It wasn't pointless (SPOILER)

[psychic_serpent]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Kimberly" <moongirlk at y...> 
wrote:
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "psychic_serpent" 
> <psychic_serpent at y...> wrote:
> I also think that Harry needs to make sure he doesn't do what both 
> > Sirius and Voldemort did--set out to prevent something and by 
> > doing so bring those events about.  

> Oh Barb.  This just breaks my heart all over again because... he 
> did just that, didn't he?  He set out to save Sirius, which 
> resulted in Sirius dying.  It's really amazing how richly she 
> layered it when you point that out about Voldemort and Sirius as 
> well, but it leaves me more depressed than ever.
 
Well, yes, he did.  That's sort of what I meant.  He needed to make 
sure he didn't do that, but it's exactly what he did.  In a way, it 
also helps me to understand why he never found the mirror.  When you 
think about it, with his ranting and raving all through the book, he 
was really channeling Sirius, and for him to communicate with 
Sirius, given that fact, is somewhat redundant.  I think this is 
reinforced by how very difficult his attempts at communication turn 
out to be; it's an unnatural thing to do, and so he has to go 
through hell and high water to accomplish it.  

And even if he had communicated with Sirius using the mirror, that 
would have meant that he would have been looking in a mirror and 
seeing Sirius' face in it.  I think her wanting us to see the two of 
them as equivalent couldn't get much more blatant than that.  Sirius 
is the last person in the world on whom Harry should be modeling 
himself, no matter how much he likes him, and unfortunately, Harry 
had to go through nearly a year of making Sirius-like mistakes for 
that to sink in.  I had hoped that in this book Harry WOULD make 
mistakes, and Dumbledore too, but I don't think I ever expected them 
to be of this magnitude.  However, the mistakes probably do have to 
be colossal in order for them to constitute a wake-up call.  Which 
doesn't make it any less sad, of course.  Here's hoping that he 
really has learned the lesson and will become his own person instead 
of a Sirius-clone.

--Barb