[HPforGrownups] Re: good and bad slytherins/Disappointment and Responsibility

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 175163

Carol:
Had Sirius not met James and liked him, perhaps appreciating his
self-confidence bordering on arrogance or an air of mischievousness
like that of the Weasley Twins, he would have had no more reason than
his brother Regulus to question his family's view that he belonged in
Slytherin.

Carol, standing by her position that we are dealing here with the
uninformed opinions of eleven-year-olds and not with principle

Debbie:
Admittedly, I am not and have never been a Sirius fan (though my husband
claims Sirius is his favorite character).  Over two years ago (before HBP
was published) I argued that Sirius did not reject Slytherin because it
supported his family's pureblood ideology but because he was a rebel at
heart.  Needless to say, I didn't get much support for this hypothesis, and
I didn't expect we'd ever see more canon to support one view over the other,
so I let it drop.  But we did get new canon, and it seems to support my
position, which is for the most part the same one Carol is taking.

Alla:
Maybe just as Harry did, Sirius already chose **not Slytherin**, but
meeting James helped him to be sure that he wants Gryffindor and not
say Ravenclaw?

Debbie:
I infer something very different from the text.

"'Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?' James
asked the boy lounging on the seats opposite him, and with a jolt, Harry
realized that it was Sirius.  Sirius did not smile.
'My whole family have been in Slytherin,' he said."

I think Sirius *expected* to be sorted into Slytherin and until James'
remark, had no intention of fighting it, and perhaps no appreciation of how
Slytherin was viewed elsewhere in the WW.  However, at this point he's
already seen that Snape, who wants to be in Slytherin, has upset Lily.

Lanval:
While Sirius did take to James immediately, I don't see why that
*must* be the reason why he ended up in Slytherin. The distance to
his family and their traditions seems to be present in Sirius' mind
already.

Debbie:
Based on the exchange between James and Sirius about Slytherin, Sirius
doesn't seem to have known anything about James before meeting him (either
on the train or at King's Cross).

va32h:
Sorry Carol, I think you are letting your dislike of Sirius color your
perception here. And I don't blame you, since I have a character or two
that I simply cannot stand (cough*TONKS*cough) and tend to intrepret
that characters actions through a particular prism.

There is simply no evidence that Sirius chose Gryffindor *only* for
James, or even *for* James at all.

Debbie:
We are all drawing inferences from the text.  There is no direct evidence
either way.  However, there's nothing to indicate that Sirius *was*
motivated by principle in his rejection of Slytherin.

va32h:
Here are some of the things Sirius says about his family, in OoTP:

"Because I hated the whole lot of them: my parents with their pure-
blood mania, convinced that to be a Black made you practically
royal...my idiot brother soft enough to believe them..."

Debbie:
Sirius was not speaking of why he chose Gryffindor over Slytherin.  He was
speaking of why he left home at 16.  This was five years later, and
therefore the passage (and the others that I snipped) don't provide any
indication of his thinking when he was eleven.  We don't really even know
whether the outward conflict with his parents didn't erupt as a result of
his being sorted into Gryffindor (and probably throwing that in his mother's
face whenever he had the chance).

Prep0strus:
It seems Sirius would never use the term mudblood.

Debbie:
I'm sure that later on Sirius did not use that term.  However, we don't know
what terms are in Sirius' common vocabulary at age 11.   Lily's muggleborn
status is not mentioned in the scene, (Snape stops before mentioning that
Petunia was a muggle and since they'd mentioned a letter from Dumbledore to
Petunia, the exchange does not infer that Lily is muggleborn).  Since this
seems to be Lily's first encounter with James and Sirius, they don't know
that Lily is a muggleborn, so there's no reason for Sirius to use the term
at all.

Prep0strus:
His friends wouldn't
accept it. I think that's a pretty strong principle. And he wouldn't
use the dark arts. Another fairly strong principle. And he accepts
and defends the societal outcast Lupin, another strong principle for a
boy not brought up in the most principled family.

What we see is his bullying of Severus Snape, and from what I see in
the scenes including him, he is not an nice, innocent boy.

Do you mean Snape or Sirius?  I think you mean Snape, but Sirius isn't so
nice  or innocent, either.

 Lanval:
And please, just because James gets on Severus, and appears to be a
bit of a spoiled brat, in no way means that he was less-than-
loveable to the rest of the world.

Debbie:
Actually, this is part of my problem.  I don't find either one to be
loveable, as 11-year-olds, as 15-year-olds, or as 21-year-olds.  The Lily
who wrote the letter to Sirius from Godric's Hollow sounds as though she's
been corrupted by James and Sirius (with its airy tone and unnecessary dig
at Petunia).  James seems just as cocky as ever.  This is a bit off the
topic of Sirius, but JKR has completely failed to convince me that after
Lily's principled rejection of Snape she would substitute his tormentors
(and Sirius remained Snape's tormentor until his death, so this was not an
adolescent thing) as her best male friends, and in the case of James, her
lover and husband.


Prop0strus:
 If he
could, he would do the same to the Griffindors. that doesn't make
their bullying more acceptable, but Snape isn't an entirely innocent
victim. He's a boy practicing dark arts and engaging in prejudice.
And for Sirius to become the man we see at the end, he had to have
joined the order and fought against Voldemorte before losing his
friend or being locked up. He may be a rash and arrogant, but he was
also quite principled.

Debbie:
If, as it's suggested in Snape's memories, that Snape's first encounter
with James and Sirius occurred in the compartment on the Hogwarts Express,
then James and Sirius have no idea whether Snape is a Dark Arts
practitioner.

 Significantly, Sirius does not state that he's sick of his family, or that
they're a bunch of filthy purebloods.  The only thing we learn is tht Sirius
decides to cast his lot, if possible, with the jaunty boy who shows promise
as a partner in (school) crime.  It suits his rebellious nature to do so.

We know that later Sirius espouses the politically correct mantras, which he
may have learned through his association with James (there's a good chance
he only associated with other pureblood fanatics before going to
Hogwarts), but he doesn't fully internalize them.  He tells Harry in OOP,
with some disgust, that the Blacks believe that being pureblood is akin to
being royalty.  However, James and Sirius act like royalty themselves.  He
thinks house elves are servants beneath his notice.

JKR herself has said in an interview that Sirius is fond of espousing
principles, but that he doesn't really live up to them.  We learn a lot
about Sirius from how he treats his inferiors:  with utter contempt. Sirius
was in the Order, but Dumbledore takes a lot of backsliders onto his team,
so a failure to live up to his principles would hardly have disqualified him
from the Order.  However, I continue to believe -- and have found no canon
to refute it -- that the higher principles Sirius espoused didn't manifest
in his acts because he didn't come to them on his own.  He learned them from
the Potters.  I'll bet that Sirius had clashed with his family before he
went to Hogwarts, and if he was offended by their principles, it
was because of the way his wacko mother pushed them on him.

Sirius' loyalty to James allowed him to reject everything his family
represented:  their offensive ideology, the Dark Arts.  However, Sirius'
best quality is his fierce, dog-like loyalty to his friends.  He would not
hesitate to lay down his life for his friends, but I still think it's not
too much of a stretch to conclude that his principles are his friends'
principles.  And that's not meant as an insult or an indictment of Sirius.
He was a better person for his friendship with James and his decision to
choose Gryffindor over Slytherin.  Just look at what Snape's opposite choice
(because he clearly had the bravery to be a Gryffindor) did to him.

Lanval:
Also: if we're talking arrogance, we might take a look at young
Snape. Who obviously has a bit of a superiority thing going.

I'm glad DH finally cleaned up with some fanon misconceptions about
Snape. He was no innocent abused lamb, ganged up on from all sides
for no reason. He spies, he snipes, he lies, he helps to drive a
wedge between two sisters, and shows some pretty worrisome character
traits. (That JKR still somehow manages to make Little Snape
heartbreakingly, pathetically touching, is quite an accomplishment,
I think).

Debbie:
In fairness to Snape, the deck was always stacked against him.  He was from
a bad neighborhood, wore funny clothes, had a bad home life and must have
felt like a misfit.  And when he dared to reveal himself to Lily and
Petunia, Petunia threw all of it in his face.  So, yes, Snape was a bit
defensive on the train.  But arrogant bullies thrive on taking advantage of
misfits, which only sets off an endless cycle of antagonism.

Debbie


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