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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 169780

Magpie wrote:
> 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 <snip>. 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. 
><snip>
> 
> 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. <snip>

Carol responds:

What an interesting way to look at the books (though I don't your
example of Harry following Draco quite fits). I'd love to get hold of
that paper. For the benefit of anyone not familiar with the Gothic
novel and its conventions, here's a definition adapted from the famous
literary critic M. H. Abrams's "Glossary of Literary Terms":

"The Gothic novel, or "Gothic romance" . . . flourished through the
early nineteenth century. Authors of such novels set their stories in
the medieval period, often in a gloomy castle replete with dungeons,
subterranean passages, and sliding panels, and made plentiful use of
ghosts, mysterious disappearances, and other sensational and
supernatural occurrences; their principal aim was to evoke chilling
terror by exploiting mystery, cruelty, and a variety of horrors. The
term "gothic" has also been extended to denote a type of fiction which
lacks the medieval setting but develops a brooding atmosphere of gloom
or terror, represents events which are uncanny, or macabre, or
melodramatically violent, and often deals with aberrant psychological
states."

http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/novel.htm

("Gothic" as used here refers, of course, to novels like Matthew
Lewis's "The Monk" and Horace Walpole's "the Castle of Otranto," not
to teenagers who wear black and pierce their tongues. Charlotte Bronte
uses some of the Gothic conventions in "Jane Eyre" and Jane Austen
parodies them in "Northanger Abbey.")

And you're right about the distinction between horror, which is
extreme fear combined with revulsion, and terror, which is extreme
fear combined with "the sublime"--something awe-inspiring and greater
than oneself but perilous. In LOTR, for example, Shelob evokes horror
but the Ring Wraiths evoke terror. In the HP books, the Inferi evoke
horror (though only Snape's poster shows what they can actually do to
their victims--Harry hasn't seen it first-hand yet and I hope he
doesn't) but the murder of Dumbledore evokes terror in both Harry and
the reader. (If it had been Fenrir who killed Greyback, we'd have had
horror instad; it hardly bears thinking about.) The Dementors seem to
me a combination of both; their soul-sucking powers inspire terror,
but their scabby hands inspire horror. I feel a shudder of revulsion
just thinking about them.

I think the author of the paper must have been thinking of the Gothic
novelist Ann Radcliffe's essay, "On the Supernatural in Poetry," which
reads in part: 

"Terror and horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the
soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other
contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them. I apprehend, that
neither Shakspeare nor Milton by their fictions, nor Mr. Burke by his
reasoning, anywhere looked to positive horror as a source of the
sublime, though they all agree that terror is a very high one; and
where lies the great difference between horror and terror, but in the
uncertainty and obscurity, that accompany the first, respecting the
dreaded evil?"

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/radcliffe1.html

(The link is to the first page of the essay, not to the page
containing the quotation, which is on pp. 5-6.)

Regarding the sublime, the best authority (unless you want to go back
to Longinus) is Edmund Burke (to whom Radcliffe refers):

"Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and
danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is
conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous
to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of
the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. <snip>
When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any
delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with
certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we
every day experience. <snip>"

The sublime, IOW, inspires awe, and at too close a range, terror (in
contrast to beauty, which, according to Burke, inspires tenderness and
affection). Regarding terror, Burke says, "No passion so effectually
robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. For
fear being an apprehension of pain or death, it operates in a manner
that resembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible, with
regard to sight, is sublime too, whether this cause of terror be
endued with greatness of dimensions or not; for it is impossible to
look on anything as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous."

http://www.bartleby.com/24/2/

(The link is to the Table of contents; the relevant chapters are Part
I, chapters 6 and 7 and Part II, chapters 1 and 2.)

At any rate, I'm sure that the author of the paper on the Gothic
elements in PoA had these famous essays in mind, given her linking of
terror to the sublime and her distinction between horror and terror
(which, IMO, is valid whatever we may think of Radcliffe and Burke and
their very eighteenth-century ideas).

To get back to the HP series, I think a whole book could be written on
its Gothic elements if the writer could find the right angle or
thesis. (It's one thing to point out the Gothic imagery and
conventions and another to explore its thematic significance. We do
see a lot of pureblood patriarchal lines dying out in the HP books,
but might there be a connection between that particular Gothic element
and the Gothic imagery in general and some larger theme? I think that
would be worth exploring if anyone is interested.) 

Anyway, I'm sure that *one* reason that Sirius Black "had to die" is
for Harry to inherit his house, but since that has already happened as
of HBP, I don't think it's the big reason we've been promised in DH
(which, IMO, ties in with the specific way he died, going through the
veil rather than being AK'd like most of the other dead characters).
But you're certainly right about the presence or even prevalence
Gothic elements in the HP books, which also tie in with Snape
(sweeping black robes, blood-red wine, and sliding bookcases at
Spinner's End for starters) and Hogwarts itself (hidden chambers,
underground passageways, dungeons, ghosts, and a generally medieval
atmosphere created by suits of armor and candlelit corridors). Maybe
we should look for connections between the HP books and "Northanger
Abbey," given JKR's fondness for Jane Austen.

Carol, now wondering whether the madwoman in the hallway is a spoof or
parody of the madwoman in the attic