Why Do You Like Sirius?

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 122486


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Magda Grantwich 
<mgrantwich at y...> wrote:

<snip>

> The backstory about the Prank that we lack concerns the relations
> between Snape and Sirius; JKR has said this.  We've got all the info
> we need about the relations between Sirius and Remus.

Here I would disagree.  We have no idea how Remus felt about it at 
the time--we only have his rather blithe commentary on it at the 
present [see below, same thread, for some more discussion on that], 
which could be rationalization, could be a real change in Remus from 
past to present, but could be how he reacted at the time.  Remus is a 
rather opaque character in many ways, so I'm really not sure what his 
reactions mean.  That said, the lack of a clear-and-detailed 
explanation of Sirius' motivation(s) also makes it impossible to 
state with confidence how he was regarding Lupin in the whole thing.  
[We have like, what, two incidents we're going on for past relations, 
Pensieve!scene and the mess of Prank information--not enough for a 
good seriated model.]

While we know that there was some great breakdown in trust between 
Sirius and Remus, what we do not have is (for example) something that 
would let us straightforwardly connect the Prank to that.  It may 
well turn out--it's plausible, but it's also unproven.  Hence the 
argument that circularity often insues; with all of us, we ask the 
kinds of questions that fit into our own paradigms and (pre)
dispositions towards characters.  And the incommensurability of 
accounts about this event strikes me as a very deliberate literary 
decision and a good one on JKR's part: it could come out the most 
*or* the least obvious way by the addition of minimal information.

-Nora sings the praises of seriation and Verstehen readings