[HPforGrownups] Re: Sirius' Temper

[Carol Bainbridge]

No: HPFGUIDX 44352

Jo Serenadust wrote:
> > I agree, Carol.  I think that anger is often confused with temper,
> > but IMO a person can be exteremely angry and show it without
> > necessarily being considered bad tempered.  For me, it depends
> > entirely upon the reason for the anger and no one in the Potterverse
> > has more reason to be angry than Sirius Black.

Christie replied:
>Sirius doesn't exactly have a "temper problem," at least not in the
>sense you mean of having uncontrolable and/or destructive outbursts
>of rage.  But I do think he sometimes lets his passions get in the
>way of his reason.

I guess I don't see why it would be considered a problem, then, as some 
have suggested.  In any case, I don't think I see his passion getting in 
the way of his reason -- inappropriately.

Christie:
>Consider PoA, for example--he wants to kill Peter
>and who can blame him, but to what end?

Well, in my view as I suggested before, I think he wants justice for the 
Potters.  I don't think he's out to clear his name or any other such thing 
that would make any difference to *his* future.  Then end, then, for him is 
justice.

Christie:
>If he offs Peter
>(particularly if he offs him in rat form--or would an Animagus revert
>to human shape after death?  Something to think about),

That is something to think about.  I think I just assumed it would -- too 
many werewolf movies where the dead werewolf reverts to human 
form.  Interesting....

>he'll have no
>real evidence of his innocence, and thus will be stuck in the same
>position he was to begin with.  Not exactly the wisest course of
>action.

But he won't be in the same position.  His position had been in prison 
paying for a crime he did not commit, feeling horribly guilty for his 
responsibility in the deaths of the Potters.  He wasn't out to clear his 
name, so that's beside the point.  No, if he killed Peter, he would be, as 
he himself said, committing the crime he was imprisoned for, and more to 
the point for him, he would be meting out justice for the Potters.  He 
would be making Peter pay for turning over his good friends to 
Voldemort.  Vigilante justice?  Probably.  But as some others have pointed 
out, the man has spent 12 years in a joyless place with prison guards who 
suck out your happiness and long to suck out your soul as well.  He's been 
there feeling responsible for the deaths of his best friends.  All of a 
sudden he sees the little creep who was really responsible is alive and 
well and living like the rat he is.  How wise should we expect him to 
be?  How much faith should we expect a guy whose been railroaded into 
Azkaban to put into the WW justice system.  Nah, I think under the 
circumstances, Sirius is behaving quite well.  I haven't seen any real 
evidence of his passions getting in the way of his reason under any other 
circumstances.  I think he reasons things out quite well, as we see in GoF.

Christie:
>Hey, I like Sirius--he's probably my favorite character in the
>series, but he's not perfect--a fact which is par for the course as
>far as JKR's characters are concerned.

I'm not sure he's my favorite, but certainly one of my favorites.  I'm glad 
he's not perfect.  As I said previously, he'd be flat and boring if he were 
perfect -- and so unlike real life.  I think this is one of the reasons so 
many people are fascinated by Snape.  One is so ready to dislike him, but 
then out comes some new information that puts him in an altogether 
different light.  I know I really, really did not like him in PS/SS, 
thought he was a terribly nasty guy and just KNEW he was trying to kill 
Harry.  I was quite surprised by that turn of events.  I was also sure he 
had to be a secret DE, just waiting to go back to Voldemort.  Then I 
discover he put himself at risk to work against Voldemort.  This is a guy 
one can never be sure about.  He never ceases to surprise me.  Sirius, on 
the other hand, surprised me only in PoA, when I discovered that he really 
wasn't a villain, but a wronged man.  The only part that still puzzles me 
about him, though, is why on earth he had his hands around Harry's throat 
in the scene in the Shrieking Shack.  I sure thought he was trying to kill 
Harry, but we know he wasn't.  What WAS he doing?

Jo Serenadust
> > I must be the only one who thought that Sirius slashed the portrait
> > of the Fat Lady, not so much in a fit of rage at being denied entry,
> > but in a desperate attempt to get *through* the actual portrait in
> > order to get to Griffyndor Tower.  At the risk of being insensitive
> > to paintings who can speak and otherwise interact, the portrait *is*
> > just paint on canvas, not a sentient being.  On my first reading of
> > this part of PoA, I just believed it was a physical barrier as far
> > as Sirius was concerned.

You aren't the only one who thought this way, although I confess that was 
not my first reading, but a later thought when I learned who Black was and 
what he was really up to.  I also must confess that I allowed myself to be 
swayed by what Peeves said.  Of course, everyone else in the book thought 
the same thing, so it seemed the thing to think.

Christie:
>You know, I've never considered that, but now that you mention it I
>think it makes a lot of sense.

I think this is one of the great things about this group. The discussions 
put all the events and  people in the books in a light one has not 
considered before.  It makes the stories even richer than they already 
are.  I have been rereading the books yet again and can't believe the 
additional details I missed the first few hundred times I read them.  Funny 
thing is, the details seem so terribly obvious now and lead to even more 
thoughts.  I can't wait for book 5.  Think there'll be a (bigger) flurry of 
activity here when it comes out?



Carol Bainbridge
(kaityf at jorsm.com)

http://www.lcag.org