Sirius and those bikini posters

[sunnyskywalker]

For a long time, I saw Sirius’s posters of Muggle women in bathing suits as a typical teen thing, with irritating his parents by sticking the posters on permanently (permanently for wizards with no imagination, anyway) as a bonus. But I wasn’t giving him enough credit. The girlie posters are direct threat the to entire value system and prestige of

Comments

[chantaldormand]

My interpretation of the bikini posters were always one part of middle finger to his family (which considering your interpretation gets even more vulgar) and one part Sirius being in closet. Because he might be rebellious and reckless, but he also craves positive attention from his peers.
And from what we see in HP verse there are no positive examples of LGBT characters for Sirius to look up to.

[sunnyskywalker]

Oh yes, that could definitely be a factor. We never see him interested in actual girls--in fact he's specifically noted as uninterested in that one memory. And you're right that we don't see anything to suggest he'd have role models. Given the pressure kids in families fanatical about their blood status probably face to marry and have lots of pureblood babies, there could be a culture of, "Well, do whomever you want on the side, discreetly, but it doesn't count and you can't have a public, legally-acknowledged primary relationship with anyone who isn't on this list of acceptable spouses we have selected for you

[chantaldormand]

I also think some of Teenage!Sirius behaviour towards Severus partially comes from him projecting his situation onto poor Severus. Teenage Snape wasn't described as particularly masculine, so him hanging out with pureblood Slytherins probably conjured very unsavoury images in Sirius head.
I imagine it contributed to Sirius' decision to act like he was batshit insane and try to feed Snape to Remus. Endangering his supposed friend in such way sounds too personal for simple dislike and wanting to get society rid of another dark wizard :/

I have no doubts that pureblood part of WW society works this way. They are way too stuck in the past to work this way. Unless wizards have way to create... let's call it "caldron babies". Then either elites turn up their noses as it being unnatural (and probably grumbling about stolen magic) or... purebloods keep birth rates low on purpose.
Which would be neither unusual nor that surprising. Less children means each of your kids keeps more of their inherence. Money and potentially inheritable

[sunnyskywalker]

Sirius is devoted to James in much the way Sev is to Lily, I think. Which, yes, says very bad things about life in Grimmauld Place. Possibly another reason Sirius can't stand Severus--he wants very much to think that he isn't desperately clinging to his first-ever friend and basing his identity around pleasing that person. No, he's totally cool and valued. Which he will prove by trying to smash his ugly reflection to bits.

Another motive behind the prank might have been pleasing James, who came out of that incident looking like a hero to Dumbledore and Lily, which eventually got him picked for Head Boy and convinced Lily to date him. It all worked out so that Moony could run joyously free and James got everything he wanted? What a lucky coincidence! But Sirius is a true friend and brave enough to take the risks no one else will, see? This proves it! He's the best friend

[with_rainfall]

Catching up, but I wonder what the magical equivalent of half-naked women would even look like. Are there witches - or wizards for that matter - who would agree to be photographed, or are they all just paintings? What would they be dressed in - short robes? Would they be Veela? Does the WW sell girlie pictures? Is there a black market of Muggle girlie mags running?

Yeah, I always thought Sirius’s flying motorcycle was part of this too. All his ideas of cool are straight out of the Muggle 80s - motorcycle, leather jacket, posters. I’m surprised he didn’t have a Metallica record lying around somewhere. It was a very conscious rebellion against everything his family stood for.

[chantaldormand]

Before the movies, school robes were supposed to be worn without anything under. I always imagined them to be more on baggy side- especially since all students were hesitant to be the first to go up the ladder to Divination class :D

I imagine the more tasteful mags (if wizards have those) would have more form-fitting robes with scandalous cuts on sides and perhaps- oh my- visible ankles :D

Rowling probably sat down and made mood-board of cool 80s uncle when she was creating Sirius.

[sunnyskywalker]

I would so love to see a filmed version where they dress the way the books nearly always say they do. (That's one of the only fun parts of Rowling's website--the drawings commissioned for a lot of her ramblings show the clothing much closer to how it sounds in the books, and it's fun.) Draco's dress robes supposedly made him look like a vicar, and it's probably safe to assume that his robes are good traditional wizarding style, so "cassock-like" is probably a good starting point. Whitehound reposted one of Rowling's own drawings of some of the characters, including one in school robes, which supports that.

Which is to say that I can totally see those magazines with scandalously tight, short robes ;-)

Sirius is lucky he didn't go to prison later in the '80s or he might have had acid-washed jeans and a permed mullet.

[chantaldormand]

I can understand why film-makers changed HP's cast wardrobe. I don't think I could take seriously the movies if they actually had the cast walking around in baggy robes and somehow not tripping while evading Hogwarts' hazardous construction quirks.

/Sirius is lucky he didn't go to prison later in the '80s or he might have had acid-washed jeans and a permed mullet./

Or animal print clothes *shudders*.
Although Sirius would totally rock non-permed mullet.