[HPforGrownups] JKR's dealing with emotions - Talking about Death

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 147597

--- Kemper <iam.kemper at gmail.com> wrote:

> The problem with Harry's coping of Sirius' death isn't that long,
> Shakespearean soliloquies are absent from the text, it's that Harry
> isn't shown waking with a tear-soaked pillow or something similar 
> to show the reader the depth of Harry's loss and how he was 
> hurting silently..... 
>
> The reader has developed a relationship with Sirius that is hours 
> long in the reading and even more so
> upon our ponderings of the text.  Harry had 2 years with Sirius and
> saw him as a mentor if not a father figure.  But after the 
> death.... not much. Not even silent lamenting.  


Harry didn't have "2 years with Sirius".  He had a series of fleeting
encounters and conversations - usually in the presence of other
people (which can put a damper on intimacy) and at times of important
plot or character development.  I can remember only once when they
had something like a private bonding moment that one would expect in
a close godson-godfather relationship: in GOF when they're talking by
floo and Harry is confiding his hurt about Ron's attitude and his
fear of the upcoming dragan task.  That conversation is interupted by
Ron's appearance on the stairs.

Sirius represented a lot of things to Harry: family connections to
his parents, a non-Dursley adult guardian alternative, a wonderful
future outside of Little Whinging.  Someone who's there for Harry and
Harry alone; someone who'd do anything for him.  

Which is not to say that Harry was somehow just using Sirius or
didn't really care about him the man.  But the deep emotional bond
that would have to exist for the kind of grief that Kemper and others
would like to see just hadn't had time or opportunity to develop.  

Harry felt closest to Sirius when Sirius was far away and
inaccessible.  When they did connect, open dialogue between them was
often constrained by fears for each others' safety or the need for
discretion in front of others.  

I find Harry's grief as JKR wrote it very believable. He's still
slightly in shock, he's still got a strong feeling of personal guilt
for going to the MOM in the first place, the future seems more lonely
than before.  He's not ready to deal with all that yet so he's stuck
everything in the deep freeze where he won't have to look at it and
has transferred the hostility he feels safe enough to let loose to
Kreacher and Snape.  Harry's not ready to grieve until he's ready to
forgive himself - for the MOM fiasco, for not being more the kind of
godson Sirius wanted or deserved, for not trying harder to understand
and help Sirius himself during the year of OOTP.  

You don't think Harry doesn't remember how Sirius spent long hours
alone with Buckbeak while Harry was with his friends in the rest of
the house?  You don't think Harry doesn't feel guilty as hell about
that now?  That he doesn't remember all those lost, wasted hours they
could have talked together?

Harry's not dealing with things well, and Dumbledore's death will
allow him to work up a major head of steam as he gets down to really
impressive Snape-hate in Book 7.  Forgiving people he doesn't like is
something that Harry has to learn in Book 7 and the first person he
has to forgive is himself.

Magda  

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