Sirius - who is right?

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 73510

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Wanda Sherratt" 
<wsherratt3338 at r...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "marinafrants" 
<rusalka at i...> 
> wrote:
> Snape is out there being a valued member of 
> > the Order, contributing to the fight, getting trust and respect 
> from 
> > Dumbledore, teaching important things to Harry, while all Sirius 
> can 
> > do is impotently sit and wait. 
> 
> Yes, but how does the saying go? "They also serve who only stand 
and 
> wait."  This is a war situation, and Sirius pulled an unpleasant, 
> uncongenial task.  It's not what he felt suited to, but sitting 
and 
> waiting was his job, for the good of the cause.  Sirius wasn't 
able 
> to reconcile himself to that, and I think Dumbledore, as 
> a "commander", so to speak, realized that Sirius was not really a 
> very good soldier.  He couldn't take orders, basically - he wanted 
> things on his terms. 

Yes, the sensible thing would've been for Sirius to accept his lot, 
be patient and wait it out.  But I think it's a little much to take 
somebody as damaged as Sirius has been and expect him to just be 
sensible.  Sirius was not a bad soldier, but a shell-shocked one, 
and Dumbledore's attitude to him seems to be similar to the attitude 
a lot of commanders took toward shell-shocked soldiers in the early 
days of WWI: that there was nothing really wrong with them, they 
were just too weak/cowardly/irresponsible to do their duty.  So 
Dubledore shuts Sirius up in a place guaranteed to exacerbate his 
symptoms and basically says, "Tough luck, deal with it."  And when 
Sirius is unable to deal, Dumbledore says, "Gosh, how immature."  
For somebody who's supposed to be wise and insightful, I think 
Dumbledore slipped up badly in this case.


> In that respect, I think he was a poor 
> influence on Harry.  Harry has a big task ahead of him, and a lot 
> depends on him shouldering it, whether he feels happy about it or 
> not.  Sirius was discontented, and he sowed discontent - I think 
he 
> was very selfish to express his irritation with Dumbledore to 
> Harry.  In fact, it always made me feel a bit scornful of their 
> relationship that it seemed largely to be based on shared 
resentment 
> of others.  Harry was always happy when Sirius called Snape names, 
> and reflected his own irritations.

There's a lot more to their relationship than that.  When Harry's 
scar hurts at the start of GoF, and he wishes he had "somebody like 
a parent" to talk to, Sirius is the first person he thinks of.  When 
he's beset by personal problems during the Triwizard tournament, 
it's Sirius he pours his heart out to.  When he can't figure out his 
relationship with Cho, he wishes Sirius was there to talk to him 
about girls.  It's Sirius who's there to comfort him when he's 
telling Dumbledore about the events at the graveyard after the third 
task.  Sirius was the one adult that Harry felt he could talk to 
about his regular, teenage-boy problems.  Dumbledore is too lofty 
and remote to bother with things like "I don't know what to do on a 
date," Hagrid is even more of a child than Harry is in most ways, 
Arthur already has seven children to worry about, and Lupin 
deliberately keeps himself emotionally distant.  Sirius may not have 
been the most responsible father figure for Harry, but at least he 
was trying, which is more than could be said for any other male 
adult in Harry's sphere.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com