Comments | sistermagpie: Sirius Black Sheep

sistermagpie

Sirius Black Sheep

Sep 18, 2006 21:41

Happy birthday millefioriI was reading a thread on HP4GU today--naturally a long-running thread that I think started with the question of Dumbledore's placing Harry with the Dursleys and it echoed Sirius' life in a weird way for me, in a Meta-way. It started as a conversation about just what business it was of Dumbledore's to decide who Harry lived with. ( Read more... )

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sistermagpie September 19 2006, 04:11:59 UTC

Gigi doesn't have the same relationship with me that she has with my best friend Kade, and though I and Gigi run around the same circles and she's a nice chick, we're meh about each other. I'm kind of indifferent to her, though I don't dislike her. I don't see why I have to care and love everyone I meet or am acquainted with.

WTF does that have to do with anything?

Actually, not much with what I'm saying. I'm not arguing that Dumbledore *should* have cared about Sirius at all. I'm just noticing the way the character's arc works out in canon. I do think Dumbledore might have acted very differently if the character had had a different role in his own plans, as he's stepped in to act on behalf of many other characters. I'm fine that he didn't since that's the story--you can't really separate who Sirius is from the story he has in canon. But what Sirius' role is in canon seems, imo, to just be there at every step. I think the character's very much affected by his importance to the grand plan.

I believe that Dumbledore gave the Sirius is full of flaws speech so that Harry can understand that every decision can make you responsible and that people's choices and flaws have their consequences.

Well, yes, that's what he's saying flat-out. I get why the speech is there--he's also giving us the speech as exposition because that's our "Dumbledore explains it all scene." But it still reflects the character's role as a whole, imo. (I do think Dumbledore comes across really badly in the speech--not because I don't want him criticizing Sirius or because it's existentialist to point out that Sirius underestimated Kreacher.)

neville81 September 19 2006, 13:03:05 UTC

I agree that that speech is far from being Dumbledore's best moment in the series. For me, it's not what he says (I agree with a lot of this), but when he said it. Sirius just died, and it was really not the time to point out all his flaws, particularly in front of Harry. The first time I read it, I was not much bothered by it, since I was concentrating on what was happening and what Dumbledore said, and even though I might not have agreed with every single detail, I could see Dumbledore's reasoning. But while reading I realized how completely inappropiate the whole situation was. It's like one of your parents or your favourite uncle died, and an hour later someone is listing all their flaws right in your face. However, I don't agree that this reflects anything about Dumbledore. I think it is JKR analyzing this subplot for us, in using Sirius as an example of how the wizards' treatment of the various creatures can come back biting them in the ass. She's speaking through Dumbledore here (as she often does), and I can see her not wanting to leave this for book 6, seeing that it was a subplot from OotP after all. But it was still inappropriate.

sistermagpie September 19 2006, 14:18:53 UTC

Oh, I agree Dumbledore was analyzing the plot--actually, I didn't even react primarily to his criticizing Sirius' flaws so soon after his death. I think that aspect is probably just an inconvenience of the plot--he has to do it here because there's no other scene, though I don't buy some explanations I've read that try to make it seem like Dumbledore must knock some sense into Harry here on this matter. It's just expositional, imo. The reason the speech comes off badly to me is, expositional as it is, to me it makes Dumbledore seem really...what's the word? He makes himself come off far too well in the speech even after saying he's going to talk about his own mistakes. So the whole speech is just really a wrong note for me, despite basically accepting the facts of it. At least some of the facts--I think some of the ways Dumbledore ties things up don't completely hang together. For instance, I think the suggestion that it was Sirius' rudeness to Kreacher that led to Kreacher's betrayal not only doesn't hold up but seems to represent just the sort of condescending self-absorbtion Dumbledore's supposed to be warning against! But that might be me and not the way I'm supposed to read it.

jodel_from_aol September 19 2006, 16:15:27 UTC

I get the impression of a man determined to do justice to a man he thinks is small loss, even if through gritted teeth. From where Albus seems to be coming from, Sirius was only valuable becase Harry unaccountably seemed to value him.

Frankly, I think Albus considered Sirius a bad influence. (Molly clearly did.) He may have even asked Lupin to try to keep his friend under some sort of control. At which he failed miserably.

dartmouthtongue September 19 2006, 20:39:51 UTC

Just saw this, so you don't have to answer my "Why is he coming off badly" question.
He makes himself come off far too well in the speech

I don't know, maybe it's that I don't seem to expect that much from people, but the way he talks about his mistakes --to me-- is the way that a man talks about things about himself he only knows too well. Like when I say I'm snarky, or somewhat insensitive, though I try to better myself and learn to sympathize with people's emotions and shit. Harry is the one who got disappointed because he expected DumbleD to be omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. Dumbledore knows that he's a brilliant fuck up. He makes AT LEAST one gargantuan mistake a year, and had been saved by Harry's infamous luck again and again. He'd been sliding by because nothing of this magnitude had happened yet that could be directly linked to him. It's like most fans forgave him Quirrel and Cedric and whateverthefuck else, until Sirius, but that's what the speech was about. IMO It's like, was everyone sleeping while I made one mistake after another?

I don't think he came off badly in that speech, he just has never been perfect and now that it's out for everyone to see he's not going to beat himself in the chest and recite Mea Culpa.

imkalena September 20 2006, 04:14:03 UTC

the suggestion that it was Sirius' rudeness to Kreacher that led to Kreacher's betrayal

Can you imagine Mrs. Black being nice to the house elves? Hello, let's cut their heads off! Sirius' rudeness must have been as nothing.

Thank you!!! myfatbudgie September 20 2006, 06:02:46 UTC

LMAO! Thank you for saying that! God, his Cousin Narcissa's family had Dobby iron his ears, and slam his hands in the drawer to punish themselves for saying or doing the wrong thing, and kicked them for good measure too. I'll just bet Mrs. Black did the same thing. Kreacher didn't seem fazed one whit by Sirius's rudeness. Hermione's kindness didn't seem to matter either. The indifference of the rest didn't matter. So how is this Sirius's fault again? LOL!

Re: Thank you!!! sistermagpie September 20 2006, 14:08:47 UTC

That whole conclusion seemed bizarre to me--and it seems like a total misreading of Kreacher--a rather complacent one. He seemed to me very openly loyal and attached to the Black family. He's not a stray dog that can be won over with puppy treats by the people taking over his house and throwing out "his" family heirlooms. (Hermione's kindness from Kreacher's pov I assumed was all the more infuriating.) Kreacher and Sirius had a history together--a painful one, imo. Kreacher's determination to act against him went far beyond Kreacher being rude to him--I have no trouble believing his beloved Mrs. Black or Bellatrix could be rude to him.

dartmouthtongue September 19 2006, 20:25:25 UTC

sistermagpie September 20 2006, 02:54:38 UTC

Then I really don't get what the hell you're saying. lol

I interpreted your statements to imply:

a) Dumbledore doesn't care about Sirius = Sirius gets fucked.
b) Dumbledore doesn't care about Sirius = He would have acted differently if he had cared.
c) Dumbledore doesn't care about Sirius = Bad, bad Dumbledore.

Yes, I got that that was the way you interpreted it, but that conclusion in C was not my conclusion. Dumbledore's not caring seems like an element of what happened, not something to prove Dumbledore is bad.

I also don't see how differently he would have acted if he did like Sirius, which we don't know if he did or not.

As I said above, I don't know whether DD *liked* Sirius or not on a personal level. I was talking about Sirius not having a place in the grand plan, not being one of the people Dumbledore personally watches over. As to how he would have acted if Sirius was more important to him, I think we would have gotten something more like the scenes where Dumbledore intervenes or makes it a project to do something. Dumbledore's an incredibly powerful wizard and there's no hint in the book that he was working to get Sirius a trial or anything like that. It doesn't seem radical to suggest he might have taken more interest if some other character was in Azkaban.

So...why does he come out looking really badly?
Because he was "insensitive" or something?

Would "insensitive" not count as a reason for him to come off badly? Because I know a lot of people do think he's insensitive in the scene, and that seems pretty valid. For me, I think he's dealing with things the way he needs to deal with things in the scene, going over what's happened and identifying the problems, giving himself the blame he's comfortable with. He seems like someone who gets a handle on things by going over it that way--and I can actually relate to that. When Harry's actual emotional reaction goes the wrong way he corrects him to keep him on track, understanding things the way they need to be understood. I think it's the way his personality is, the way he deals with problems, but it's not particularly admirable watching him go through it in the scene, especially the places where I think he's a bit off on the people he's describing, like Kreacher. It's frustrating to me the way he presents his conclusions as a done deal as a lecture while also claiming he's going to be vulnerable. It's not, "I made a mistake. I'm sorry." It's "I made these mistakes, for these reasons which I recognize now but couldn't see then, and it's made you feel in a way I will also describe to you. Now, moving on..."

Does it make him a *bad* person? No. But I don't think it's any more admirable than a scene where Sirius sulks in his room to deal with his problems, however he feels, or a scene where Snape snarks at Harry because he hated James. But JKR describes him as someone with no confidantes, and this is one of those scenes where the way he deals with people, imo, doesn't show him off too well. He comes across to me like someone unaware of his own complacence and condescension.

dartmouthtongue September 20 2006, 22:28:27 UTC

I don't know about the scenes thing. I mean, where are the scenes where DD is with Lupin talking about shit, or the scenes that explain why DD seems to house so much trust for Snape. You get my drift? Harry doesn't know a lot of shit the other characters seem to know, and the other characters don't know plenty of shit we do. He's a sly old fart, so I'm not too confident in the fact that he wasn't doing all he could for Sirius, even if we never saw it. There's plenty of canon shit to show us we haven't even scratched the surface of DD's machinations.

I understand if you feel you have to debunk what some people consider to be the holiness that is or was Dumbledore, but if you look at every single character in the series they all have such a multitude of faults it surprises me when people point to X or Y to show how DD isn't perfect or "coming off badly." I don't think he came off badly at all, I think that it's just the way he is. The truth is that Harry doesn't have the luxury of mourning Sirius at all, that in one fell swoop he has to understand that his godfather is dead, that his life lead him --in a big way-- to that moment and that the only thing he can do is learn from it as shitty as that sounds. To us that's pretty fucked up, that DD instead of commiserating with Harry and dwelling, has decided to take up the "opportunity" to teach him something, but that's the way DD works and it's probably why he survived that long without going absolutely insane.
JKR herself (correct me if I'm wrong) has spoken about the DD coldness, the way he sometimes doesn't act (like in Hagrid's case) and just sweep in to fix things, and how he parallels her own way of doing shit, of just allowing people to flounder and almost drown in a way to show them how to swim. It does seem kinda cruel, but it's the stereotypical "daddy way." Perhaps you're right and DD should have been more nurturing and "motherly" in that moment.

Some nitpicky thoughts millefiori September 21 2006, 16:54:45 UTC

He's a sly old fart, so I'm not too confident in the fact that he wasn't doing all he could for Sirius, even if we never saw it.

I think it's pretty safe to say that if DD had done *anything* for Sirius we would have seen some evidence of it, if for no other reason than there would've been different outcomes/circumstances for Sirius than what we see in the books.

I don't think he came off badly at all, I think that it's just the way he is.

Well, yes and no. I agree that's just the way he is, AND it makes him come off badly. For all of his twinkling, DD is really not a nice person, and it's scenes like this one that reveal that fact to the reader.

The truth is that Harry doesn't have the luxury of mourning Sirius at all,

Again, yes and no. Harry doesn't have the luxury of mourning Sirius *according to DD's plans and timetable*. Harry is an individual, and has the luxury of feeling however he chooses to feel and if he's ever able to get himself out from under DD's thumb he might realize that.

I don't know if JKR will ever go there, but I would love to see Harry have a dark night of the soul in which he realizes that he doesn't actually *have* to defeat Voldemort. Prophecy aside, this fight isn't a foregone conclusion--it's Harry's choice, and I'd love to see him actually *make* that choice, rather than play out his entire story arc as DD's tool.

Sorry for the delayed reply. dartmouthtongue September 24 2006, 16:48:01 UTC

I'm not too confident that we can know the means that were used by the ends, after all...you know, that whole James and Lily thing? The whole Quirrel thing? The whole Cedric thing?

I don't think he's an evil person, I think he's a General. They are sort of in a Cold War and all, and so plenty of bad shit has to be done so that a whole bunch of people don't die. People in those situations tend to do questionable shit. It's just part of the whole "holy fuck we're gonna die" situation, people are less "nice" than they should be.

Of course, he's an individual and blah, blah, blah, but whether he wants it or not, he's also a soldier. I also think he should have a the horror oh the horror moment. It would be very uninteresting if there was never any sort of conflict in Harry's mind about what he's "supposed" to do.

I'm not blind to Dumbledore's flaws, I'm just not that impressed by them. I can't feel all angsty and righteous about them, because according to most War movies people do the worst and best shit. I mean, he was not motherly at all and he has consistently fucked with Harry's life since infancy (that's kind of fatherly xD) on the excuse that he's doing the best for the Boy Who'll Never be Metro, but he did die for the cause. (I'm kinda waiting for the "If Dumbledore had cared for Dumbledore more, then...") How many people could do that shit? Be so "un-nice" and yet sacrifice his life at the same time? People who are in a war situation, that's who. Uncool, I know.

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