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

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 84225

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tom Wall" <thomasmwall at y...> wrote:
A long response from  Tom.
Heavy clipping  but I'll try  not to simplify his arguments too much
or take things deliberately out of context.
 
> 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. 
> 
> 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. 

Kneasy:
I'm not so sure. Note that I didn't (surprise, surprise) *insist* that he
would be revealed as Evil!Sirius, in fact that is only one of three,
(? four) revelations I can think of that might have plot implications.
Don't forget Sirius is linked to a lot more characters than just Harry
and his  actions, history and motivations can affect them too.
 

> 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? ;-)


Kneasy:
Tut, tut. What an admission.
Well, it is if you employ my usages of the critical  words!
Analysis - lovely; spend long hours skull-bashing, gathering bits of
canon and deriving reasonable assumptions. Developing these into a
theory and watching the rest of  the site yawn at the result. 
What better way to spend an evening?
Post facto  rationalisation (by my definition) doesn't involve hard
work at all. It's more of an off-the-cuff knee-jerk reaction (if that's
not too much of a mixed metaphor). It can be correct, of course,
which is bloody annoying. My motto is "Posters should suffer in 
pursuit of the truth." 


Tom: 
> 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. 
> 
> 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' - 


Kneasy:
Maybe. But I would have thought the death of Cedric in Book 4 amply 
covered point one. That really was a pointless and unexpected death.
Harry suffered because of it too, in Book 5. Because of the timing of
Sirius' death, we won't see the longer term effects until Book 6. How 
long is all this death trauma supposed to remain at centre stage?
All this battering is more likely to  turn him into a fatalist  instead
of 'facilitating his growth.' Personally, I don't think you learn anything =

from the death of someone close. Except how to grieve. How adult is that?

I don't  really  trust JKR when she talks like that. Occasionally she may
give clues to an event, such as a death, but  when she talks of themes 
I'm on my guard. It is such an easy way to mislead us while we think 
we have received a real answer.

As to Sirius'  death being the most shocking -  have you considered
his  reaction if it had been Ron? 

Tom
> 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. 
> 

Kneasy:
Not quite what I said.
It is *a* theme. There are multiple themes.
But if you only consider one theme, you are like someone whose tool
kit consists only of a hammer -  everything looks like a nail.

Tom:
> 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. ;-)
 
Kneasy:
Oh, I don't know. Time bending seems to be of growing importance in
the series, I'm certainly expecting more of it. I can't equate the nature
of time with maturity somehow (except in  the broadest sense). I have
a feeling that the head-shrinker in the Ministry is something pointing
to the *cyclical* nature of events rather than maturity per se.

Tom:
> 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.
> 
Kneasy:
Difficult to snip this without butchering it.
I  see this as a prime 'hammer' interpretation. You don't seem to have
considered any other alternatives.
Knowledge is not maturity, how you use it may be.
Disobedience is not maturity (Ron did worse with the flying car).
Cho and Marietta show little sign of it.
Sirius (re Regulus) is filling in background
DD seems to understand teenagers very well, but he deliberately
lies to further his own plans.
Career advice is a right of passage, but nobody seems mature enough 
to make realistic choices.
Disillusionment can happen at any age. (And always after careers advice.)
With Harry it  happened when he realised what the Dursleys were really 
like. He'd be about seven, I imagine.

IMO opinion you're reaching a bit too far with nearly all these
examples. You see them as indicators of maturity, I see most as
necessary information and plot developments essential for the
reader to know what the hell is going on.

Tom:
> 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. 
>

Kneasy:
True, these incidents do involve him in parts of the adult world he
hasn't experienced before and they probably will colour his outlook
to a certain degree. Yes, Harry is growing up, he will have to deal
with adults on adult terms, his attitudes may change as a result, he
will  mature, that is inevitable given the time scale of the series, or
it is unless he cops it in the neck, but that's not likely. But consider,
when have the pupils of Hogwarts really been treated like children?
Only during Dolly's  reign, IMO. At other times the climate has
been remarkably formal  and adult. Childhood seemed to  be left
behind once they first boarded the Hogwarts Express. How many
of the children were homesick? None, apparently. Very  adult.

JKR seems to have gone out of her way to present her younger
characters as  mature from the start, apart  from what I would refer
to as learning about the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue.
Lacking knowledge, yes, child-like, no.

 
Tom: 
> 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.
> 
Kneasy:
Trying to pull a fast one there, Tom?
I  never said that maturity wasn't a theme, or that it was post facto
rationalisation, it isn't. I said the automatic assumption that Sirius'
death was solely about emotional maturity were pfr. I still do.
Aspects of Sirius not before appreciated will have clout, IMO.

Tom:
> 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:
I got it wrong too. I said Ginny would be it.
Which would have been even Bangier, particularly as I posted that Percy
would be at fault.
I felt cheated by it being Sirius. Not very gory, either. Most disappointin=
g.
But I tend towards lip-smacking, blood-boultered mayhem. Yippee!