Dead Sirius *weep* --NOT (long)

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 67976

Steve wrote:> Sirius's death was a a hollow empty unsatisfying death 
<snip> to fall in slow-motion through a
curtain, where is the certainty, where is the finality? We are left 
with none of these; in a sense, we do not see him die, we aren't even
sure he is completely and fully dead, there is no broken and bleeding
body for us and Harry to weep over, no tearful goodbye. Plus, it 
occurs in the heat of battle surrounded by chaos. When it happens,
 Harry is certain that Sirius is not dead. There really is nothing to
 indicate that he would be dead, in fact, all logic says he's laying 
on the other side of the curtain. 
 By the time calm is restored, he is simple gone, no different than 
ifhe had stepped out of the room for a drink of water. No 
realization, or mourning of his death, no chance to say goodbye, 
just the gradualacceptance that he is gone; not alive, not dead, 
just forever lost from your embrace.
<snip>It's like having a loved one 'lost in action', you know
he's dead, but there is no body, no account of what happened, where 
he went, what he did, how he died, no memorial, no body to weep over,
just hollow empty loss and uncertainty. I do not envy people who 
have lost a loved one in this way; it's like a dying that never 
really ends, or for that matter, begins.> 

Me: But you yourself admit that the "people" who you don't envy have 
experience of this sort of death. It's a kind of death within our 
comprehension. And it probably is the hardest possible kind of death 
to overcome - the death where there is no closure. You don't see a 
body, you don't have any sort of rationalisation behind it: 
senseless, accidental, and ultimately more realistic than those 
sorts of death that you can attach a pretty little Classic Narrative 
Structure around and tie up in a bow.
 The lack of "certainty and finality" you mention about the bare 
facts of the death as it is described on the page is quite possibly 
the reason why the archway stands in the Department of Mysteries. 
It's something that the greatest minds of the Wizarding World 
haven't yet formulated any sort of solution to, let alone an overly-
emotional fifteen year old boy. Lupin, for example, understands 
immediately the finality of what has happened, though he may not be 
able to explain it, which leads to that beautifully-written line of 
understated grief. However, Lupin, with Dumbledore and McGonagall, 
is consistantly one of the most intelligent and rational adult 
figures in the series. To him, as a comprehending witness and 
educated wizard, this event does have meaning. However, as the 
narrative consistantly focalises through a fifteen year old wizard 
continually surprised by aspects of the world he has only existed in 
for five years, we as readers of that narrative cannot be expected 
to comprehend immediatly the significance of the passage. We are 
therefore established on a parallel to Harry as regards the 
emotional impact of the loss. And Sirius *is* "lost in action".   
It's a battle. Immediately after Harry registers the loss (without 
acceptance), his first act is to pursue Bellatrix, to try and 
extract pain for pain. Then he becomes somewhat distracted by the 
more immediate dynamics of the Voldemort/Dumbledore confrontation, 
which ends in V's attempted posession of Harry. This is halted when 
Harry's mind floods with an emotional response to the loss. In the 
chapters which follow, we see the grieving process enacted 
extraordinarily realistically for a book aimed at children. Our 
understanding of Harry's character is enhanced hugely, and Sirius' 
death becomes suffused with meaning beyond the 'meaninglessness of 
war death' in the ways in which it offers focal point for this 
understanding. Sirius as a character is alos further enhanced this 
way. Personally I would have been far less satisfied with a nice 
death-bed scene which jerked my tears in all the required ways a 
narrative should. The aspects left unspoken - a final exchange 
beyond the bland, throwaway "Nice one!", even the way in which that 
absolute open-endedness has us all discussing and re-discussing the 
possibilities for meaning within this part of the narrative, make it 
far more interesting. Also, in OotP, we see a move towards realism - 
okay, we know Harry is good, and Voldemort is bad, but where do you 
place Umbridge? Percy? James? Sirius' death, and the beginnings of 
acceptance which stir inside Harry, are far more realistic, 
emotionally involving, and horrific to have to deal with than a 
little shadow popping out of a wand, and croaking, heart-
wrenchingly, "Harry, take my body back to my parents!" Much like the 
pathos of Neville's OotP scene with his mother compared to that of, 
say, Ginny's melodramatically lifeless body slumped in the Chamber 
of Secrets.  
The possibilities for further narratives are endless. Harry "will 
never forgive Snape, ever". He's also got a huge grudge to bear 
against Bellatrix now. However, we know that Voldemort finds it 
easier to access Harry's mind when he's feeling hatred; and that 
Harry is an absolutely bloody unbearable adolescant. He's got to 
grow and mature into a more fully-developed character; 
interestingly, JKR has posited the struggle between good and evil 
within the personality of a teenager. Sirius' death was so necessary 
precisely because of the direct emotional involvement it gives Harry 
to this struggle. 

Kirstini
(just realised that I keep biting Steve's bum today and want to 
assure him it's nothing personal)