Maturity as a theme in OoP and Sirius' future plot relevance (WAS: Sirius quite

[Tom Wall]

No: HPFGUIDX 84136

Kneasy wrote:
[Sirius'] unexpected demise plus Harry's reaction would be a prime
counterpoint to startling revelations indicating that he was not 
what he seemed.

Tom:
You know, I'd go for this whole idea that Sirius was not what he 
seemed to be, if only for the fact that it's already been done 
repeatedly. 

PoA was all about showing us that Sirius wasn't what he seemed to 
be, both in regards to the slander regarding the debacle with 
Pettigrew, and in regards to his Animagical abilities. And in OoP, 
Hermione quite astutely points out that she thinks it's possible 
that Sirius is `egging' them on, living vicariously through the 
Trio. In both cases, the author is encouraging both Harry and the 
readership to take a look at what might be motivating Sirius, and 
also in both cases, she's suggesting to us that what might really be 
motivating him is not what may be evident on the surface.

It would seem sort of redundant to do it all over again, don't you 
think? I mean, the man's dead now. How many times can we possibly 
flip-flop on his character and still keep it interesting? I'd say 
that the battery-life concerning serious revelations about Sirius is 
about run down to nothing, really. Sure, he'll get some future play 
as a tragic memory in Harry's past, but I think that's about it, 
honestly. Too much subversion of Sirius' character and it'll start 
to sound to me like <groan> "What do you *mean* there's another 
unregistered animagus?" ;-)


Kneasy:
Why knock him off in Book 5 of seven? The suggestion that this
somehow enhances Harry's passage into emotional maturity is
post facto rationalisation IMO. Fans were having great difficulty in
coming up with a good plot line justifying it and so descended
into pop psychology to find an acceptable reason.

Tom:
But Kneasy, that's what this list is all about! Post-facto 
rationalization is what makes HPfGU go `round, wouldn't you say? I 
mean, it's what constitutes nearly all of the theoretical endeavors 
that go on around here. I mean, without post-facto rationalization, 
what would we have to do, anyways? ;-)

For my take, I'm inclined to accept the author's statements on this.

She said in that giant-webcast a while back that the death in Book 
Five was specifically designed to illustrate several points. First 
off, it was supposed to demonstrate clearly that our characters are 
now in a wartime situation, which means that one minute you can be 
talking to your best friend and the next minute that person can be 
dead as a doornail. Unfortunately, Sirius is not dead as a doornail, 
but I'm of a mindset that parallels Bboy's: Sirius will not return 
to the storyline as either alive or as a ghost, but he will continue 
to be a touch-point for Harry.

Secondly, JKR said that the death in OoP was written because of how 
Harry would take it, because of how it would affect him. Now, this 
is basically a blatant admission that his death was used to 
facilitate Harry's overall growth and understanding. But that point 
aside, it's seems fair to assert that no death could have been as 
traumatic for Harry as Sirius' - I'd wager that even Dumbledore's 
death wouldn't have taken him as powerfully. (I am, however, hoping –
 or at least, banking - that Albus will kick it in Book Six.) So on 
this note, I'd say that I certainly believe that Sirius' death will 
catalyze Harry's growth into maturity.

I'm actually surprised that you'd discount the theme of maturity as 
simply a pop-psychological rationalizing afterthought of the events 
in the story. It seems to me that maturity – or at least the growth 
into maturity - is a theme that the author quite deliberately 
highlighted in OoP. 

We see this most concretely in Harry's newfound love life and the 
inevitable complications which arise from his relationship with Cho. 
It comes to play in the Order's planning and Harry's desire 
to "fight." But we are practically bonked off the head with maturity-
as-theme when the centaur (Bane, was it?) observes that Harry was 
nearing manhood, and thus that he was more dubiously a "foal," and 
that because of this he was possibly exempt from their criteria 
regarding who is eligible to die and who should be safe.

And in the Department of Mysteries, we're treated to the 
delightfully bizarre metaphor of the Death Eater who is forced to de-
mature and mature in cycles: if this isn't harping on the theme of 
maturity, I don't know what is. ;-)

This is, of course, not even the beginning of a scratch on the 
surface. 

One could further discuss maturity and its attainment as a theme in 
OoP through Snape's Worst Memory, the realizations that accompany 
that in the context of Harry's past and future views of James and 
Lily, the formation of the DA and the DA's connection to the kids' 
growing understanding of the peril in the world around them, the 
limited information that Lupin and Sirius grant to Harry in the 
beginning of the novel and the fact that this represents his first 
real inclusion and interaction in the plans and planning of adults. 
We could go into the very conscious repetition of the concept 
of "disobeying" one's parents (and that theme's relationship to 
maturity in the sense of making decisions for oneself) as 
illustrated not only by Ron and his mother's request to stay out of 
the DA, but also by the twins' attainment of "Age", Cho, Marietta, 
and, Whoa! Sirius himself in reference to his parents and his 
brother Regulus. We could talk maturity concerning Dumbledore's 
advanced state of it, and how maturity occasionally takes one 
further away from an understanding of youth, or in the context 
of "Career Advice" and the idea of self-regulation and a sense of 
personal direction and responsibility, or of the symbolic nature of 
naming prefects (students who oversee students in the stead of 
adults), or we could go into an analysis of OWLS and how they 
represent a rite of passage for the average youngster in the WW, a 
rite of passage that, in many ways, determines the future of these 
young people, nevermind the quite blatantly literalized metaphor 
that is the "Disillusionment" to which Moody subjects Harry at the 
story's outset. Disillusionment is, of course, a classic conundrum 
when it comes the maturation process.

Also, in a more peripheral sense, Harry's dealings with the Ministry 
and St.Mungo's both illustrate to me a conscious effort on the part 
of JKR to illustrate Harry's increasing involvement in the adult 
world of the Potterverse, while simultaneously keeping Harry 
somewhat trapped in the juvenile world of Hogwarts. 

In a sense, during this book Harry was straddling the two states of 
being, with the theme heightened by the adult (read: Ministry) 
interference in a child's world, ala Hogwarts. 

In a post-OoP sense, I'd say that Harry has definitely had maturity 
forced upon him to one degree; in another sense, it's been something 
he's been actively seeking. Now, armed with the information about 
the prophecy (and possibly his "destiny"), and scarred with the 
overwhelming weight of the guilt that Sirius' death - at least to 
some degree - is Harry's own fault ("if he hadn't gone to rescue 
Sirius, Sirius wouldn't have died") I'd say that post OoP Harry is 
undeniably a man. A young man, to be sure, but a man nonetheless. 

Really, when you put it all together, maturity doesn't seem at all 
like post-facto rationalization, does it? It's quite clearly a major 
theme in the novel, at least the way that I read it.

Oh, and finally on the death: this is something that JKR didn't 
outright say, but I ardently believe it anyways. Sirius' death was 
about the last thing I saw coming. Before OoP we had a poll that 
concerned itself with "Who do you think will de in Book Five?" About 
three percent of the respondents on that poll thought that Sirius 
would be the one to go. Sirius' death was about as Bang!y as you 
could get, given the circumstances and expectations that surrounded 
OoP's release.


Kneasy:
But just suppose that there is a plot line to his death and that his
disappearance makes Harry safer....

Tom:
Well, I *suppose* that she could still take Sirius out for a spin in 
a later novel, although I don't really see too many revelations on 
the horizon regarding his character. But as for Harry being safer, 
and as for that "safer-ness" being connected with Sirius? Well, I 
dunno.

I personally see Harry as prime fodder for a manifold number of 
unsafe happenings in future novels. If anything, he'll continually 
become more unsafe, if only because the stakes get higher and 
higher; JKR has definitely left herself room to maneuver on the 
Harry-may-eventually-end-up-in-the-bone-garden routine, but I don't 
see any of that elbow-room on the "Harry is in some ways safer" side 
of the equation. It seems to me that Harry is, in every way, less 
safe after OoP. And on that note, Sirius' death concretely and 
thematically makes Harry *less* safe, since Sirius, from PoA through 
OoP, was both one of Harry's prime guardians and one of his trusted 
confidants.

So, interesting thoughts; they didn't necessarily make me outraged 
(I hope that isn't *too* much of a disappointment for you), but they 
did make me think. ;-)

-Tom