Why Do You Like Sirius?

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No: HPFGUIDX 122290


Casey writes:
>I saw a Black that encouraged James' worst traits, 
>not one that tried to improve himself for him. Is there a scene I 
>missed that showed Black trying to make himself better for James?

I wish I could pull one up for you, but I have a bad habit of giving 
books away.  My copy of OoP is on order.  Not sure if I have 
specifics or if it was just the impression I got.

Casey:
>Trivial? He tried to murder a classmate and used a friend as the 
>weapon of death. That doesn't sound, to me, like he knew right from 
>wrong. Or didn't care if he did.

I doubt he would have let it go that far.  He had to have guessed 
someone would save Snape (and as it turned out, someone did).  We 
have to remember this was a teenager, also, and they have a tendency 
to do very stupid things.  It would be easy to rationalize this if 
something did happen to Snape as, "Hey, it was his own curiosity that 
killed him.  He didn't have to go in there."  I'm hoping this 
incident also made him see the gravity of his pranks, although we 
have no evidence of that.

Casey:
>So, it was the *potential* to be a father figure that makes you like 
>him, even if he actually wasn't much of one.

In a way, yes.  I think he wasn't much of one because he never had 
the opportunity.  Who knows how things would have turned out if Harry 
had actually been able to live with him - under normal circumstances, 
not borderline imprisonment under extrememly tense circumstances; 
Sirius was like a caged...dog...and was not exposing his best 
behavior.  To me, his snapping at Harry was not meant to be a vicious 
cut, it was his way of blowing off steam.

The closest I can come to explaining it is that I view Sirius as 
quite a lot like Snape.  Maybe that's one reason they hate each other 
so much.  Sirius can be quite callous and self-serving and maybe even 
downright evil at times, but he's still chosen to be on the side of 
the good guys.  We know that (well, so far) to be a fact, whereas 
Snape's "side" is still unknown.  If Snape - with his massive amount 
of flaws - turns out to be firmly on DD's side he'll have just as 
many fans as Sirius.  Probably more, judging from the quantity of 
posts!

Nicky Joe