Why Sirius Had to Die-maybe (was: Why we'll get no further revelations that Snap

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 169770

> wynnleaf
> These are good examples.  Many of us speculate on what's important
> about Lily or why Sirius had to die and in most of the speculation
> there's this implicit realization that the revelations about Lily 
or
> about why Sirius had to die are actually going to be important to 
what
> will happen in the book -- not just For Harry's Information (a 
sort of
> FYI).  JKR mentioned something about why Sirius "had" to die.  In
> other words, whatever Harry eventually learns about it will be
> something that "had" to happen for a reason in the plot.   Whatever
> Harry learns about Lily and Sirius will drive his opinions, his
> actions, or something that affects the plot.  Harry's not just 
going
> to learn once again that Lily was good at potions.  He's not going 
to
> get a revelation about Lily which only serves to show him that she
> loved him.  He already knows that -- for goodness sake, she *died* 
for
> him.  The revelation of why Sirius had to die isn't going to be
> redundant.  Harry won't learn that Sirius had to die because Bella
> wanted him dead or Snape hated him.  Harry already knows that.

Magpie:
This is a bit of a tangent, but I was recently thinking about this 
question of why Sirius had to die for plot reasons. I wrote this in 
my lj but thought I might share it here. Hope nobody minds!

Here it is:
This was written in response to a paper I saw at Phoenix Rising 
(which was great) about PoA as a Gothic novel. The paper 
concentrated solely on PoA and showed how it followed the tropes and 
themes of the Gothic novel, including its anxiety about the failure 
of the patriarchal line (that's ultimately conquered when Harry 
learns it was he and not James that chased away the Dementors). 
Hearing about PoA discussed in terms of the Gothic makes me think 
how funny it was that at the time it came out, and even afterwards 
in GoF, we saw Sirius as a character presented as a man on his own 
who was part of *Harry's* family as one of the Marauders. He was 
like an uncle, along with Remus and even Peter. Harry saw him as 
family and a connection to his father.

But then in OotP it turns out Sirius actually exists in the context 
of this big, clanking Gothic structure of his own: the Black family. 
And that's what got me thinking about his death. One of the things 
that seems kind of important about the Black family is it's so 
deeply connected to Slytherin and Purebloods. Like, if ultimately 
Slytherin has to be integrated into the school, how does JKR go 
about attacking its problems? The obvious solution seems to be that 
she went Gothic, creating this family with a house full of secrets 
that is being destroyed from within. Sirius' father isn't really 
shown, but the mere fact that his mother is mad and screaming kind 
of indicates a failure there. Sirius and Regulus both failed in 
different ways as adults.

So why did Sirius have to die, besides Harry going on alone? 
Honestly, I think it may be important for Sirius to have died 
because Harry is his heir. In inheriting the Black House, which of 
course symbolizes all the secrets and tragedies of the Black family 
(literally and figuratively) Harry has become an Heir to the Black 
family in Sirius' place. Just as PoA gave us the Shrieking Shack 
that held the Potter family secrets Harry has now inherited and 
taken ownership of the even more insane Black family secrets--
secrets it's going to be harder for him to uncover on his own. 

I was reminded of this when we were talking here about the way Ron 
and Hermione didn't back Harry up on his Malfoy obsession in HBP the 
way they'd always been by his side before. I thought this was 
explained on both the superficial and deeper level. Superficially, 
HBP is the first time Harry himself really isn't being targeted, so 
that gives Ron and Hermione a reason that they can be interested in 
their own things. In the past they haven't just been interested in 
the mystery because Harry was interested in it; there was a shared 
sense of threat that isn't there in HBP. Harry is the only one who 
senses the threat in HBP, I think because it goes beyond just 
someone trying to kill someone for him. 

In the PoA paper the writer (Brandy Ball Blake) talked about the 
Gothic's obsession with horror and terror, with horror being more 
like revulsion (decaying bodies and gore--like Dementor's hands) and 
terror, which is connected to the sublime and obscurity of 
potentially horrible events. I think one could make a case for some 
of the anxiety Harry feels about Malfoy being connected to terror--
meaning that although everyone keeps telling him there's no rational 
thing to fear, Harry doesn't quite fear something rational. It's not 
just that he has logical reasons to think Malfoy's up to something, 
but he's not literally worried about people dying or a specific 
person dying. He just really has a feeling that something dreadful 
is going to happen because of Malfoy--and he's right. (I may have 
totally gotten the whole idea of terror wrong there, btw--would 
appreciate corrections if Harry's fear of what's going to happen via 
Malfoy doesn't fit the terror definition at all.)

On a deeper level, it's important Ron and Hermione don't feel that 
sense of threat, because HBP has Harry alone dipping into Slytherin. 
He does it symbolically in all sorts of ways--submersing himself in 
Slytherin memories, watching Slytherins while immobilized more than 
once, taking a Slytherin's shortcuts in class, befriending young!
Snape, using cunning to get the memory (while Ron and Hermione first 
assume Dumbledore will be teaching him more battle skills), watching 
Slytherins on the map, trying to get into the room that holds the 
Draco and his secret (which turns out to be, wonderfully, the room 
for hiding things).

But more importantly, his obsession with Malfoy entangles Harry 
alone in his new family. He calls on Kreacher, the Black slave he's 
inherited, instead of Dobby, to spy on Draco who is himself a Black. 
Kreacher specifically brings up to Harry when he gives him his task, 
so underlining that he knows Harry is using him to spy on "family." 
(Dobby, meanwhile, frantically insists that Draco is just a very bad 
boy--as if afraid of Harry's interest, and particularly not liking 
Harry's getting his information through Kreacher.)

One of the first reasons Harry is suspicious of Draco in HBP is that 
he thinks he's "taken his father's place" while Ron and Hermione, 
like most others, think Draco's age and general Draco-ness make him 
not a threat. The one time previously in canon that Harry and Draco 
had a brief meeting of the minds that shut out other people a bit 
was in PoA where Draco told Harry that if it were his family, he 
would want revenge on Sirius Black. Harry, iirc, is a bit unnerved 
by this and says "Malfoy knows..." Ron and Hermione think he's crazy 
for listening to Draco, who's just trying to make him do something 
stupid, but it's a little bit more than that. In HBP we see Draco 
really wasn't kidding when he faces his own anxieties about the 
failure of his patriarchal line and tries to take it over himself 
and protect his mother (love that moment he slams out when Snape 
tries to approach the subject of Draco being upset at what happened 
to his father). In both PoA and HBP the one boy is just a little 
more subtly tuned in to the other's family anxiety than other 
people. Iirc, one of the first things Harry says upon looking at the 
Black Tapestry is, unsurprisingly, to say, "You're related to the 
Malfoys!"

So how great is it that they are now essentially part of the same 
family? I feel like Harry is the heir on the patrilineal side, 
having inherited the house from Sirius, to whom he was first 
connected through his own father and his friends. Regulus was, of 
course, Sirius' only sibling and younger brother. The only Black 
woman in Grimmauld Place in Harry's experience has been Mrs. Black, 
who is mad and dead. The Order spends most of its time shutting her 
behind her curtains, trying to not listen to her, and also not 
listening to Kreacher loudly adoring her.

Draco, then, inherits from the distaff side as the child of 
Narcissa, herself one of three sisters. Andromeda also has a child--
a girl. She's been disinherited but also forces herself into Harry's 
male line via Lupin even when he's trying to shut her out. Bellatrix 
is obviously also female and it is she Snape thinks has been 
teaching Draco Occlumency. Draco seems to work with Narcissa more 
smoothly than he does with Lucius previously (even as they're 
somewhat at odds in terms of what they're doing).

Sirius and the other Marauders were all in the Fire House, the house 
of Will. Draco, his mother, his aunt--and even Snape who seems to 
fit in here somewhere--is in the Water house of Emotion. To go 
further into the female stuff, Slytherin is also the house with the 
chamber (rather than the Tower), the locket and ring (rather than 
the sword). 

Don't know where all this is going, of course. I just love Harry 
almost unwittingly being drawn into the drama of the family he 
inherited. And I wonder if that won't be an important reason Sirius 
had to die, so that Harry would become a man of both families and 
have Sirius' place vacated.

-m