Who stuns Sirius? & Fake Death (was Re: The Veil)

[sevenhundredandthirteen]

No: HPFGUIDX 111147

> Brenda:
<snip>
> 1. Jo said that she cried after writing this chapter. She told 
> husband, "I did it" when crying in her kitchen. He told her before 
> not to kill the character off, but she said "I have to". [From an 
> interview I read a while ago, can't remember where it was from,
sorry]
> 
> 2. From JKR's website, on "Immeritus" fan site
> "I love this site, which I discovered towards the end of writing 
> Order of the Phoenix, and which made me feel exceptionally guilty,
as 
> you can imagine. I am so proud of the fact that a character, whom I 
> always liked very much, though he never appeared as much more than
a 
> brooding presence in the books, has gained a passionate fan-club."
<snip>

Laurasia:

But if she wanted us all to believe that Sirius was dead, she wouldn't go on about how easy 
it was to write an apparent death scene, right?

We already knew that she had issues writing Cedric's death scene. If, all of a sudden, an 
actual main character appears to die and there was no fuss made, we'd all wonder why. 
The fact that she has told people how upset she 'was' proves that we are meant to take 
note of how upsetting it is. In other words- the perfect bluff.

I think that it's perfectly possible that she is just 'playing the part' of an aggrieved Sirius 
fan until he returns.

Mind you, then there are real issues with why Dumbledore told Harry all the stuff about 
the prophecy. Dumbledore admits that keeping information from Harry was a really bad 
thing to do. Unless he doesn't know that Sirius is dead, he's setting himself up to get more 
of his possesions thrown at him. How can he parrot on about 'You should've known before 
this, I'm sorry' whilst being aware that Harry is once again suffering real pain because 
there is more information being with-held from him.?

I don't think it gels with Dumbledore at all. The only option must be that Dumbledore 
doesn't know that Sirius has faked his own death. Still, it seems plausible that Sirius and 
Lupin cooked up the scheme together over at Grimmauld Place.

I do love this Sirius-not-dead theory, however. It certainly isn't baseless. But it also makes 
Sirius a bit of a coward- he 'left' when Bellatrix Lestrange was still up and about in AK 
distance from his Godson. Surely Sirius doesn't consider his of fake!death a higher priority 
than Harry's life?

BUT, as much as I like this theory, I think the most elaborate fan theories spring out of 
discontent with the actual text (Any Matix fans remember all those weird 15 000 word 
explanations which arose after the vastly inferior 2nd movie?). If we all currently felt that 
there weren't any holes in the text, I doubt that this kind of theory would have sprung up. I 
think that Sirius is a lot of fans' favourite, and it's no secret that most people have yet to 
warm to the "sudden & unexpected, no clear consequence or benefit for Harry yet" death 
scenario. As yet, it's difficult to see the reason why it's okay and necessary for Sirius to die. 

It's oh-so-mean for JKR to with-hold this reason for another book. We're all desperate to 
know! But it maybe foolish from a narrative point of view to leave such a huge subplot 
unresolved. Harry certainly doesn't reach any resolution with Sirius's death at the end of 
OotP. And I would *hate* to see him spending all of HBP being angry and depressed over 
Cedric's death because we've seen that already! 

If Sirius returns (via two-way mirror or whatever) it has to be at a point when Harry has 
fully gotten over his death. If not, it suggests that death isn't final or absolute. It says that 
you *can* be desperate and hang on and dwell on memories and not get on with your life. 
I doubt JKR is going to put this theme in her book (Motto of the Mirror of Erised: you 
cannot dwell on dreams and forget to live). 

Does this mean Harry will get over Sirius ASAP? I doubt it. He dreamt about Cedric for 
months. That only leaves Harry spending a normal amount of time grieving- months at 
least. Which means Sirius may not reappear until Book 7!! Eep! If we were discontent with 
Sirius dying for no good reason and only a few days had passed in the book, how are we 
all going to be if Sirius's death shows no signs of benfitting the story for a year of book 
time?! This is why I think it may be a foolish narrative device. 

Of course, we will all immediately forgive JKR the instant Sirius waltzes on from stage 
right.

The only thing I am sure of is that Sirius went through that veil for a reason. We don't 
know what the reason is yet, but this fake!death scenario certainly creates a great reason 
for sending Sirius through.

~<(Laurasia)>~