Two things on Sirius

[rynne]

Ehehe yes me again so soon after my last entry. :p But I just remembered something that I wanted to post about. Two things, really, both about Sirius. I don't think I've ever really taken a stance on the first issue yet, so I am now.

1. Yes, he is really dead.
Sirius is dead because he is a tragic hero. Bear in mind that it's been a couple years since I really studied what tragic heroes are, but from what I remember, Sirius fits the mold nearly perfectly.
1. He is born to privilege, almost royalty (or at least the Blacks consider themselves so. A powerful family, at any rate).
2. He has a tragic flaw, recklessness.
3. His tragic flaw of recklessness has brought him lower and lower, off his pedestal and out of privilege, as through it the Prank happens, he goes after Peter and is thrown in Azkaban, is pretty much insane through most of PoA, and finally, is completely miserable in Grimmauld Place.
4. His tragic flaw leads to his death, because he rushed to the DoM despite precautions set for his safety, and taunted Bellatrix, causing her to hex him and him to fall through the veil.

Sirius is a tragic hero, and tragic heroes die, because of their own mistakes. They are not brought back to life. I'm very sure that JKR realizes Sirius is a tragic hero (I daresay he was created with that literary convention in mind), and I can't imagine her breaking it by raising him back to privilege--life. I just can't. This is also why I can't really buy all the theories on why he isn't dead, like how it was really Bode's death that JKR was talking about, so Sirius could really be alive. He's nearly the very model of what I learned a tragic hero is, and because of that, I think that even if he is alive, he's not going to survive the series.

Do I think we'll see him again? Yes. I think Harry will eventually have to go to the underworld (go to Death in order to find out how to kill someone who's almost immortal--makes sense to me) or something, and Sirius will be his spirit-guide, or some other useful thing like that. But I don't think we'll see him again in the land of the living, not the way that we have been.

Do I still enjoy resurrection fics? HELL. YES. I like happy things, like sunshine, and unicorns cavorting in fields of daisies, and other things that could possibly drive people to sweetness-overload nausea (which could also explain why I like OBHWF). And like Sirius being alive and living happily ever after with Remus *g*. I like reading fanfics about that, and they're one of my favorite genres, as long as they're plausible. I expect that thistlerose's, once she actually writes it, will be my favorite HP fanfic ever. Hell, I'm even writing one myself! (Off and on, but still.) I adore resurrection fics. But liking it in fics does not mean I want to see it in canon, because even if fanfic writers are allowed to explore different scenarios and extrapolate whatever the hell we want, I want JKR to follow through on the literary devices she sets up in her books, and I think she's set up Sirius as a tragic hero.

Anyone is, of course, welcome to tell me that what I think a tragic hero is isn't correct. Like I said, it's been a couple years since I learned what one was, and I may very well have forgotten something. *shrugs* This is just what I think.


Now for the second thing, which is ENTIRELY FRIVOLOUS and meant ALL IN GOOD FUN and should NOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. XD

2. Sirius is so someone's bitch.
I vote Remus's! :D

My theory is that, since his family disowned him and doesn't want to claim him, he wants someone else to. And that because he's a Good Dog, he wants a Master. *g* (And inspired by that, you know what would be perfect? Fic/art of Remus and Sirius doing it doggy style, Remus on top, and with Sirius wearing a collar and leash, with Remus holding the leash. Don't suppose someone would write/draw it for me...*puppy eyes* :p)

Anyway. Yes. Sirius is so someone's bitch, and I say Remus's, just because. And also because of "Sit down, Sirius." And how Sirius obeyed. Such a good doggie! *g* This calls for the Footpad icon, doesn't it? :D

Okay, time to shut up now. XD Especially as I have somewhere to be in less than eight hours and should probably be asleep, not theorizing...

Comments

[rynne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know, but Sirius has already died, so it would be out of the mold for him to be brought back to life (or revealed as not really dead, or whatever), because he would be gaining things back.

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Quite true. The one thing that puts a kink in the theory, which as I said I do actually agree with, is... well, we don't know that she had "tragic hero" in mind. In fact, one could argue that she already deviated from that pattern by making him not the actual hero, but rather the mentor/father figure/whatever of the hero.

But honestly I think that's stretching and I do think he's totally dead.

[rynne.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's all that much of a deviation from the pattern, considering what an epic HP is, and how much room there is for practically anyone. Snape so totally pegs me as a Byronic hero, for instance--he's not the hero of the story, of course, but he has his own sidestory that he probably is the hero of, his spying. Sirius has his own story that he's the tragic hero of, and the fact that his story ties in with Harry's and is encompassed by Harry's does not, I think, negate the tragic heroicness (or whatever) of it.

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Well, like I said, I do agree with you. And I tend to think she was considering Sirius as a tragic hero subplot of sorts.

That said, because I don't know she was thinking that, and because it's such an iconic/instinctive story that people will sometimes stumble onto bits of it without meaning to (which is probably why some stories feel "wrong", because people stumble onto iconic storylines subconsciously and don't follow through with the pattern we expect) I'm not, ultimately, placing money on either direction, even though I have an opinion (namely, he'll be back but not alive.)

[rynne.livejournal.com]

I do rather think it's deliberate, though. I mean, why make the Blacks so rich and powerful, if not to give Sirius a high place to topple off of? And I can't help but think that, as so many of her fans are analyzing her books so deeply, she'll be looking deeply at them too, and so on. And I don't call myself all that good at analysis, by any means, but I daresay that if a sixteen-year-old like me can see something like this, JKR, who writes for a living and so should know traditional character molds, would too.

I know you agree with me :). But this discussion is fun!

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Well, in fairness, writers usually look at their work FAR less closely than the fans do. And writers who have been writing longer than she has have stumbled onto traditional character molds by accident.

I don't even know why I'm arguing, though, since I don't disagree. ;)

I suppose because I have a strong policy against ever assuming I know anything when dealing with other people's work. I've run into far too many stories which seemed iconic and obviously of a particular mold and then twisted at the end and turned out to be... something else entirely... to feel comfortable with doing it, you know?

[rynne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. And I think that Sirius falling into the tragic hero character mold is just one of the reasons he'll stay dead. There's plenty of other factors, of course. I don't know that I've come across any stories that seem of a particular mode and turned out differently, but I expect that's just lack of experience :).