 of the at least hundreds of 
people involved.  It, too, was a wrong decision, but had it been 
completely unthinkably rediculous to believe Harry put his name in 
the goblet, then more people would probably have noticed.  So they 
both made wrong, misinformed decisions against their friends based on 
the evidence as they saw it, and in Ron's case probably also based on 
hurt feelings and jealousy.  At least that's the way I view it.

> 
> Anyway .... I still think Hermione has more parallels to Sirius than
> Ron, but we can just agree to disagree, right?  <g>
> 

Sure, of course!  I'm not trying to force you to agree with me, I 
promise!  I just got the impression I was in for some enlightening 
debate that might shed new light on the characters, that's all.  But 
there's always plenty of that around, that's what makes it so 
interesting here!

Peace,
kimberly