OOP: the point of the death?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 64680

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Dicentra spectabilis" 
<dicentra at x> wrote:

> A long time ago, we were speculating about whether Harry 
would ever live with Sirius, and Pippin gave the answer that 
made the most sense to me (blamed if I know in which post). 
She explained that if Harry and Sirius ever lived together, Sirius 
would effectively supplant James as Harry's father.  But he can't; 
that's Harry's job.  Harry has to step into his father's place, as is 
manifested by the case of mistaken identity between 
TimeTurner!Harry and James, and Prongs as Harry's Patronus.  
Kicking the pins out from under the hero is a fast way to make 
him grow.<<

You know, I remember making that post, but it didn't occur to me 
that JKR would kill Sirius so soon. Besides, I wanted to see him  
try to patch things up with Snape. But you know, that's Harry's job 
too, especially with what we know now. 

I think one reason we're having trouble grasping the reasoning 
behind Sirius's death is that we're thinking melodrama. But 
we've already had the highly dramatic death of James and Lily, 
which I'm sure we'll revisit again. James already died so 
someone could get away.  Lily did the Obi-wan thing, "Strike me 
down and I will become more powerful than you can imagine."  A 
dramatic death for Sirius would weaken the impact of  those two.

Sirius didn't die for the sake of melodrama, which is why we can't 
find any. Sirius's death is tragedy, witnessed  through the eyes of 
a youngster who doesn't quite understand what he saw. Sirius's 
tragic flaw was his unconscious racism, which Harry hasn't quite 
grasped. 

That, by the way, explains  what Hagrid's brother Grawp is doing 
in the book. He is there to point up the fact that Sirius made a 
choice about the way he treated Kreacher. If  Sirius had tried to 
bond    with Kreacher as Hagrid did with Grawp, then perhaps 
Sirius would have survived.

Despite the  golden fountain at the Ministry, it never occurred to 
Sirius to think of  Kreacher as his brother. 

Pippin