For the Record
Jun. 27th, 2004 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
logicbuttonThis was supposed to be posted on Thursday night, but the internet wouldn't cooperate and then my family went out of town for the weekend. Forgiveness please. :)
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Richard Simmons + Whose Line is it Anyway? = unparalleled funny.
Well, that's not really what I wanted to state for the record. This is: as of tonight, I've made three comments to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pottersues posts that said something along the lines of "Padfoot lives!" And yeah, if you ask my opinion on the subject, that's my short answer. But I thought it would also be a good idea to write down my long answer.
Honestly, I think it's entirely possible that Sirius really is dead. All the evidence points that way. However, it's not enough to convince me.
Some time ago, a Harry Potter for Grownups list member posted an essay arguing that Sirius was dead, using as evidence the circumstances of all other characters in the series presumed dead. It was frankly very poorly argued, but as much as I wanted to post a rebuttal, I had neither the time nor the energy (I was working at the bindery at the time, after all) to write one, and I was intimidated--I was still most definitely a n00b to the list, whereas she was something of an HPfGU BNF. She listed each character, quoted the books a bit, added a little interpretation, and then decided which ones were or could be alive, and which were not. Her grand conclusion: Sirius Is Dead. The reason I say it was poorly argued is that her interpretation nearly always included the sentence "we have no reason not to believe that he is dead." The only person who she suggested was alive (who had not yet been proven to be so) was Caradoc Dearborn, who "vanished...we never found his body," according to Moody (US hardcover, p.174). No body, no death, after all. This whole essay made me unusually annoyed, because it struck me as very hypocritical, and if there's anything that annoys me, it's hypocrisy.
The thing is, the characters who have been thought dead and turned out alive never gave anybody any reason to believe they were not dead. That's why their outings were such huge plot twists. Peter Pettigrew had a severed finger, bloody robes, and dozens of witnesses. Crouch Junior even left a body. Voldemort himself might have left a body. (How did everyone know he was "dead," anyway?) Sirius, on the other hand, left no physical evidence whatsoever. If not for Lupin and Dumbledore saying that Sirius was dead (technically, Lupin never even actually said the word "dead," but I'm nitpicking), it would have been more confusing than anything else. He wasn't dead before he went through the veil--if the light from the spell that hit him had been green, or somebody had said an incantation, Harry really should have noticed. We don't even know what the veil is. Yes, Dumbledore should know, but Dumbledore also thought Peter and Crouch Junior were dead, just like everybody else. Plus, by the time he says Sirius is dead, he has just spent a entire conversation telling Harry that he isn't always right.
(I have a little more evidence that I'm not going to go into here. If you want it, just ask.)
So what would it take to convince me that Sirius is dead? The same things I require of everyone else, of course. And it's not even necessary that I have all of them--one of the following is sufficient.
1. A body. One that isn't Polyjuiced or transfigured or really a boggart or anything. This is very difficult to prove, obviously (does a person who dies while Polyjuiced even revert back to his or her true form?), but if a body that is verifiably Sirius turns up, I'll take that. Still, verifying that a body actually belongs to the person it resembles could be potentially complicated, so it's much easier just to have...
2. Witnesses to the actual death. Harry as good as saw both Cedric and Frank Bryce die. He heard Voldemort and Wormtail say "Avada Kedavra" and saw the green light hit them. If he had heard the incantation and seen the light hit Sirius, there would be no question that he was dead, even if he did go through the veil after that. The witnesses also have to be Harry or, failing that, reliable.
3. Shades coming out of a wand--Voldemort's, for example. More proof that Cedric and Frank Bryce were dead, as well as Bertha Jorkins. Also, this is actually the only reason I believe that Harry's father is dead. (Lily was obviously dead, since Harry remembers it and her sacrifice is the only reason he's alive himself--see below.) Sirius mentions during the Shrieking Shack scene seeing their bodies, but then Sirius sees a lot of things. Again there's the question of how someone in disguise at the time of death would appear, and all I can say is they had better appear in their true form, because otherwise this could get really confusing. Sirius is not applicable for this one unless that spell was what killed him. He is, however, applicable to be...
4. A ghost. This is the number one way to prove to me that a person is dead. Conveniently, Nearly Headless Nick seems to think Sirius isn't the type to go that route. (I cannot wait to hear the story behind that conversation he had with Harry.)
5. Somebody can see thestrals. If Hagrid brings them to a CoMC class two weeks in a row, and Ron can't see them the first time but he can the second time, obviously he's seen someone die recently. It would also seem that he has to know who is dead. So there can be little doubt here.
6. Any magical phenomenon for which death is a catalyst. Shades, ghosts, and seeing thestrals are more specific examples of this, but there are probably many more. Harry's survival of AK because of Lily's sacrifice is one. If we found out that portraits of real people are mute until the person's death and a talking painting of Sirius turned up, that would convince me too.
None of these things applies to Sirius yet. As soon as one does, I'll be properly convinced. Until then, no.
One last note: just because I don't feel that Sirius' death has been sufficiently proven doesn't mean I think he'll show up at the door of his old house, worn but intact. In fact, if he does, JKR better have a damn good reason (though of course she would). I actually think that even if the veil didn't kill him as such, he might be flying through empty space or just stuck back there, unable to get anything to eat and therefore screwed. He could be alive at the end of the fifth book, but dead at the beginning of the sixth. And if it turns out that way, I'll definitely accept it and shut up. But until then, I won't.
ETA: I should probably also mention where I stand on the validity of stuff JKR says in interviews, huh? Well, she's been rather vague on this point. Yeah, I know, her answers to questions on this subject don't sound particularly ambiguous, but she can be sneaky in her answers, and honestly she's going to have to say "okay, people, Sirius is dead and that's that. Dead. He's dead," before I consider it as convincing as the things I listed above. And really, nobody would have believed he was dead in the first place if she hadn't made all those comments about crying when she finished writing it and so on.
Bottom line, I want to know what the deal with the veil is, and since it's unlikely she'll answer that question in an interview, I'm more concerned with what's going to be revealed in the books. The point of the opinion I've laid out above is that stuff that happens in the books isn't always what it seems, and I need proof of everything. I've just chosen this particular issue to take a stance on because Sirius is my favorite character, which makes it more important to me than others. Oh, and finally, in response to the idea that JKR only avoided giving concrete proof that he was dead because she was trying to make disbelieving readers go into denial, because sometimes in the real world death sucks like that? Well...that's fine. Really. There's no shame in a book making you feel the way the author wants you to feel.
----------
Richard Simmons + Whose Line is it Anyway? = unparalleled funny.
Well, that's not really what I wanted to state for the record. This is: as of tonight, I've made three comments to
pottersues posts that said something along the lines of "Padfoot lives!" And yeah, if you ask my opinion on the subject, that's my short answer. But I thought it would also be a good idea to write down my long answer.Honestly, I think it's entirely possible that Sirius really is dead. All the evidence points that way. However, it's not enough to convince me.
Some time ago, a Harry Potter for Grownups list member posted an essay arguing that Sirius was dead, using as evidence the circumstances of all other characters in the series presumed dead. It was frankly very poorly argued, but as much as I wanted to post a rebuttal, I had neither the time nor the energy (I was working at the bindery at the time, after all) to write one, and I was intimidated--I was still most definitely a n00b to the list, whereas she was something of an HPfGU BNF. She listed each character, quoted the books a bit, added a little interpretation, and then decided which ones were or could be alive, and which were not. Her grand conclusion: Sirius Is Dead. The reason I say it was poorly argued is that her interpretation nearly always included the sentence "we have no reason not to believe that he is dead." The only person who she suggested was alive (who had not yet been proven to be so) was Caradoc Dearborn, who "vanished...we never found his body," according to Moody (US hardcover, p.174). No body, no death, after all. This whole essay made me unusually annoyed, because it struck me as very hypocritical, and if there's anything that annoys me, it's hypocrisy.
The thing is, the characters who have been thought dead and turned out alive never gave anybody any reason to believe they were not dead. That's why their outings were such huge plot twists. Peter Pettigrew had a severed finger, bloody robes, and dozens of witnesses. Crouch Junior even left a body. Voldemort himself might have left a body. (How did everyone know he was "dead," anyway?) Sirius, on the other hand, left no physical evidence whatsoever. If not for Lupin and Dumbledore saying that Sirius was dead (technically, Lupin never even actually said the word "dead," but I'm nitpicking), it would have been more confusing than anything else. He wasn't dead before he went through the veil--if the light from the spell that hit him had been green, or somebody had said an incantation, Harry really should have noticed. We don't even know what the veil is. Yes, Dumbledore should know, but Dumbledore also thought Peter and Crouch Junior were dead, just like everybody else. Plus, by the time he says Sirius is dead, he has just spent a entire conversation telling Harry that he isn't always right.
(I have a little more evidence that I'm not going to go into here. If you want it, just ask.)
So what would it take to convince me that Sirius is dead? The same things I require of everyone else, of course. And it's not even necessary that I have all of them--one of the following is sufficient.
1. A body. One that isn't Polyjuiced or transfigured or really a boggart or anything. This is very difficult to prove, obviously (does a person who dies while Polyjuiced even revert back to his or her true form?), but if a body that is verifiably Sirius turns up, I'll take that. Still, verifying that a body actually belongs to the person it resembles could be potentially complicated, so it's much easier just to have...
2. Witnesses to the actual death. Harry as good as saw both Cedric and Frank Bryce die. He heard Voldemort and Wormtail say "Avada Kedavra" and saw the green light hit them. If he had heard the incantation and seen the light hit Sirius, there would be no question that he was dead, even if he did go through the veil after that. The witnesses also have to be Harry or, failing that, reliable.
3. Shades coming out of a wand--Voldemort's, for example. More proof that Cedric and Frank Bryce were dead, as well as Bertha Jorkins. Also, this is actually the only reason I believe that Harry's father is dead. (Lily was obviously dead, since Harry remembers it and her sacrifice is the only reason he's alive himself--see below.) Sirius mentions during the Shrieking Shack scene seeing their bodies, but then Sirius sees a lot of things. Again there's the question of how someone in disguise at the time of death would appear, and all I can say is they had better appear in their true form, because otherwise this could get really confusing. Sirius is not applicable for this one unless that spell was what killed him. He is, however, applicable to be...
4. A ghost. This is the number one way to prove to me that a person is dead. Conveniently, Nearly Headless Nick seems to think Sirius isn't the type to go that route. (I cannot wait to hear the story behind that conversation he had with Harry.)
5. Somebody can see thestrals. If Hagrid brings them to a CoMC class two weeks in a row, and Ron can't see them the first time but he can the second time, obviously he's seen someone die recently. It would also seem that he has to know who is dead. So there can be little doubt here.
6. Any magical phenomenon for which death is a catalyst. Shades, ghosts, and seeing thestrals are more specific examples of this, but there are probably many more. Harry's survival of AK because of Lily's sacrifice is one. If we found out that portraits of real people are mute until the person's death and a talking painting of Sirius turned up, that would convince me too.
None of these things applies to Sirius yet. As soon as one does, I'll be properly convinced. Until then, no.
One last note: just because I don't feel that Sirius' death has been sufficiently proven doesn't mean I think he'll show up at the door of his old house, worn but intact. In fact, if he does, JKR better have a damn good reason (though of course she would). I actually think that even if the veil didn't kill him as such, he might be flying through empty space or just stuck back there, unable to get anything to eat and therefore screwed. He could be alive at the end of the fifth book, but dead at the beginning of the sixth. And if it turns out that way, I'll definitely accept it and shut up. But until then, I won't.
ETA: I should probably also mention where I stand on the validity of stuff JKR says in interviews, huh? Well, she's been rather vague on this point. Yeah, I know, her answers to questions on this subject don't sound particularly ambiguous, but she can be sneaky in her answers, and honestly she's going to have to say "okay, people, Sirius is dead and that's that. Dead. He's dead," before I consider it as convincing as the things I listed above. And really, nobody would have believed he was dead in the first place if she hadn't made all those comments about crying when she finished writing it and so on.
Bottom line, I want to know what the deal with the veil is, and since it's unlikely she'll answer that question in an interview, I'm more concerned with what's going to be revealed in the books. The point of the opinion I've laid out above is that stuff that happens in the books isn't always what it seems, and I need proof of everything. I've just chosen this particular issue to take a stance on because Sirius is my favorite character, which makes it more important to me than others. Oh, and finally, in response to the idea that JKR only avoided giving concrete proof that he was dead because she was trying to make disbelieving readers go into denial, because sometimes in the real world death sucks like that? Well...that's fine. Really. There's no shame in a book making you feel the way the author wants you to feel.
