Sirius expendable?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 85295

> > Carol:
> > Sirius, though he's the title character in PoA, was deliberately
> > misrepresented throughout that book and appeared in his proper 
> person
> > only very near the end. He was a distant face and voice in GoF and 
> was
> > present in OoP only in the Grimmauld Place chapters and in the DoM
> > battle in which he was killed. He is not a major character to the 
> same
> > degree as Ron or Hermione or for that matter Snape, who has grown 
> and
> > developed through all the books as is as much a part of Hogwarts as
> > Dumbledore. I do agree with your statement that only Ron's or
> > Hermione's deaths would have hurt Harry more than Sirirus's. That 
> does
> > not make him a major character, however, and he is clearly 
> expendable
> > regardless of his popularity on this list and elsewhere.

 
> Jen: I don't see how Sirius dying equals his character being 
> expendable. His major role in the story arc was to give us 
> information no other character could give. He and Pettigrew alone 
> held the valuable information that they switched as Secret Keepers, 
> and that Pettigrew was actually the spy. Without Black escaping 
> Azkaban, no one would ever be the wiser that Wormtail was alive and 
> living in Harry's dorm. <snip>


Carol: Sorry to be unclear. I don't mean that the whole PoA plot was
expendable--far from it--only that Sirius could die when his purpose
was fulfilled without creating a huge hole in the story. As Snape
unkindly pointed out, Sirius was stuck in Grimmauld Place unable to do
anything significant for the Order. He was becoming more moody and
reckless with every day spent in his mother's house with only Buckbeak
and the egregious Kreacher for company. Certainly he was important to
Harry and LV could use that importance to lure Harry into the DoM, and
certainly the Harry we see in the next book will be different because
of Sirius's death.But Sirius has now served his purpose and the series
can go on without him. It would be much more difficult to continue
without, say, Hermione, Dumbledore, or Snape, who seem to me to
essential both to the plot and to Harry's development. (I do think
Dumbledore will die in Book 7, to be succeeded by Headmistress
McGonagall, but not yet. The real challenge will come when Harry and
Hogwarts are no longer protected by the only wizard Voldemort fears.)

Carol