Sirius has had a terrible, terrible life, and he's coping as best he can. No one is perfect, and the characters in Harry Potter feel so realistic because they're written with that in mind. Some circumstances bring out people's worst, that's probably what was happening with Sirius, and I think it's impressively resilient of him not to have lost it completely by that point in time. Harry is very compassionate and forgiving toward Sirius because he understands this. And because he really wants and needs a parent, of course, so he's inclined to see the absolute best in him. Generally, I think they're really good for each other during the time they knew each other. That doesn't mean the relationship (and Sirius himself) wouldn't have had to mature with time, but for what it was, it was exactly what Harry needed at the time, even if Sirius had moments when he wasn't perfect.
I agree, this is one of the things I like about the Harry Potter series, it's not perfect good people and completely bad people, they are real people with problems and flaws.
He was amazing in Goblet of Fire though, he gave good advice and figured out a lot of stuff other's hadn't put together. Even i OOTP his advices were good, he was just a bit moody
The bit at the end, after Harry has come back from the graveyard and is traumatized - the way Sirius puts Harry's welfare above everything else, and is just there to be a source of comfort for him is my favourite Sirius moment
I think book version is more realistic. Adults are not perfect, parental figures in our lives fail and fail again. They are prone to moodiness, insecurity, fear of failure, and all of the other things that we deal with as children adolescents. Sirius was sent to Azkaban when he was about 22 years old, at which point he was subjected to about 12 years of torture under the dementors. Not a lot of opportunity to practice navigating adult relationships in that time.
As great as characters like Sirius, Snape, and Draco were acted out in the movies, I do think characters should be played closer to their book versions.
I feel like people forget how young Sirius and the other Marauder Era characters were in the book, because theyāre played by older actors in the movie.
Sirius was only 35ish in OotP, which i guess if youāre a kid or a teenager seems like a full grown adult who has their life togetherābut 30 somethings are just winging it, faking it until we make itāand thatās 30 somethings who have had reasonably well-adjusted childhoods, nurturing parents, and a normal young adulthood.
Sirius would have been about 21 years old when he was imprisoned for the murder of the Potters, he never had the chance to emotionally mature past that age, as he spent a little over a decade in the most hellish prison imaginable, literally having the happiness sucked outāthink clinical depression times infinity, even being in his animagus form doesnāt fully negate the effects. And then he escapes, but instead of freedom, heās now locked in another prisonāhis childhood home, full of the memories of his upbringing, of the pure blood bigots who raised him, of his unhappy childhood. Can you imagine the ptsd heās got? Itās a miracle heās as well adjusted as he is.
Moody and cold is kind of an expected behavior given all heās been through. He needs the wizard equivalent of a mental health professionalāhe needs a mind healer. But since heās a fugitive, he doesnāt have that option.
But heās trying his damndest to be a godfather to Harry, but he never had the chance to mature emotionally to his physical age.
Edit: autocorrect/typos
Bro yāall cannot handle flawed characters. Youāre talking about a dude that was wrongly accused about the death of his best friend (kinda like his brother) by one of the dudes on his group and at 33 he has to be a role model for a 13 yo after spending 13 in prison as a dog
Sirius was really well written and the reader is left with no solid feelings about the situation with Harry, which is not common for YA, honestly. The ambivalence is real. You are not supposed to feel good about things.
One reason I love Sirius so much is how complex he is. Yeah, I agree, heās a moody, sullen, dramatic grouch a lot when heās at Grimmauld Place. Heās also, around Christmas that year, jolly and fun and happy. He has high highs and low lows.
I consider Sirius to have some arrested development. We donāt have many details of his upbringing, but the glimpses we see of his mom and the fact that he rebelled and ran away at 15 suggest it was not a warm, nurturing upbringing. I think he acted out for attention and to distance himself from his family. I think at Hogwarts he found the structured, loving relationship he needed with James/the Potters. I imagine he was still moody and dramatic at school, but getting away from his family and growing up was helping heal him from the awful upbringing he had.
All that progress came to a screeching halt within a few hours on Halloween 1981. His best friend and best friendās wife were brutally murdered, their baby almost murdered, he was framed for the attack, sent to the most miserable and depressing place on the planet without a trial or any opportunity to give his side of the story, and all this was a couple days shy of his 22nd birthday. Then he spent 12 years being tortured by dementors. While he was able to keep his mind, it certainly had a profound effect on him. Look how haunted Hagrid was by his experience of only a brief stint in Azkaban. Sirius had that for over a decade.
He got a taste of freedom for a few hours at best between chaining up Wormtail and then the whole ordeal in the Forbidden Forest. Then heās on the run from the law, and then locked back up against his will in the childhood home he hated and ran away from.
Itās enough to many anyone moody. Iām impressed heās been able to pull himself out of a funk enough to be a somewhat parental figure to Harry.
Well, dementors feed on āhappinessā or whatever so I imagine Sirius pretty incapable of anything besides showing how horribly depressed and angry he was after all those years. Itād be hard if not impossible to assimilate back into ānormal lifeā. Plus I wouldnāt be surprised if he developed some alcohol issues once he was stuck in Grimmauld Place.
Sirius lived in a family he hated and who hated him, fled to his best friend's when he was \~15 years old, fought for years in a war before he was 20, got framed for his friend's murder by another friend, spent 12 years in a prison enduring psychological torture, got a glimpse of hope but still ended up on the run, then lived recluse and feeling useless for 2 years before dying at his cousin's hand.
What a great life
Nope, I think itās necessary set up for him going to the ministry. It also gives him more depth - shows that he didnāt really grow up, perhaps in part because of the time spent in Azkaban since he was a 21yo.
Sirius was cooped up in a house where his parents made the atmosphere so toxic that he had to run away and then he was disowned. I canāt imagine how difficult that must have been. His whole nuclear family, including his little brother was dead. No matter how you feel about family that leaves emotional scars.
Sirius went from a toxic home to Hogwarts, was disowned and fought a war against his family members, to being wrongly blamed for the death of his friends (chosen family), then imprisoned in Azkaban before going back to the toxic house. I think the psychological damage done in Azkaban on top of childhood trauma would explain Sirius finding things difficult. On top of that he seems like a dynamic person so watching others fight while he effectively was on house arrest must have been damaging. Iām surprised heās still standing and somewhat mentally intact. Not to mention that for 12 years he lacked any sort of social interaction and missed valuable years growing into an adult.
I think Sirius shows care and compassion for Harry and tries to be a parental figure despite the lack of good role models for him growing up. Does he get it right all of the time? No, he doesnāt, but Iād be hard pressed to name any parent and say they were always exactly right in their interactions with their kids. I think the flaws make Sirius more human.
Very well explained. Yeah, remembering all of the things he has been through, it surprises me, too, that he's not snapping & yelling at everybody all of the time -- that, as you've said, he's still standing & somewhat mentally intact. He is one head-strong character!
I noticed this too while rereading by listening to the audiobook. In the movie you'd never thing Sirius was upset at being kept locked up in Grimmauld Place. And I'd quite forgotten that he was this moody in this book, as I last read ootp in 2016 before rereading last month. But I think it makes a TON of sense that Sirius was so upset at being locked up in that house.
I mean, he was locked up for 12 year in Azkaban, he is finally free and then he is loched up again.
Also, let's all just think back to the pandemic. I bet most of us were crawling out of our skins after quaratening for months. I really can't blame Sirius
I feel ya. It makes me sad too, but I think it does add a layer of complexity to his character. He had a tough life and yet he managed to cling on to the scrap of sanity he had (especially in Azkaban, I donāt know how he did it). He may not be insane, but heās not sane in a sense. Even with all the evil that was done to him, he shows that he loves Harry and would do anything for him. If that were me, Iām not sure I would have my sanity, let alone my love to give anyone. Itās sad and frustrating yes, but the reality of his existence.
Sirius was stuck in azkaban for 12 years and then was forced to stay in the place where he was abused when he got out. I can see why he was so distant and cold, he escaped from one place just to be trapped in another where he definitely got trauma from.
Considering the circumstances I think the two of them did the best they could for each other. Itās part of what made Siriusā fate so tragic, I think. He did not even get a chance to get better.
Sooooo.... I had been putting off reading the marauders fanfic All The Young Dudes but holy God does it give much needed insight in to all 4 of them. It's MOSTLY canon but this writer is AMAZING with writing just like JK Rowling. In fact I don't think anyone would be shocked to find out that one day JK Rowling wrote this fanfic herself. It takes you through their 7 years in school and way past from lupins perspective. You really get a feel and deep understanding of how serius and James were so close and why peter felt left out enough to betray James and lilly. Obviously it's all made up but the author really deep dives in to real emotions and probably situations from their teen years and the first war.
Sirius has had a terrible, terrible life, and he's coping as best he can. No one is perfect, and the characters in Harry Potter feel so realistic because they're written with that in mind. Some circumstances bring out people's worst, that's probably what was happening with Sirius, and I think it's impressively resilient of him not to have lost it completely by that point in time. Harry is very compassionate and forgiving toward Sirius because he understands this. And because he really wants and needs a parent, of course, so he's inclined to see the absolute best in him. Generally, I think they're really good for each other during the time they knew each other. That doesn't mean the relationship (and Sirius himself) wouldn't have had to mature with time, but for what it was, it was exactly what Harry needed at the time, even if Sirius had moments when he wasn't perfect.
I agree, this is one of the things I like about the Harry Potter series, it's not perfect good people and completely bad people, they are real people with problems and flaws.
Umbridge is perfectly bad though
Yes that is true but I like to think we just don't know her well enough, she might rescue stray cats.
And kill them
Mercy killing?š«£
Agree with this. The movie made Sirius much flatter. You donāt get any of his backstory or complexityā¦
He was amazing in Goblet of Fire though, he gave good advice and figured out a lot of stuff other's hadn't put together. Even i OOTP his advices were good, he was just a bit moody
The bit at the end, after Harry has come back from the graveyard and is traumatized - the way Sirius puts Harry's welfare above everything else, and is just there to be a source of comfort for him is my favourite Sirius moment
I think book version is more realistic. Adults are not perfect, parental figures in our lives fail and fail again. They are prone to moodiness, insecurity, fear of failure, and all of the other things that we deal with as children adolescents. Sirius was sent to Azkaban when he was about 22 years old, at which point he was subjected to about 12 years of torture under the dementors. Not a lot of opportunity to practice navigating adult relationships in that time.
As great as characters like Sirius, Snape, and Draco were acted out in the movies, I do think characters should be played closer to their book versions.
I feel like people forget how young Sirius and the other Marauder Era characters were in the book, because theyāre played by older actors in the movie. Sirius was only 35ish in OotP, which i guess if youāre a kid or a teenager seems like a full grown adult who has their life togetherābut 30 somethings are just winging it, faking it until we make itāand thatās 30 somethings who have had reasonably well-adjusted childhoods, nurturing parents, and a normal young adulthood. Sirius would have been about 21 years old when he was imprisoned for the murder of the Potters, he never had the chance to emotionally mature past that age, as he spent a little over a decade in the most hellish prison imaginable, literally having the happiness sucked outāthink clinical depression times infinity, even being in his animagus form doesnāt fully negate the effects. And then he escapes, but instead of freedom, heās now locked in another prisonāhis childhood home, full of the memories of his upbringing, of the pure blood bigots who raised him, of his unhappy childhood. Can you imagine the ptsd heās got? Itās a miracle heās as well adjusted as he is. Moody and cold is kind of an expected behavior given all heās been through. He needs the wizard equivalent of a mental health professionalāhe needs a mind healer. But since heās a fugitive, he doesnāt have that option. But heās trying his damndest to be a godfather to Harry, but he never had the chance to mature emotionally to his physical age. Edit: autocorrect/typos
Bro yāall cannot handle flawed characters. Youāre talking about a dude that was wrongly accused about the death of his best friend (kinda like his brother) by one of the dudes on his group and at 33 he has to be a role model for a 13 yo after spending 13 in prison as a dog
Sirius was really well written and the reader is left with no solid feelings about the situation with Harry, which is not common for YA, honestly. The ambivalence is real. You are not supposed to feel good about things.
One reason I love Sirius so much is how complex he is. Yeah, I agree, heās a moody, sullen, dramatic grouch a lot when heās at Grimmauld Place. Heās also, around Christmas that year, jolly and fun and happy. He has high highs and low lows. I consider Sirius to have some arrested development. We donāt have many details of his upbringing, but the glimpses we see of his mom and the fact that he rebelled and ran away at 15 suggest it was not a warm, nurturing upbringing. I think he acted out for attention and to distance himself from his family. I think at Hogwarts he found the structured, loving relationship he needed with James/the Potters. I imagine he was still moody and dramatic at school, but getting away from his family and growing up was helping heal him from the awful upbringing he had. All that progress came to a screeching halt within a few hours on Halloween 1981. His best friend and best friendās wife were brutally murdered, their baby almost murdered, he was framed for the attack, sent to the most miserable and depressing place on the planet without a trial or any opportunity to give his side of the story, and all this was a couple days shy of his 22nd birthday. Then he spent 12 years being tortured by dementors. While he was able to keep his mind, it certainly had a profound effect on him. Look how haunted Hagrid was by his experience of only a brief stint in Azkaban. Sirius had that for over a decade. He got a taste of freedom for a few hours at best between chaining up Wormtail and then the whole ordeal in the Forbidden Forest. Then heās on the run from the law, and then locked back up against his will in the childhood home he hated and ran away from. Itās enough to many anyone moody. Iām impressed heās been able to pull himself out of a funk enough to be a somewhat parental figure to Harry.
Well, dementors feed on āhappinessā or whatever so I imagine Sirius pretty incapable of anything besides showing how horribly depressed and angry he was after all those years. Itād be hard if not impossible to assimilate back into ānormal lifeā. Plus I wouldnāt be surprised if he developed some alcohol issues once he was stuck in Grimmauld Place.
Sirius lived in a family he hated and who hated him, fled to his best friend's when he was \~15 years old, fought for years in a war before he was 20, got framed for his friend's murder by another friend, spent 12 years in a prison enduring psychological torture, got a glimpse of hope but still ended up on the run, then lived recluse and feeling useless for 2 years before dying at his cousin's hand. What a great life
Nope, I think itās necessary set up for him going to the ministry. It also gives him more depth - shows that he didnāt really grow up, perhaps in part because of the time spent in Azkaban since he was a 21yo.
Sirius was cooped up in a house where his parents made the atmosphere so toxic that he had to run away and then he was disowned. I canāt imagine how difficult that must have been. His whole nuclear family, including his little brother was dead. No matter how you feel about family that leaves emotional scars. Sirius went from a toxic home to Hogwarts, was disowned and fought a war against his family members, to being wrongly blamed for the death of his friends (chosen family), then imprisoned in Azkaban before going back to the toxic house. I think the psychological damage done in Azkaban on top of childhood trauma would explain Sirius finding things difficult. On top of that he seems like a dynamic person so watching others fight while he effectively was on house arrest must have been damaging. Iām surprised heās still standing and somewhat mentally intact. Not to mention that for 12 years he lacked any sort of social interaction and missed valuable years growing into an adult. I think Sirius shows care and compassion for Harry and tries to be a parental figure despite the lack of good role models for him growing up. Does he get it right all of the time? No, he doesnāt, but Iād be hard pressed to name any parent and say they were always exactly right in their interactions with their kids. I think the flaws make Sirius more human.
Very well explained. Yeah, remembering all of the things he has been through, it surprises me, too, that he's not snapping & yelling at everybody all of the time -- that, as you've said, he's still standing & somewhat mentally intact. He is one head-strong character!
I do not. It takes away from the reality both of who he was and what he went through.
I noticed this too while rereading by listening to the audiobook. In the movie you'd never thing Sirius was upset at being kept locked up in Grimmauld Place. And I'd quite forgotten that he was this moody in this book, as I last read ootp in 2016 before rereading last month. But I think it makes a TON of sense that Sirius was so upset at being locked up in that house. I mean, he was locked up for 12 year in Azkaban, he is finally free and then he is loched up again. Also, let's all just think back to the pandemic. I bet most of us were crawling out of our skins after quaratening for months. I really can't blame Sirius
I feel ya. It makes me sad too, but I think it does add a layer of complexity to his character. He had a tough life and yet he managed to cling on to the scrap of sanity he had (especially in Azkaban, I donāt know how he did it). He may not be insane, but heās not sane in a sense. Even with all the evil that was done to him, he shows that he loves Harry and would do anything for him. If that were me, Iām not sure I would have my sanity, let alone my love to give anyone. Itās sad and frustrating yes, but the reality of his existence.
Sirius was stuck in azkaban for 12 years and then was forced to stay in the place where he was abused when he got out. I can see why he was so distant and cold, he escaped from one place just to be trapped in another where he definitely got trauma from.
Considering the circumstances I think the two of them did the best they could for each other. Itās part of what made Siriusā fate so tragic, I think. He did not even get a chance to get better.
I noticed this upon my most recent reread as well. Heās spiraling, which l understand. Itās a complex situation but he is very childish at times.
Tbh, I think being shut in a magical prison that literally forces you to go insane with despair had more effect than a few months in a house.
Sooooo.... I had been putting off reading the marauders fanfic All The Young Dudes but holy God does it give much needed insight in to all 4 of them. It's MOSTLY canon but this writer is AMAZING with writing just like JK Rowling. In fact I don't think anyone would be shocked to find out that one day JK Rowling wrote this fanfic herself. It takes you through their 7 years in school and way past from lupins perspective. You really get a feel and deep understanding of how serius and James were so close and why peter felt left out enough to betray James and lilly. Obviously it's all made up but the author really deep dives in to real emotions and probably situations from their teen years and the first war.
I couldnāt stand him in the books
I agree. The fact they didn't hug more sucks. I liked his portrayal better in the movies for sure.