A Sirius Offense, Round 2 (WAS a Sirius Defense,

[judyserenity]

No: HPFGUIDX 35097

Penny, I'm afraid I just don't have the time to reply to 
everything you said.  You brought up some good points about Snape's 
nastiness.  For the past week or so, I've been wanting to do a post 
with some of my ideas about Snape, and I hope to get to that soon.  
For now, I'll stick to Sirius.

Penny said:
> I think you're quite right that the PoA Sirius is very different 
> from the GoF Sirius.  But, my take has always been that PoA Sirius 
> is, if nothing else, suffering from extreme stress (and IMO more
> likely PTSD). GoF Sirius has had some respite -- he's taken refuge
> & gotten some R&R, had a few chitchat sessions with Dumbledore via 
> owl post & had some time to reflect.  GoF Sirius is very different 
> ... but he's the most recent Sirius we have.  I'm curious why you're
>  willing to dismiss everything there is about Sirius in GoF simply 
> on the basis of his conduct in POA when he was under extreme stress? 

OK, it looks like we agree that Sirius behaves quite differently in 
PoA than in GoF. As you say, the basis for my judgment of Sirius is 
his PoA behavior, while yours is his GoF behavior.  You see a 
concerned godfather; I see, well, if not a crazed knife-wielder, at 
least an impulsive guy who puts others at risk and has contempt for a 
lot of people (not just Snape -- I'm thinking, for example, of Sirius' 
reasons why Peter would be a good secret-keeper.)

Why do I weight his PoA behavior more than his Gof behavior?  Ok, that 
is a fair question.  And my answer is -- because Sirius is an 
important character in PoA, and not in GoF.  Heck, he's the central 
character in PoA (other than Harry); the book is even named for him.  
He really plays no role in the plot in GoF.  I basically just gloss 
over everything Sirius does in GoF, because it's the plot that matters 
to me, and he isn't really in it. Now, if Sirius was a real person, 
this would be unfair, but since this is literature, I can't hurt 
Sirius' feelings, or send him to Azkaban unfairly, or anything, so 
it's OK.

You see PTSD as the answer why Sirius behaves differently in PoA than 
GoF.  I don't; I don't see any explanation for it.  He's sending Harry 
fatherly advice just a month or two after he tried to choke him.  I 
think he's just plain written inconsistently.  Maybe that's another 
reason why I just can't get into Sirius -- he's not a believable 
character. 

Penny also said:
>I see no other canon evidence though that Sirius runs 
> rough-shod over everyone who isn't in his "inner circle."

Hmm, I talked about this a while ago; it should still be in the 
archives.  I don't want to go over the same ground again. 


Penny added:
> As I said when I jumped into this thread, it caught my eye simply 
> because it was titled "Snape vs. Sirius."  As if a reader can only 
> like one or the other, but not both; as if one absolutely must 
> *choose* between the 2 characters. 

Ah, that is very interesting.  I think maybe we have a 
misunderstanding here.  Originally, the thread was entitled something 
like "Sirius and Snape", but everyone replying seemed to like one or 
the other, not both.  So, I changed the title to "Snape vs. Sirius" 
because I thought it better reflected the thread's content, and I 
thought it was funny that fans' opinions mirrored the conflict in the 
book. It was just in fun. I certainly didn't mean that fans can't like 
both, or that I want the two characters to go on being enemies, or 
anything. In fact, as I said in an earlier post, I'm not just a fan of 
Snape's. I'm a huge Lupin fan, too, despite Snape's antipathy towards 
Lupin in the books.  (Alas, I have not had time to respond to the 
anti-Lupin slander, some of it very creative, that apears in the "Why 
Suspect Lupin?" thread.) It would be nice if Lupin and Snape would 
resolve their differences in the next three books. (On the OT-Chatter 
list, I had a non-serious ship post in which Lupin and Snape became 
lovers.) Obviously, I don't like both Snape and *Sirius*, but we've 
had quite a few people here say that they do. 

-- Judy