Kneasy // A Dumb Way to Die

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 96339

Kneasy wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/96317 :

<< Besides, never trust tales that come from a country that changes
it's name. When I was there it was Upper Volta; didn't see any 
three-headed snakes either, but since it's in the book I'll not make 
a fuss. >>

Never trust tales that come from a country that changes its name? 
Like Great Britain changing its name to United Kingdom?

Kimberly wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/96323 :

<< that was just a dumb way to kill someone off. There, I said it.
*G* It's like surviving a 10 car crash with no more than a broken
thumb and the ambulance you're riding in on the way to the hospital
gets into an accident and it proves fatal. There were so many times
that Sirius was in danger (through out his life) and then "oops, watch
out for that curtain". My speculation is that there is a reason it
happened the way it did but until my limited vision sees it in print,
I just don't care for the way he died. >>

Personally, I feel that JKR chose that means of death for Sirius
BECAUSE it was a dumb way to die. Because it is so realistic that
people die in dumb ways for no particular reason. The daily newspapers
are full of people who died ironically, when it was a sudden death:
the soldier returned home safe from combat who was killed his first
full day at home (by his wife, as it turned out, altho' at first the
news accepted her story that it was a mugger); the daring aviation
pioneer killed in old age as a passenger in a commercial airline
crash...  But we Muggles don't notice the irony when it's an old
person dying from what we think of as a disease of old age: isn't it
pretty amazing that one metasizing cell can kill a person who survived
years of falling off the jungle gym, automobile traffic, military
service, airplane travel, walking on trip-risky stairs, job stress,
exposure to germs, etc?