Purging the DE ranks and deadly!Sirius (was Re: The boys holding the prophecy)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 128208

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "AyanEva" <ayaneva at a...> wrote:

<snip>

> AyanEva:
>
> And there's still the question of how a bunch of kids can best a 
> bunch of fully grown evil wizards. A bit of bad writing, or maybe 
> the DEs were sabotaged by their Master so that their fighting
> skills would be compromised? Just a thought. Sorry, I know I keep 
> asking questions that probably have no answer, but I'm just dying 
> for a theory.

Well, they are trying to avoid smashing the shiny as much as possible-
-which causes some restraint.  It has also been postulated that 
casting things like Killing Curses is rather exhausting, and not 
their top priority at the moment.  In addition, remember that sheer 
individual competence is really not necessary to run an effective 
reign of terror.  I think we all underestimate the DEs in some areas 
and overestimate them in others.

<snip>

> In post 128165, Sherry wrote:
> 
> Ok, I'm a broken record on this topic, I guess. However, recently 
> on this list, we discussed JKR's statements about why people take 
> the animagus forms they do. She was quoted as saying that the 
> animagus form comes from inside the wizard, based on their 
> personality, who they are inside. 

<snip>

> AyanEva:
> 
> But the Grim's a dog and it heralds death. That's not exactly good
> unless you have a death wish. Speaking of which, setting aside my
> previously mentioned dislike for Sirius, I've always wondered why 
> JKR chose to equate him with a Grim for half the book until they 
> found out that he was just an animagus dog?

(Well, there is the more obvious point that the narrative structure 
of PoA absolutely hinges on things in plain sight being 
misinterpreted, leading to a resolution that hinges on reversal...)

To go more than slightly meta on you all, I finally remembered where 
to find what I remember--it's on JKR's site, when commenting upon 
cats vs. dogs:

"I am not overly fond of cats. Like Hagrid, I am allergic to them and 
much prefer dogs."

Let's keep playing the meta game and assume that JKR's assignation of 
animagus forms to people not only tells us something about who they 
are in the story, but also thus about *what she thinks* about that 
character.  She's a dog lover, as attested to further elsewhere.  
Would she make a character objectively evil and assign them the form 
of one of her favorite animals?  I don't think so.  (Of course, her 
pegging of Lupin as a favorite character has been interpreted as not 
telling us that he's not evil, so anything can fly.)

That is, of course, separate from individual feelings about 
characters, which are completely up to anyone.  But if you're looking 
for more concrete and less subjective things to pin on someone, it's 
always good to keep the author's orientation in mind when guessing 
whether things will be made manifest in the text or not.

-Nora herself expects Rowling's comments about various characters to 
be made rather manifest in textual events