Sirius - who is right?

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 73859

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> Marina:
> > If that's what Dumledore thinks, then he really has lost sight 
of 
> the human element.  People don't choose what they feel.  <
> 
> I should certainly hope that at nearly forty, Sirius could decide 
> that Snape's insults were nothing to get worked up over. Insults 
> are like wine, they affect one only if taken.

Yet no one seems to expect that, at nearly forty, Snape could 
actually decide *not* to throw childish insults at a coworker.

And I still maintain that Sirius' mental and emotional age is stuck 
back in his early twenties because of Azkaban.  Dumbledore is 
expecting Sirius to react the way a healthy person who's lived a 
normal life would react.  It doesn't work that way.

> 
> Marina:
> >Yeah, Sirius  could "choose" to be unbothered by his situation 
> (of which Snape's insults were only a small part) -- just like 
Molly 
> could "choose" not to care about the welfare of her children or 
> Snape  could "choose" not to hold grudges.  All it takes is a 
> complete  personality transplant.<
> 
> Ah, but now you're agreeing with Dumbledore, and me. <g> 
> Snape's insults were only a small part of what was bothering 
> Sirius; far too small to have goaded him into risking his life.

Well, sure, isn't my argument plain?  I'm not blaming Snape, I'm 
blaming Dumbledore.  Snape contributed to a bad situation, but he 
didn't create it.  He may have dropped that last little straw on the 
proverbial camel's back, though.

> > Sure, Sirius could've said "Screw you all, I'm going to 
Tahiti."  It
>  certainly would've been better for *him.*  Personally, though, I 
> 
> think the fact that he didn't do this is grounds for admiring him, 
>  not condemning him.  If Dumbledore wanted Sirius to quit and 
> go  away, he should've said so, instead of ordering him into an 
> intolerable situation which Sirius, nevertheless, struggled to 
>  tolerate for a year before he hit the breaking point.  <
> 
> How do we know that Dumbledore didn't do just that? We're not 
> privy to Dumbledore's conversations with Sirius. 

No, we're not, but I'm going to judge by the information we actually 
have in the books, not by random speculations of what might've 
happened off-stage.  Dumbledore offered a lot of excuses for himself 
during his "explain everything speech," and wasn't hesitant to list 
things he thought Sirius had done wrong, but he never said, "I tried 
to get him to go somewhere else, but he insisted on staying in that 
house."  

> Alas, Sirius and Harry could not safely communicate, for the 
> same reason that Dumbledore and Harry could not. The secret 
> means of communication wouldn't stay secret for long if Harry 
> used them, not with Harry's mind accessible to Voldemort.

Depends on what the communication method was.  The mirror, for 
example could've been used safely.  But because both Harry and 
Sirius had had it drilled into them that they must not communicate 
under *any* circumstances, Sirius gave the mirror furtively and 
without explanation, and Harry saw it as something dangerous and 
willed himself not to think about it.  

Even if Sirius and Harry couldn't just safely chat anytime they 
liked, a Dumbledore-approved line of emergency communication 
could've gone a long way.  For Sirius, just knowing it's there 
might've helped a lot even if he never used it.

> 
> As for the bit of freedom, everybody seems to think Sirius could 
> have just gone for a stroll in the I-cloak.  Maybe it would have 
> been safe for Sirius to leave the house after a while, if he 
hadn't 
> let himself be seen on the platform. But after that, the Dementors 
> knew he was in London, and they are not to be fooled by 
> invisibility cloaks or disguises. 

London is a big city, England is a big country, and it's not as if 
the Dementors were out there combing the streets en masse looking 
for Sirius.  They were only in Little Whinging because Umbridge sent 
them after Harry.

> > But that's exactly what Dumbledore did order Sirius to do.  To 
> sit around and do nothing, while Harry was in danger and the 
> rest of the Order were out risking their lives.  And the rationale 
> behind it?  To preserve Sirius' physical safety.  "We don't need 
> you, we just need  your house.  If you insist on sticking around, 
> do some dusting or  something. But hey, look at the bright side, 
> at least you're *safe*!"<
> 
> Sirius offered the house. There is no suggestion that 
> Dumbledore ordered him to do so. Sirius  was asked, not 
> ordered,  to secure the house and to befriend Kreacher. But 
> Sirius didn't want something *useful* to do. He wanted 
> something *dangerous* to do. 

Sirius offered the house.  He did not offer to sit on his butt in 
that house, incommunicado, for an indefinite period of time.  He was 
ordered to not go anywhere, and to keep important information from 
Harry, and he was left with nothing to do but housework.  I disagree 
that he only wanted something dangerous to do.  I think that if he 
was given some housebound but Order-related task: research, 
intelligence analysis, translating some musty old spellbooks, 
*anything*, that he would've been a lot better off.

> I am not condemning Sirius for being the 
> way he was, I am only challenging the idea that there was 
> something Dumbledore could have done about it that wouldn't 
> have endangered Harry or the Order.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.  There was no 
way to make Sirius entirely happy, but I think there were a number 
of things Dumbledore could've done to help Sirius' mental state *if* 
he hadn't lost sight of the fact that Sirius' mental state was 
something to be concerned about.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com