OOP: the point of the death?

[David]

No: HPFGUIDX 64621

Marina wrote:

> I've been trying to sort out my thoughts about Sirius' death and 
> whether or not it was pointless. 

> 1. "It's part of the Hero's Journey."  
> 2. "It's necessary for Harry's character development."  
> 3. "The whole point is that it's pointless -- in real life, people 
> die for no good reason."  

and dismissed these explanations with good reason.

Isn't partly about choice?

Voldemort is acting as he is because he believes he is constrained 
by a prophecy, and in both cases (when Harry is an infant, and at 
the end of OOP) he loses out because of it.

Harry is acting on the basis of a deceitful vision put there by 
Voldemort, and he loses out - big time - because of that.

Dumbledore is hung up on the importance of the prophecy too: he 
thinks it's really important that Voldemort not get it, and loses 
Bode and nearly loses Arthur.

In PS, Dumbledore says the Mirror of Erised 'gives neither knowledge 
or truth' and warns against paying attention to it.  OOP seems to 
extend that idea by implying that even when you do have genuine 
future knowledge it is destructive to act on it.  The warnings in 
POA about Time Turner use point the same way.  In effect, *all* 
prophecies, whether factually accurate or not, are fundamentally 
deceitful because they fixate the mind away from its real choices.

(As an aside, note that Trelawney's first prophecy says almost 
nothing: Harry and Voldemort *have* survived together for fifteen 
years, so it must describe an eventual state of affairs, that one of 
them must die.  Amazing!)

So, for me, Sirius' death is all about the price you pay when you 
act on your fears, not your convictions, as Dumbledore, Harry and 
Voldemort were all doing.  Ironically - and IMO the irony is 
appropriate - Sirius was not.

David