JKR characterizations--oversimplification?

[doctor_fangeek]

No: HPFGUIDX 114996


A not too long reply, starting with a qualification about an 
assumption made about my post (in regard to JKRs comments about 
Sirius on her website):

Whether or not I am a "Sirius fan" seems irrelevant here, and 
neither did I actually indicate that I was.  My point was that I 
found JKR's assessment of his character, as put forth on her 
website, both an oversimplification and also inconsistant with 
things she actually wrote in the books.  My like or dislike of (or 
indifference toward) Sirius is not the point.  I in fact agree with 
much of what you've said in terms of why Sirius' life circumstances 
might have made him less able to deal with various events, 
particularly in OotP.  I think you've articulated some of these 
ideas well, and in ways that make sense, but it seems overly 
generous to ascribe your interpretations to JKR when what she said 
is not really the same as (nor does it really imply, I don't think) 
what *you* are saying. 

For example, you say regarding Kreacher:
"Sirius might have been better able to cope with the responsibility 
of dealing with Kreacher, and everything the House Elf represented, 
if he would have had time to mature."

Lisa:
Or if he hadn't been forced by circumstances to live in conditions 
that constantly reminded him of a past he thought he'd left behind 
at 16, or if he'd had more time to 'recover' from Azkaban before 
being put in that position, or....  I agree that Sirius was perhaps 
not in a mental state and/or at a point in his life conducive to his 
being able to take Kreacher's antics more "in stride."

However, saying that "the circumstances of Sirius' life and his 
maturity (or lack thereof) made it more difficult for him to deal 
with Kreacher and everything he represented" is NOT the same as 
saying "Sirius loathed Kreacher, which just goes to show that he is 
good at spouting philosophy but can't live up to it."  I honestly 
still fail to see how this was about an inability to specifically 
treat an 'inferior' decently.  As Jen says, "I completely believed,
because of the way JKR wrote the story, that we were intended to see
Sirius' hatred of Kreacher as a very personal hatred stemming from
his bizarre family, their love of the Dark Arts and even Grimmauld
Place. It never occured to me in reading OOTP that Sirius was
treating Kreacher the way he did *because* he was a House Elf and
Sirius looked down on him for it."

What you're saying and what JKR's words say are two very different 
things, I think.

Then later in your post, you say,
"To me, she is implying that Sirius was unable to let go of his past 
experiences with Snape."

and

"Implying that he did not deal with Snape effectively in the context 
of the OotP really seems fair to me."

Lisa:
Again, I agree with you (although also, again, I'd say that this 
inability was pretty much mutual, but that's another discussion).  I 
think both of these things are true, and if JKR had said them, I 
would have no issue with her.  Sirius does have difficultly letting 
go of his past with Snape, and he doesn't deal well with him in 
OotP. 

However, as with the previous example, there is a difference between 
what you've just said and what JKR herself said.  First of all she 
tells us that Sirius has put forth the philosophy that no one is 
wholly good or wholly evil, when that is not, in fact, what he said 
at all.  Then she uses his "issues" with Snape to show that he is 
inconsistent.  But if you compare what Sirius *actually* said ("The 
world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters") to his 
opinion of Snape (as set forth pretty clearly in GoF), the two seem 
pretty consistent, I think.  He doesn't like Snape, doesn't 
necessarily trust him, but allows that he could be a nasty git and 
still not be a Death Eater (it turns out he was wrong, and Snape 
*was* a Death Eater, but that's neither here nor there at the 
moment).  So, just as Sirius says, the world isn't divided 
into "good" people and Death Eaters.  I'm still waiting for someone 
to explain how these two things (Sirius' *actual* words and his 
opinion of Snape) don't track with one another.

Such oversimplification and misstating of the facts is frustrating 
to me regardless of what character we're talking about and whether I 
like them or not.  As I said in my original post, I'm sure I'm not 
meant to look this closely at comments made about a secondary 
character, but I have to wonder, as Jen did in her post, whether 
there is/was a consistent vision behind all of this.  And it's 
disappointing to read an author's statements when they seem (to me 
at least) to speak of sloppy characterization.

Like I said, I don't disagree with many of your points.  I just 
don't see that they really follow from JKRs actual words.

Lisa