The Death of Sirius Black

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 89527

My feelings towards OotP are ambiguous. For I threw the book against
the wall several times. I remember cold horror washing over me at
points. Yet, when I finished the book, I was overall delighted with
it, and rereading I've grown to like it even more.

Furthermore, I find the things that most people dislike about the book
are the ones that delighted me even the first time around.

Sirius's death, for instance. Have I ever mentioned before how much I
love JKR's little trick of making tangible things tangible? Dementors,
the Mirror of Erised, and now the Veil. No, it wasn't 'realistic' for
Sirius to fall surprised and gracefully through the Veil of Death.

(It's one those many moments in the series that makes me realize how
indebted Rowling is to C.S. Lewis's imagination, this trick of
concretization being one of Lewis's. Comparison to the end of the
Voyage of the Dawn Treader will *not* be indulged in here.)

When Sirius falls through the Veil, it most definitely is one of the
series' most 'mystical' moments. Sirius isn't just Sirius here. He's
Everyman. When you have Death made real on the stage, the person who
falls through isn't just dying on their own account. Their death
naturally enters into the concrete symbol.

You're busy with your life, you're struggling but with things sort of
under control, when you fall surprised to death, and are quickly
forgotten in the ongoing commotion of life.

No, Sirius's death is not realistic in the sense that "Death By
Falling Through Veil" is a common result of coroner's reports. It's
real on a different level, a mythic level.

This is probably a good time to pause a second as I know that people's
eyes are suddenly glazing over and can predict the response. "Well,
yeah, it didn't work emotionally so now you're *analyzing* it, and
coming up with a fancy theory of how it works mechanically."

But believe me, when I say things like *mythic level* I don't mean
less heart-felt, less visceral, less immediate in response. I think
that it works through this level for me. Obviously, it doesn't work
for other people. I'm going to be so rash as to suggest that JKR's
habit of genre slippage may bear the blame for this. The death scene
is getting close to high allegory, and while I adore these parts of
the series, have since PS/SS, other people don't, and are here for
other things. Consequently, a major character dying in a disliked
genre might be rather dry for a good many readers. This is, of course,
only a guess on my part.

But while I'm talking about Sirius's death, I think something needs to
be said about what aspect of death JKR is portraying. A good many
quotes have been passed around from JKR about death as brutal, sudden
etc. but none of them seem to address the general ambience of death in
OotP. And I'm not surprised. If I were JKR, I wouldn't be caught dead
talking about *that*. OotP is about *seductive* death.

Unlike GoF, where death is brutal and destroying, death in OotP is
inviting. Harry is almost lured through the veil by the voices just
beyond. He wishes for death when Voldemort has him in his grip. And
Sirius - well, Sirius had a death wish all through the book and
finally has it granted in that last scene. Death is soft, a quick end
to trouble. And on the other side is, as Luna and Harry's conversation
suggests, happiness once again. "Going to bed after a very long nap,"
says Dumbledore in PS/SS and now at the age of 15, Harry is already
feeling very tired.

"Darkling I listen and for many a time, I have been half in love with
easeful Death." - John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale.

Eileen