Sirius revisited. Character discussions

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 104264

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Jocelyn Grunow <aandj at l...> wrote:
> 
> 
> I think this may be a function not only of personality, but also of
> life-experience - and therefore partly of age.  I think as we experience
> more morally ambiguous situations in life we come to recognise more shades
> of grey.  We come to understand why people do heinous things without seeing
> themselves as heinous people.
> 
Kneasy:
Was that a slip, or  a deliberate phrasing? - "see themselves as evil"
Who sees themselves as evil in canon? Sirius? Snape? Fudge? Malfoy?
It's down to us, I think, to draw our own conclusions - at least until
all  is revealed. Do our life experiences matter when considering the 
books? Sure, we may draw parallels but  that does not  guarantee
their validity in this case. Our experiences and our responses to them
are not congruent with those of the cast in the books, probably not 
with JKR's either.

I'm not young (born during WWII), grey is what I know best. And I'll
match my life experiences with anyone; you do and see a lot in 60 years,
particularly if you spend much of your working life in very different cultures.
But I'm not so sure that's any help at all in sussing out HP. Motivations are
a good pointer to predicted behaviour in RL; but in HP I'm not sure that
we've been given all that are relevant, those that do/will determine the 
story arc, sufficient for us to form an opinion, but not enough to remove
doubts or suspicions.

All the characters, with the probable exception of Voldy, show degrees
of moral ambiguity. Deliberately so IMO. They are constructed to make
us think, to make us wonder, to make choices. The roulette wheel is
still spinning and we are placing our bets. Most of us will be losers,
we know that, but it doesn't detract from the game. Whose betting
system will prevail? Those who go by gut instinct or those that
construct towering edifices of logical deduction based on observed
behaviour in the Real World? Perhaps those who try to detect some
sort of consistency solely within the parameters of the Potterverse, 
recognising it as something 'other' and not a direct extrapolation of 
RL have the right idea. Who can tell?

Most posters tend towards the last option, or at least so the frequent
appeals to canon would imply. We scour the canon for support or
ammunition for refutation, we dismiss the non-canonical arguments.
But of course the canon doesn't fill in all the gaps - yet. Since we're
impatient and unwilling to wait another 4? 5? years for the answers,
we speculate. Only natural. And fun.

There have been a couple of posts recently that seem to dismiss
this as pointless and/or boring. I find this puzzling. What else is
the site for? ESEs, SHIPs, HBP -  all are speculations based on guesses
or deduction. Or are these critical comments generalisations reflecting
a personal dislike for specific threads? If so, it's easy -  don't read them.
I don't read SHIPs, but if others derive pleasure from them, what harm
does that cause to me? None. But I might write a humorous take on
them occasionally. 

Yes, threads do repeat -  just about everything on the board has been
written before, check the back posts for an ego-shrivelling experience.
I  did. Someone else has invariably posted your brainwave before - and
probably made a better job of it. Does that mean that we must now stop
posting because it's all been done? Hardly. We just pick and choose which
threads interest us and that we want to contribute to. If we're new to the
site, it's everything; the older hands usually become more selective.

Jocelyn:
> And I suspect more younger people participate in these discussions than
> older people.  The ability to comfortably use computers in this way is far
> more common among those in their 20s than those in their 80s, I would
> venture!

Kneasy:
Maybe. 
But age and mendacity beats youth and enthusiasm 9 times out of 10.
You get sneakier as you get older. Splendid!