Sirius and Alchemy,again (Re: Sirius quite capable)

[iris_ft]

No: HPFGUIDX 84162

Sorry,but I'm not sure I managed to send this post correctly the 
first time. Of course, the nice list-elves can cancel it if it's 
already on the board!


 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
(snip) 
> Lots of plot twists in the books to date; I'd not be  surprised if
> Sirius constituted another.
> 
> His unexpected demise plus Harry's reaction would  be a prime
> counterpoint to  startling  revelations indicating that he was
> not what he seemed. 
> 
> 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.
> 
> But just suppose that there is a plot line to his death and that 
his
> disappearance makes Harry  safer....
> 
> Kneasy
> Who  can hear the screams of outrage already.

Hi Kneasy,

Though Sirius is my favourite character after Harry, I won't put the 
blame on you for writing that the plot line needed him to die. Of 
course he was a perfect confident for Harry; of course, as Steve 
pointed it in the post that started that threat, he had "the 
independent and adventurous spirit of youth".
He was a comforting reflection for Harry; he understood him rather 
well, and was a male figure Harry could easily identify with (I 
remember by the way that I posted something about that subject last 
summer
 however I don't remember the title).
But I'm not sure that the fascination Sirius did exert over Harry 
was actually a good thing.
What Steve wrote concerning his " independent and adventurous spirit 
of youth"
 (sorry Steve, I should have quoted your post too) is very 
interesting. It shows that Sirius was in a certain way unable to 
pass completely the gap between the teenager we see in the Pensieve 
scene and the adult man he had become.
Teenage Sirius was like the Favourite in King James's world. He 
probably knew that James would have done everything to please him, 
even reprehensible acts like bullying Snape. Okay, some will say 
that, being certainly miserable in his own family, Sirius needed 
James's affection. He was not his mother's favourite child, but he 
could find compensation with James, etc, etc

But debating this is not my purpose here. What I'm trying to 
explain, is that Sirius, in a sort of way, was still mentally a 
teenager. We can understand him. How wouldn't he have missed the 
time he was 15, the time he had a friend who was like a brother, the 
time he was one of Hogwarts top guys? How wouldn't he have tried to 
recover what 12 years in Azkaban had broken? Harry was there, 
looking like James. Though he was a responsible godfather, Sirius 
couldn't help trying unconsciously to play the same game he used to 
play with James.
That's why one time he blames his godson for not looking enough like 
his father. Poor Harry
 Did he really deserve that?

I myself don't like what I'm about to write, but Harry is better 
alone than suffering Sirius's grieves.
 One of the HP series lessons is that the past is the past. You may 
change it a little with a Time Turner, but you can't change it 
completely. And above everything, you must overpass it, that's the 
sine qua non condition if you want to live. Harry saved Sirius in 
PoA, giving him an opportunity to live and to go on. But Sirius 
didn't manage to take completely this second chance, and because of 
that, the sentence was only deferred. Sirius could only die, because 
he wasn't able to go further, psychologically and metaphorically. 
That's what JKR means, IMO, when she writes that entering Sirius's 
home was like entering a dying person's home. 
>From the moment when Harry saved his life to the moment he passed 
beyond the Veil, Sirius did nothing but dying a little day by day, 
mentally, because he couldn't overpass his own past.
I was very sad when he went away. But for Harry, it's better that 
way, though he's suffering, though he's alone, though he feels 
guilty. That's the lesson he has to take from his own reflection in 
the small mirror at the end of the book: he can't see nothing but 
his own eyes, i.e, he can face clearly the problem, and this problem 
is him. He has to cope with what he is, with what he has done, with 
what he has to do. He has to face the scar, as I wrote one day, that 
means to open his "inner eye" to make the right choices. 
He must do it on his own. Sirius was too much prisoner of the past 
to help him to go further.

John Granger's article helped me a lot to understand why Sirius had 
to die.
I was convinced since my first reading of the books that Alchemy was 
a huge key to understand them completely, and I'm glad to find in 
the article a confirmation.
It's particularly relevant in Sirius's case. Just some quotes:

"   Order of the Phoenix is the nigredo volume of the series. 
Harry is burnt up, broken down or dissolved, and bled until 
everything that he thought he was—star Quidditch player, his best 
friend's superior, pet of the headmaster, lover of his school, son 
and spitting image of a great man, victim of the Dursleys, valiant 
enemy of Snape, even his being the hero and man of action in time of 
crisis—is taken from him or revealed as falsehood. The boundaries of 
his world collapse; magical enemies come to his home with the Dur-
sleys, and Aunt Petunia knows about them. The Dursleys' house is no 
longer a sanctuary, however miserable, and Hogwarts is no longer 
edifying or any joy to him.
The world is no longer separated into good guys and bad guys. Harry 
has been reduced to his formless elements. Whether the white stage 
is to follow this black novel, however, and a climax to follow in 
the seventh and final book turning on Hagrid the Red, Order of the 
Phoenix is Rowling's nigredo volume."
Nigredo volume, Black volume. Metaphorically, Sirius is an 
ambivalent figure. He's there to give Harry some affection, but also 
to make him suffer, with his loneliness, with his grieves, with his 
death. He's at the same time a model (because he loves his godson, 
he's ready to risk his own life) and an example of what Harry 
mustn't do (because he's too emotional, he acts in such a way it 
ends in a disaster). That's enough to make him one of the greatest 
characters in the series
 and that's enough to make him disappear, 
in order to give Harry the opportunity to go further. Thanks to 
Sirius, because of him, Harry is burnt up, as John Granger writes. 
Speaking of Kingsley Shacklebolt, he says also that he is a figure 
of the "black king". He adds the black king "must die, usually by 
drowing". Couldn't we comment that it is precisely what Sirius does 
when he falls in the dark waters of the waving Veil? He leaves Harry 
alone, "burned to a cinder" to take Granger's words. He leaves him 
ready to a new initiatory journey. He accomplished his mission, and 
we , readers, have to accept that.

Amicalement,

Iris, waiting for "Harry Potter et l'Ordre du Phénix", with the 
unrealistic hope that Sirius won't die in the French version.