Good Writing & Death

[anthyroserain]

No: HPFGUIDX 110902

B_Boymn:

> 3.) Sirius's death. Death is rarely satisfying; it rarely comes 
with
> resolution. You're driving down the road one day, satisfied and
> content with the world, when some idiot eating a sandwich while
> yakking on the cell phone crosses the centerline and snuffs your 
life
> out. No tearful goodbyes, no chance to resolve old issues, no 
chance
> to say 'I love you' or 'I'm sorry'; just gone.
> 
> In addition, I think JKR meant Sirius's death to be a hollow,
> pointless, and unsatisfying death. Hargrid tries to make it
> 'satisfying' by saying that Sirius died in battle, and that how he
> would have liked to go, but, of course, Harry points out that 
Sirius
> wouldn't have like to go to his death by any means. 
[snip]
> But even after combining a common euphemism with the 'Chamber of
> Death' we still, as readers, wanted satisfaction, meaning,
> justification, explanation, hope, and our beloved Sirius back, so 
we
> did what we do, and that is, come up with alternate explanation and
> conspiracy theories to supposed the idea that he was not really 
dead,
> or that he would return by some magical means. 


Katie:

You know, I would find Sirius's death a whole lot less irritating if 
it made more sense. The thing is, yes, death is unsatisfying, but 
Sirius's is even unsatisfying as a FICTIONAL death! 

A more satisfying (but sad!) death might be:
    1) Bella mortally wounds Sirius
    2) Sirius goes through the veil...
    3) ...leaving his body behind.

There, you know he's dead. As it is, he's just a living guy who went 
through the veil! He *never died*! He TRIPPED!(Reminds me of Gollum 
in LOTR, but that's another story...) 

If JKR wrote in metaphors, it might be an acceptable death, but she 
doesn't. HP might have magic in it, but it's recognizably about the 
real world. It's not really a fable. The other deaths don't seem so 
bizarre: Harry's parents are killed, and so is Cedric. JKR 
definitely plays by the rules of fiction, and Sirius's death seems 
like a big exception.

It's such an unsatisfying death for readers: it comes as a complete 
surprise, it happens through a device that was just introduced a few 
pages before and never explained, and there's no body left. JKR must 
know all this. She's either 1) going to have Sirius's "death" become 
crucial to the story later on, or 2) trying to annoy her readers. As 
she says she's sorry she "had to do it", and I have faith in her, I 
trust it's 1)!

> As a side note, just to keep the theorists fueled, many of the
> searched 'Beyond the Veil' links are about /near/ death 
experiences.
> 'Beyond the Veil' still does mean or imply into the land of the 
dead,
> but most people who go 'beyond the veil' and return, are people who
> don't make it all the way. They enter the 'tunnel of light' and are
> met there by a friend, beloved relative, or an angel who tells 
them it
> is not their time and that they must return. Theoretically, if you
> make it beyond the 'tunnel of light', there is no turning back. 
This
> is typically true in near death experience, but not always so in
> Mythological advantures. 


And this is what gives me hope. "Beyond the Veil" does seem to imply 
that the veil is a two-way thing. 
Huh... wonder if this all has anything to do with Voldemort and his 
kinda-immortality? (I mean, the series did start with the 
Philosopher's Stone..) D'you suppose the prophecy was a red herring, 
and not his real interest at the MOM at all? Nah..

knowing this has all been said before,
Katie