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millefiori!!
I 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. Like, if you accept that the Dursleys are just supposed to be the best choice, it still comes down to Dumbledore alone being the one to make it, as if he's got any connection to this kid at all beyond Harry's being really important to his personal plans for the future.
But it kept getting into all these criticisms of Sirius as a guardian to Harry. Criticisms that were really beside the point. The criticisms weren't particularly radical--he's immature, he's reckless--and he was always these things, it wasn't just Azkaban, because remember the Prank. But to me, actually, it seems like what was Sirius doom as a character wasn't only his own flaws but the fact that he
...just wasn't important enough to Dumbledore.
That might sound differently than the way I mean it--I don't mean to imply that it was Dumbledore's job to keep him out of trouble or anything like that. It was just strange seeing how easy it was to dismiss Sirius as a guardian for Harry when the Potters picked him. (Even to the point of questioning whether they really did that officially since we've only got Sirius' word for it, while Dumbledore's own god-like place in the kids' life is just natural.) Everything bad that happened to Sirius was a little too much his fault, imo. He went to jail because he didn't defend himself; he should have gone to Dumbledore immediately, he should have gone to Dumbledore when he broke out of jail, even. That last one's particularly ironic, imo, because how many people who have been unjustly rotting in jail for over a decade have that kind of trust in the system? Why would Sirius think Dumbledore would be so sure to understand and believe him? I asked myself. Just because so many other characters would trust Dumbledore to believe them? Isn't that because they've only really seen Dumbledore deal with people like Harry, who are important to him?
Sirius as a character is known more for being ignored by Dumbledore than anything else. We know DD didn't expel him after the Prank, but from what we've seen so far this didn't seem to be about Sirius himself. Is there a scene where Sirius and Dumbledore ever discuss it in a way that suggests Sirius got one of Dumbledore's famous second chances? Because it seems like that whole thing was more about James. Sirius doesn't seem to feel much about it. Lupin feels he owes Dumbledore for letting him into the school, Snape is bound up with Dumbledore in all sorts of ways, I wouldn't be surprised if Draco had some Dumbledore!Angst now, but Sirius doesn't seem to think about it at all. Even if Sirius himself is just supposed to be thoughtless about it I don't remember any scenes where Dumbledore seemed to feel he should feel some loyalty for him.
Then Sirius is put in jail and Dumbledore isn't there fighting for him enough to even get him a trial. He breaks out of jail and fights his way back into Harry's life, though thanks to Peter's escape he doesn't get a life out of it. (I'm not suggesting Dumbledore is responsible for that, but it's fitting, isn't it, that Peter is far more important to Dumbledore's plans than Sirius?) Then he's in hiding, the last year of which in a place that seems almost intentionally designed to make him self-destruct. So he does the one thing he's ever been able to do in the story, which is suffer and die, and then there's Dumbledore right away with one of the lamest eulogies ever. Compare Sirius to say, Hagrid. I personally can't picture any of that going down the same way. Did Dumbledore just not ever trust Sirius that much? There are times reading that speech where it almost sounds like Dumbledore naturally finds it easier to talk about Sirius' flaws than his good points because he long ago judged and dismissed him on those faults. (And is it creepy that the fact that Sirius seems so little beholden to Dumbledore ever seems like it might be a flaw in Dumbledore's eyes?)
I know I've talked before about how family is important in HP to the point where I never understood people wondering why certain characters didn't just dump their families and expect Harry & Co. to take care of them, and I've always seen Sirius as a tragic example of someone who leaves his family and finds himself abandoned. It's no wonder he's so fixated on James in his last year; James seems like the only person who was truly connected to him like family. Remus is in a similar situation, but of course Remus never expects anyone to think of him as family, so he's okay with it.
Ultimately, this all might make Sirius that much more of an interesting contrast with his brother, actually. Not just because Regulus, too, felt isolated on the side he had chosen, but also he died in a way that was remembered as pointless, the death of a loser. And also he, like his brother, may have finally found that the only acceptable sacrifice he could offer (East of Eden again) was his life.
millefiori!!I 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. Like, if you accept that the Dursleys are just supposed to be the best choice, it still comes down to Dumbledore alone being the one to make it, as if he's got any connection to this kid at all beyond Harry's being really important to his personal plans for the future.
But it kept getting into all these criticisms of Sirius as a guardian to Harry. Criticisms that were really beside the point. The criticisms weren't particularly radical--he's immature, he's reckless--and he was always these things, it wasn't just Azkaban, because remember the Prank. But to me, actually, it seems like what was Sirius doom as a character wasn't only his own flaws but the fact that he
...just wasn't important enough to Dumbledore.
That might sound differently than the way I mean it--I don't mean to imply that it was Dumbledore's job to keep him out of trouble or anything like that. It was just strange seeing how easy it was to dismiss Sirius as a guardian for Harry when the Potters picked him. (Even to the point of questioning whether they really did that officially since we've only got Sirius' word for it, while Dumbledore's own god-like place in the kids' life is just natural.) Everything bad that happened to Sirius was a little too much his fault, imo. He went to jail because he didn't defend himself; he should have gone to Dumbledore immediately, he should have gone to Dumbledore when he broke out of jail, even. That last one's particularly ironic, imo, because how many people who have been unjustly rotting in jail for over a decade have that kind of trust in the system? Why would Sirius think Dumbledore would be so sure to understand and believe him? I asked myself. Just because so many other characters would trust Dumbledore to believe them? Isn't that because they've only really seen Dumbledore deal with people like Harry, who are important to him?
Sirius as a character is known more for being ignored by Dumbledore than anything else. We know DD didn't expel him after the Prank, but from what we've seen so far this didn't seem to be about Sirius himself. Is there a scene where Sirius and Dumbledore ever discuss it in a way that suggests Sirius got one of Dumbledore's famous second chances? Because it seems like that whole thing was more about James. Sirius doesn't seem to feel much about it. Lupin feels he owes Dumbledore for letting him into the school, Snape is bound up with Dumbledore in all sorts of ways, I wouldn't be surprised if Draco had some Dumbledore!Angst now, but Sirius doesn't seem to think about it at all. Even if Sirius himself is just supposed to be thoughtless about it I don't remember any scenes where Dumbledore seemed to feel he should feel some loyalty for him.
Then Sirius is put in jail and Dumbledore isn't there fighting for him enough to even get him a trial. He breaks out of jail and fights his way back into Harry's life, though thanks to Peter's escape he doesn't get a life out of it. (I'm not suggesting Dumbledore is responsible for that, but it's fitting, isn't it, that Peter is far more important to Dumbledore's plans than Sirius?) Then he's in hiding, the last year of which in a place that seems almost intentionally designed to make him self-destruct. So he does the one thing he's ever been able to do in the story, which is suffer and die, and then there's Dumbledore right away with one of the lamest eulogies ever. Compare Sirius to say, Hagrid. I personally can't picture any of that going down the same way. Did Dumbledore just not ever trust Sirius that much? There are times reading that speech where it almost sounds like Dumbledore naturally finds it easier to talk about Sirius' flaws than his good points because he long ago judged and dismissed him on those faults. (And is it creepy that the fact that Sirius seems so little beholden to Dumbledore ever seems like it might be a flaw in Dumbledore's eyes?)
I know I've talked before about how family is important in HP to the point where I never understood people wondering why certain characters didn't just dump their families and expect Harry & Co. to take care of them, and I've always seen Sirius as a tragic example of someone who leaves his family and finds himself abandoned. It's no wonder he's so fixated on James in his last year; James seems like the only person who was truly connected to him like family. Remus is in a similar situation, but of course Remus never expects anyone to think of him as family, so he's okay with it.
Ultimately, this all might make Sirius that much more of an interesting contrast with his brother, actually. Not just because Regulus, too, felt isolated on the side he had chosen, but also he died in a way that was remembered as pointless, the death of a loser. And also he, like his brother, may have finally found that the only acceptable sacrifice he could offer (East of Eden again) was his life.
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You're right that there doesn't seem to be a second-in-command in the Order. We don't see them much in HBP, but in OotP, I don't think you *ever* hear anyone say that something needed to be done because Kingsley said so, or Remus, or anyone else. Moody was apparently in charge of logistics here and there, or just insisted when no one else bothered, but that's the closest we saw. Poor McGonagall was such a *distant* second at Hogwarts that you have to wonder how many years she'll have to be headmistress before most of the wizarding world thinks of her as the headmistress, rather than as Dumbledore's stand-in.
Yeah, Hagrid's a pretty stupid choice of bodyguard. As you said, he didn't do anything wrong, but while he himself is moderately indestructible, he doesn't have any real ability to protect anyone *else*, and he trusts Harry far too much to stop him from sneaking out from under his eye. I have to suspect Dumbledore may have had the latter half in mind when Hagrid was appointed.
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I had to feel the same way--which again suggests all this manipulation of events going on by Dumbledore that nobody else knows about and which undercuts what everyone is trying to do!
And yes, I didn't mean to imply that Dumbledore was in any way not encouraging the personal loyalty to him. The scene where he says Harry has to do everything he asks might be dramatic if it wasn't what Dumbledore is always asking. He plays Harry like a fiddle in those special lessons. Harry's always hyper-aware of either letting him down or being given some wonderful sign that Dumbledore actually cares what he thinks. Harry, unlike me, did respond to Dumbledore impatience at Harry's not getting the memory by wondering why the hell he has to get it for him--particularly after we see the memory itself.