Snape vs. Sirius, round 2 cont'd

[siriusgeologist]

No: HPFGUIDX 34763


I read what Penny on this thread and I want to say..."yeah what she 
said!" (big surprise <grin> But I also want to add a couple things:

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "judyserenity" <judyshapiro at e...> wrote:

> As for whether Azkaban is still an excuse for Black's violent 
> behavior, even 10 months later, I don't think so. First of all, 
PTSD 
> rarely makes people violent, unless they were that way to begin 
with. 

Not necessarily.  PTSD keeps the traumatic event in the subjects 
current time frame, causing them to "relive" the experience and the 
response to the experience over and over.  This causes the body to be 
in a state of hyperarousal of the flight or fight response.  So a 
violent response would not necessarily be out of character following 
a violent causitive trauma.  Additionally, PTSD can cause 
dissociation which causes the subject to suffer a type of 
amnesia...this leads to the possibility of Sirius acting not out of 
malicious intent (to the Fat Lady, to Ron, and even nearly choking 
Harry in the shrieking shack) but as an intuitive response to a 
situation where he isn't in control of his response.  

>  Even more importantly, we know that Hagrid recovers almost 
> immediately after leaving Azkaban; he says so.  (He says something 
> like "it was like being born again.")  And, it's repeatedly said 
that 
> Azkaban has much less effect on Black than on other people. Would 
> someone really recover emotionally immediately after 12 years in a 
> horrible place like Azkaban?  In real life, probably not.  But, 
based 
> on JKR's writing, they do in the Potterverse. 

As Penny pointed out Hagrid's and Sirius' Azkaban stays were quite 
different.  Hagrid was in there for a few months for something he 
knew he did not do.  Sirius was in there under heavy security 
(dementors at his door) for 12 years for something he felt was 
entirely his fault even if he didn't actually do the killing 
himself.  Well...he was in for killing Pettigrew and the 12 muggles, 
and while he knew he didn't do *that*, the circumstances that brought 
him to the street where Pettigrew killed all the muggles was 
something he felt guilt over and suffered remorse to an extreme 
(IMHO).  So certainly Sirius would suffer the effects of Azkaban long 
after Hagrid went on about his merry way.
 
> 
> Siriusgeologist said:
> > I don't really see revenge as Sirius' primary motivator for his 
> > actions in PoA. Sirius broke out of Azkaban for one primary 
reason. 
> > To keep Harry from being killed by Pettigrew, whom he alone knew 
was 
> > working for Voldie.
> 
> Well, if that was Sirius' motivations, that would put him in a 
better 
> light.  But, I don't see how it can be.  If Sirius just had a 
selfless 
> desire to protect Harry, why didn't he just bite Ron's pocket and 
eat 
> Scabbers?  Or, why not grab Ron's wand with his teeth, transform, 
and 
> attack Peter?  Instead, he seems to go through this whole "I'm 
going 
> to drag Peter into the Shack so I can make him suffer" thing. 
> 

Weeeeel, it seems JKR states pretty explicitly that Harry's 
protection is Sirius' motivating factor for his escape from Azkaban.  
I don't have the books at work with me so I can't quote chapter and 
verse, but Sirius states his motivations in the shrieking shack.  Can 
anyone back me up on this?  I'll look when I get home, but as Penny 
pointed out while preserving Harry is his primary motivation (why 
should we doubt what JKR wrote), clearing his name is certainly a 
strong secondary motivation.  Eating Pettigrew on the spot would not 
have been helpful in that regard. Furthermore remember that Black and 
Lupin were ready to kill him in the shrieking shack (I assume they 
would have carried the body to dumbledore in order to clear 
Sirius... )

Carole