Sirius' Prank & Lupin (WAS Dehumanizing Language--Sirius' Prank)

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 34367

Oh, dear.  I was working myself up into a pro-Sirius rant, and then I 
got to the part about the kerosene, which was downright criminal.  
Somehow, the boy who constantly snapped my bra strap in school kind 
of pales by comparison.

This isn't going to be easy, but I'm going to give it everything I've 
got to explain why Sirius is not so bad, and uh, why Sirius is not so 
bad.  A few months ago, I had the same reservations about Sirius that 
you expressed so eloquently, and I've come around a bit since then.  
Not completely, but a good bit.  So here goes, and as a courtesy, 
I'll throw in some Lupin to soften you up before we get to Sirius.

***********

Elkins wrote (about Lupin in the Shrieking Shack):

>Lupin, on 
> the other hand, I'd had an entire novel to get to know and love, 
> so his cold-bloodedness -- he totters perilously close to the 
> borders of outright sadism in that scene, IMO -- was pretty 
> devastating.  It really brought home the extent to which the entire 
> situation was corrupting and dehumanizing everyone that it touched.
> 

I wasn't troubled much by Lupin's behavior in that scene.  I didn't 
see him as cold-blooded, well, at least for a person about to kill 
someone in cold blood.  He had a tragic, no-win situation to resolve, 
and he dealt with it in a methodical, fair, mature and business-like 
manner.  I really don't see any other way he could have reacted 
consistent with his character.  It wouldn't make sense for him to 
take Peter's side against Sirius and Harry.  When Lupin tells Peter 
he should have known what would happen when Peter betrayed the 
Potters, Sirius, and killed the Muggles, well, it's hard to argue 
with that, and Peter didn't.  Peter never even expressed any remorse 
for what he did, so I don't see how Lupin even has to reach the 
question of whether he ought to show mercy.

Normally, I'm all for due process, of course.  But we have a 
situation in which Peter was cornered 12 years ago and escaped.  He 
could have had due process then, but chose instead to kill innocent 
bystanders and frame his best friend.  Somehow, giving him a second 
chance for due process seems optional to me.

Part of my reaction to that scene is that Lupin is generally quite 
mild-mannered throughout the book.  He takes some rather nasty 
treatment from Snape throughout PoA without standing up for himself 
at all.  JKR was right on the edge of causing me to rise up and 
demand that Lupin assert himself, but she didn't cross the line.  Had 
Lupin shown mercy toward Peter on top of all of that, that would have 
been just way too much for me to take.  Lupin would have been well on 
the way to Doormat Status in my mind.  I think I actually respect 
Lupin more for being willing to do something rather repugnant and get 
his hands dirty out of loyalty to Sirius and Harry.  (Dang, did I 
just write that?)

Elkins again (about Sirius):
 
> On the other hand, I don't feel much sympathy when the grown-up
> incarnation of the popular, good-looking *and* academically 
brilliant
> teenager's take on the affair is still: "Well, he was this oily,
> greasy, slimy kid, see, and we didn't like him, and he was always
> trying to get us in trouble, and besides, his hair was always 
dirty, 
> and so it served him right."  That doesn't win any affection points 
> from me.  I expect a man in his thirties to at the very least be 
able 
> to admit that it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, that it 
really 
> could have got Snape *killed,* and that if nothing else, that would 
> have been absolutely disastrous for poor Remus.  
> 

Let me start off by saying that you are completely, 100% right, and I 
can make what Sirius did sound even worse.  What Sirius did was 
awful, and the fact that he set up a situation in which he almost 
used his best friend Lupin as the means to murder someone is pretty 
awful.  Horrid.  Had Lupin attacked Snape, Lupin would have never 
recovered and would probably have been expelled, and God only knows 
what MoM does to werewolves who bite people.  Sirius endangered 
Lupin, Snape, James and Dumbledore's career, all with one idiotic 
decision.

Was it unforgivable?  Well, Lupin seems to have forgiven Sirius, 
hasn't he?  I figure if anyone has a right to be ticked at Sirius, it 
is Lupin.  Lupin seems to have moved on, so I guess I can swallow 
hard and let it go myself.  That Lupin can forgive Sirius and 
maintain their friendship suggests to me that Sirius must have a lot 
of very special qualities indeed.  It was a dumb mistake that a dumb 
kid made, it's long since over, and that's that.

Now, as for Sirius' use of harsh language about Snape, his failure 
years later to accept responsibility for what he did, for his 
continued willingness to be nasty to Snape for being different . . . 
I see your point, of course.  But where we differ, I think, is that 
you probably see Sirius as a 30-year old man who should have 
developed the maturity to acknowledge his culpability for what he did 
to Snape.  

I don't.  When it comes to maturity and personal growth, Sirius is 
frozen in time, in suspended animation, really.  He's a walking case 
of arrested development.  Still stewing over decade-old grudges, 
showing no more emotional maturity or growth than the day he left 
Hogwarts.  Still smirking about Snape's greasy hair like a pre-
adolescent, locked in the same old tired battles.
 
And why is that?  Well, he's been locked up for 12 years.  It is hard 
to manage much personal growth when one is lying on the floor of a 
cell in solitary confinement.  Sirius was locked up 2 years after 
Hogwarts; the main frame of reference in life he has is his time at 
Hogwarts, and he seems perpetually trapped there, growth-wise.  One 
would expect that Snape and Lupin would truly have moved on by now, 
and Lupin surely has.  But if Sirius isn't showing us any growth, it 
really isn't his fault.  Consequently, I feel compelled to cut Sirius 
a break for still being the immature boy he was when he left Hogwarts.

An independent basis for disliking Sirius could be that he was nasty 
to Snape while they were at Hogwarts.  I'd say not, because we really 
don't know exactly what sort of pranks the Marauders played on Snape 
(other than the one), and we don't know to what extent Snape 
reciprocated.  Given what we know about dear Severus, it seems highly 
unlikely that he took the Marauders' abuse without scoring a few 
points of his own, especially since he knew more curses when he 
arrived than half the kids in seventh year.  I get the feeling that 
Severus could take care of himself fairly well, and it was all mutual 
combat.

I have to add that Sirius is showing remarkable personal growth now 
that he is out of Azkaban.  As someone (Dicentra?) already stated 
today, he's almost a different person in GoF.  With that trajectory, 
I figure Sirius will be much easier to take by the end of the series, 
assuming he lives that long.

Need more proof?  Well, it is true that Sirius in GoF makes the same 
tired old remarks about Snape that he's been making since he was a 
boy.  But Sirius does something very important in GoF:  he 
acknowledges that if Dumbledore trusts Snape, then that is good 
enough for Sirius, and he moves on from there.  That's growth.  You 
need a magnifying glass to see it, but it is growth.

Snape, on the other hand, has not moved past his old Hogwarts grudges 
at all.  Opposing Lupin's appointment as DADA teacher.  Trying to tip 
off the students that Lupin is a werewolf.  Spilling the beans to the 
Slytherins so that Lupin must resign.  Accusing Lupin of letting 
Black in the castle.  Motivated to catch Black in PoA to settle a 
school-boy grudge.  Following Lupin to the Willow not to give Lupin 
his potion but to catch him doing something wrong.  Being unwilling 
to acknowledge Black's membership on the team until Dumbledore forced 
him too.  Snape is also showing a certain lack of personal growth, 
and unlike Sirius, Snape doesn't have a very good excuse for it.  

Elkins again:

> But still.  I can't say I have any sympathy for Sirius at all when
> it comes to the prank, or place much blame on Snape for feeling the
> way he does about it.  

Did I make any headway at all?  Even an inch?  Because that's really 
about the best I can do.

Cindy (unsure if anyone has ever bought her passionate defense of 
Sirius, but that hasn't stopped her from doing what she can for him)