Sirius' death (was: Dept of Mysteries Veil Room)

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 115067


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> Carol responds:

<snip>

> I suppose that things might have been different if he had not landed
> himself in Azkaban by going after Peter Pettigrew and had somehow
> managed to persuade Dumbledore of his innocence. Even then he would
> have played no role in Harry's life until he attended Hogwarts 
> because Dumbledore wanted Harry to be placed with the Dursleys.

Do we know this for sure?  Perhaps an active, sane, growing-up Sirius 
could have provided some *much* needed counter-balance to the 
Dursleys.  DD had him placed there out of safety, but I can see 
several scenarios developing from there on.  This is, of course, all 
hypothetical.

> And Sirius at his best is not much of a role model for the boy 
> destined to be the one who destroys Voldemort. He's arrogant and 
> reckless, qualities that Dumbledore can't allow Harry to develop.

He's certainly not the only character in the books who is arrogant, 
but I'll let everyone fill in that blank for himself.  And no matter 
what any of us think about him, Harry loved him deeply, and he loved 
Harry; and I think he had a lot to offer, in both that capacity and 
in others.  (I'm a little frustrated because now we're never going to 
get some personal exposition of some events that only Black would 
really have the interesting perspective on, if you know what I 
mean.)  If we're going to wipe out everyone who could be a bad role 
model for the kid, the Order is toast.

> I'm sorry if that view strikes you as cold. Your saying so strikes
> *me* as rude.

I do think it is cold to make, as a hypothetic, what comes off as 
a "better off dead" value judgement, on a character.  "much more 
important than any contribution the living Sirius made or could have 
made in helping him grow up".  It may end up being true in the story 
that now Black's main purpose is teaching Harry how to grieve, but I 
don't think that was always necessarily true, and I think it's a 
somewhat reductionist treatment of the character.

> Carol, who thought the List Elves had dealt with the incivility 
> issue and is sorry to discover that she was wrong

Excuse me.  I tried to phrase what I found, honestly, mildly 
disturbing about your message in as polite of terms as I could.  I 
would prefer, in the future, that if I have personally upset someone 
on here, for someone to let me know about that in person, rather than 
dragging that aspect of it onto the main list.

-Nora wonders where she got into using 'hypothetic' as a noun