Sirius confusing Harry and James

[psychic_serpent]

No: HPFGUIDX 75874

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat2001" <Zarleycat at a...> 
wrote:
> I thought Sirius often behaved irrationally in book 5 (it was 
> understandable, but still irrational) but I never really thought 
> of him seeing Harry as James.  
> 
> Did any characters make this accusation other than Molly? I don't 
> recall if this sentiment was also echoed by Hermione. 
> 
> I never felt for an instant that Sirius looked at or talked to 
> Harry and thought he was interacting with James.  I do think he 
> made comparisons in his mind between the two, and I also think he 
> was well along on the down-side of the scale of depression, but I 
> don't think he was delusional. 

No, I don't think he was delusional about this, nor do I think Molly 
was accusing him of this.  I do think that what Molly meant was that 
Sirius seemed to be WISHING that Harry was James.  It wasn't so much 
that his behavior reflected a genuine confusion so much as evidence 
of Sirius' desire to have his best friend back.  (Despite some minor 
Sirius/Remus interaction in OotP, we never see so much that it ever 
seems that Sirius and Remus had a friendship anywhere near as close 
as Sirius and James.)

> The clearest instance of Sirius making comparisons was when Harry 
> told him he shouldn't come up for the next Hogsmeade weekend.  
> Harry's reaction was clearly not what James' reaction would have 
> been and it disappointed Sirius that Harry didn't respond to the 
> suggestion as James would have. "You're less like your father than 
> I thought."  I didn't read that as Sirius suddenly becoming aware 
> that he was speaking to Harry and not James, but rather a 
> realization, that Harry is his own person and that sometimes he'll 
> act like or think like James, and sometimes he won't.

This is a very important motif in the books, I believe.  Sirius 
realizing that Harry is in fact very different from James--despite 
seeing many similarities other than the physical in PoA--is somewhat 
jolting to Sirius.  He is being disillusioned about Harry as much as 
Harry is being disillusioned about both Sirius and James when Harry 
sees their puerile behavior in the Pensieve.  (I think his hero-
worship of James came to an abrupt halt when he wondered why his 
mother married him.)  

Early in OotP, Harry and Sirius are starting to look at each other 
without the rose-colored glasses and are not strictly liking 
everything they're seeing.  It's a big wake-up call for them both.  
They want to like everything about each other, but they're learning 
that even people we love a great deal can have a lot of qualities 
that we don't LIKE.  However, as far as Harry is concerned, it will 
be good for him to see Sirius as he really was in the long run, as 
Sirius is the worst possible role-model for him and every time he 
did anything as Sirius would have, disaster inevitably followed 
(including Sirius' own death).  

In the long run, I think he will learn to appreciate many things 
about his father and Sirius, without necessarily emulating their 
less admirable traits, but in the short term it is clear that he 
needs to separate from them and be his own person.  He was far 
nobler, frankly, when he was younger and less influenced by Sirius.  
I definitely think Dumbledore did the right thing to have Harry grow 
up with the Dursleys, rather than in the wizarding world, where he 
knew he was famous; otherwise he might have turned out a complete 
prat. (Think Draco Malfoy.)

Sirius didn't understand completely why Harry spared Peter in PoA, 
and I get the impression that he didn't understand why James saved 
Snape's life, either (this is a way in which Harry IS like James, 
but it seems far removed from the Pensieve scene).  Someone who 
follows in Sirius Black's footsteps will be very unlikely to be able 
to defeat Voldemort, I believe, but the boy who spared Peter 
Pettigrew's life is another story entirely.  Mercy is something 
that, like love, Voldemort has no hope of ever understanding.  
Sadly, it doesn't seem that Sirius understood it either.
 
--Barb 

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