One Is Called Love, The Other Is Pain.

[rionaleonhart]

My personal view of the individual Harry Potter books is essentially 'Philosopher's Stone is okay. Chamber of Secrets is okay. Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire are magnificent, near-perfect works of art. Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows are okay.' I've read the last three books far fewer times than the first four, though, so I'm interested to see whether my opinion of them changes on this reread!


The relationship between Harry and Sirius is a really interesting one. There's undoubtedly love between them, and yet they don't really know each other very well. Harry loves Sirius because of what Sirius represents - a family that isn't the Dursleys - and because Sirius gives him a link to the parents he doesn't remember.

Sirius loves Harry because he loved James. Here's James's son, a surviving remnant of Sirius's best friend from his younger years - and it's not as if Sirius has been able to form any new emotional connections since James's death; he's been isolated inside his own head in Azkaban for twelve years. He escapes, he's on the run, and almost the first person he exchanges two non-hostile words with is this teenage boy who looks exactly like his friend as he remembers him. It's no wonder he can't move on. In a way, Sirius seems like a man permanently trapped in his young adulthood.

Here is an incomplete list of moments that have broken my heart so far in this reread of Order of the Phoenix:


'He's not James, Sirius!'

'I'm perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly,' said Sirius coldly.

'I'm not sure you are!' said Mrs Weasley. 'Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it's as though you think you've got your best friend back!'


(Semi-relatedly, I'd quite like to see how Mrs Weasley and Sirius interact in the gap between the fourth and the fifth book, when Mrs Weasley is trying to adjust to the sudden discovery that this man is not, in fact, the person who betrayed Harry's parents and subsequently tried to kill Harry.)


'... I think a part of him was really hoping you'd be expelled. Then you'd both be outcasts together.'

'Come off it!' said Harry and Ron together, but Hermione merely shrugged.

'Suit yourselves. But I sometimes think Ron's mum's right and Sirius gets confused about whether you're you or your father, Harry.'

'So you think he's touched in the head?' said Harry heatedly.

'No, I just think he's been very lonely for a long time,' said Hermione simply.


I was also struck by 'Sirius was staring at the patch of carpet where the Boggart, pretending to be Harry's body, had lain'. Is he thinking of James? Of Harry himself? Of both? Does it really matter, when all three answers make me sad?

I'm fascinated and a little heartbroken by the idea that Sirius thinks of Harry as James. I loved the addition of Sirius calling Harry 'James' towards the end of Order of the Phoenix film, even if my feelings about the films can sometimes be a bit conflicted; Harry Potter is one of the few book series for which I actually have mental images of the characters, despite my very poor visual imagination (this is why I frequently forget to have any description at all in my fanfiction, whoops), and most of the film castings don't fit my image at all, so I slightly resent it when I find myself picturing film Sirius, for example, instead of my Sirius.

I've never really written Harry Potter fanfiction, which seems bizarre, given that I adore these books and I've written fanfiction for every other thing under the sun. I'm not really getting struck by go-off-and-write-this inspiration just yet, but I do feel this relationship could be something worth exploring.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

"(this is why I frequently forget to have any description at all in my fanfiction, whoops)"

This is why I love your fanfiction! (Okay, not the only reason, I don't think the key to writing success is "never describe anything ever", I love loads of other bits, but my visual imagination is practically non-existent so it's just padding to me. And it drives me crazy when fanfic spends five paragraphs describing Hermione's completely OOC Hot Topic clothing.)

"I loved the addition of Sirius calling Harry 'James' towards the end of Order of the Phoenix film, even if my feelings about the films can sometimes be a bit conflicted"

I don't tend to like the changes to the film adaptions, particularly the later books which are so long they have lots they need to cut out which is reasonable enough. I just never agree with what they cut out. (You cut SPEW from the Goblet of Fire but include the Yule Ball? Hermione's house elf believes are relevant later. The Yule Ball is never relevant again. Even the Madame Maxime stuff (which if I recall happens during the Yule Ball) could be transplanted elsewhere.) I don't mind the sound of that change because it gets across the "Sirius may think Harry is James" even though the other scenes weren't transferred over, at least it included the plot point, y'know?

Order of the Phoenix, incidentally, is my favourite Harry Potter book (unpopular opinion ahoy!) by quite a margin. I know Harry angsts, but he does act like a believable teenager. (I get a bit annoyed when people who write fanfic complain about Harry being too whiny in the books, so compensate by writing a completely suave, cool, uber powerful, uber intelligent and ultimately very OOC Harry. I like Harry as a character, and a lot of that's because he's not those things.

I'm very tempted to write a short about Mrs Weasley and Sirius now. It's been many years since I read the books and so it's sure to be factually incorrect. Why am I considering this? (I normally tend to write lots of stories about main characters in my fandoms, but two fandoms this doesn't apply: Heavy Rain, where I've wrote from the point of view of pretty much every character under the sun, and Harry Potter. I mostly seem to write about minor characters in the Harry Potter universe. I wonder why? Don't think I've ever tackled Mrs Weasley, though. Can't think why - I love Mrs Weasley!

Hmm, looking back I've explored Pettigrew, Sirius, Regulus, Snape, Petunia and Filch. ...Why do I only ever write the troubled characters?! Maybe I need to rebalance this.

-timydamonkey

[rionaleonhart]

One of the things I love about fanfiction is that, most of the time, I can actually get away with my complete inability to write description. Everyone already knows what the characters and settings look like!

I'm still so sad that they cut Phineas Nigellus out of the films. He's not exactly essential, but he's essential to my heart. Then again, I can't complain about the Neville/Luna line they added; I always thought that would be a really cute pairing. I was extremely startled to find it made canonical (for a certain value of canon) after the books had all been released. That's not something that happens with many pairings!

I'm glad to learn that Order of the Phoenix is your favourite book! I think knowing it's someone's favourite will help me to give it a fair chance. (Poor Harry. He angsts, yes, but he has been through a lot. And I really like that all the characters in this series are deeply flawed, heroes and villains alike.)

If you do write something about Mrs Weasley and Sirius, I'd love to see it!

[(Anonymous)]

The hardest bit when I did my English and Creative Writing degree was realising I would have to do description (...also copious amounts of dialogue!). I'm just not good at it - my strength in writing is introspective stuff, trying to get into a character's head, I'd like to think I'm okay at getting into other points of view etc. That said something like 80% of the writing I produced for uni can be put into the category of "weird/mentally ill/possessed/unreliable narrator/otherwise disturbed protagonist" just in very different guises (very different characters, ranging in 1st, 2nd, 3rd person, and past or present tense). They're the characters -I- like.

Hee, you remind me of my dad when you talk about the great tragedy of cutting Phineas Nigellus. My dad loves Lord of the Rings - has since he was a teenager, has read all Tolkien's other books too - and he loves the films, but he will complain loudly to anybody who will listen about the great tragedy of cutting Tom Bombadil because you aren't allowed to cut the most powerful character in a series completely from the narrative because it's disrespectful. (He's also dad's favourite character. :P)

Yes, I've always enjoyed the fact all the characters are flawed, just to different degrees. Nobody is perfect, or always right, which is part of why I like characters like Ron so much - he's good with logic and strategy, but ultimately he's just sort of average and I think it's brave to have a character like that. He's generally loyal and a good friend, although he does have spells where he isn't which he gets villainised a bit for - but he's allowed to grow as a character, as are many of the other main characters. I liked that in book 7, for instance, the books were willing to criticise Sirius for his treatment of Kreacher - like him or not, he wasn't perfect. The whole "Snape's Worst Memory" thing is interesting in that regard too - after so long of hearing how perfect James is, then you get to see that he really isn't, and he could be quite cruel - directly addressed. It doesn't excuse Snape's own horrendous behaviour, but it does explain it somewhat. It's one of the few cases where you really get to see that since the series is from Harry's point of view, so we get lots of Harry's biases - when we see from another person's perspective, it's always interesting.

On the one hand I think it's a shame the Slytherins aren't more well developed, but then I think why would they be? It's Harry's point of view. Harry's pretty convinced that all of Slytherin are the shiftiest people ever. He probably isn't right about that, but it's his opinion and it's going to colour how he things of them. It's not like he only does that with Slytherin either - he doesn't even deign to think of poor Hufflepuff, except occasionally thinking they're a bit rubbish. At least Slytherin get some attention. But he's a kid who has no interest in seeing everything going on around him, what he's interested in are his friends... like any other kid. I don't think the series would work as well if it wasn't deliberately framed from Harry's point of view, anyway. It's back to the "everybody's flawed" thing - Harry's not going to sit there thinking of all his bad character traits (same as Draco Malfoy or anybody else won't!), but they're pretty obvious for people to see from what he says/thinks in his narrative, and that's good writing.

If I write it, I will post it here.

[rionaleonhart]

Curses, I lost my reply! Let's try this again.

A few days ago, I described the second half of the series to my housemate as 'all the adults Harry likes turn out to be dicks and die, not necessarily in that order'. Even if I was a bit sad when I was hit with the less savoury aspects of characters I loved, I do like that nobody's uncomplicatedly good in these books. And I like the moments when Harry is ashamed of his own thoughts and tries to struggle against them, like when he resents Ron for being made prefect over him. A character who was naturally reasonable and pleasant all the time wouldn't feel nearly so real (or be nearly so interesting).

(I initially typed that as 'all the adults Harry likes turn out to be ducks and die'.)

The series is very much from Harry's point of view, and it does work well, but, as you say, it means that some aspects of the world don't really have a chance to be developed. (This is making me think of writing from Squall Leonhart's point of view; he presents quite a challenge because there's a lot he just doesn't pick up on or doesn't care to find out more about, so you're slightly restricted in what you can portray when you're working from his perspective.) I'm hoping that the Fantastic Beasts films might give some insight into the other houses, although I don't imagine they'll actually be set at Hogwarts, so maybe not.

[(Anonymous)]

It would be quite interesting to sort of "mosaic" viewpoints in FF8. As you said, from Squall's point of view there are things he just outright doesn't get or wants nothing to do with, so he'll ignore it and world building wise this doesn't really help.

But then I'd be fascinated to see other character's perspectives on Squall, because I think we get a fairly strong sense of Squall from the game: but only because we're a player, and privy to his thoughts. So much of the understanding of how Squall works and thinks are from his thoughts. He doesn't talk much, and when he does he very rarely says anything that remotely gives away anything about his feelings (until at least... what, disc 3?). I'd read a fic about other characters trying to guess what the hell Squall is thinking at various points and never getting it right, because he gives no cues at all and none of them understand him enough to work them out anyway. But hey, they can get some pretty good world building down too! (I feel Irvine and Selphie would be good people for world building stuff.)

[chamekke.livejournal.com]

(I initially typed that as 'all the adults Harry likes turn out to be ducks and die'.)

I'm lurking in this thread because I'm not really into HP, but that is one crackfic I would read like burning.

[rionaleonhart]

So would I, come to think of it. (You have a remarkably appropriate icon for this; well done!)

[(Anonymous)]

And completely unrelated to Harry Potter: I have thought of the best crossover idea ever. You will love it, except for the fact you probably don't know one of the fandoms so you will actually just be really confused. But it makes so much sense.

Wait for it...

Dangan Ronpa/The Bunker Diary!

It's genius. Also, The Bunker Diary has no fanfic, despite having won an award - I guess people who like literary awards don't fall into the same category as people who like fanfic. :P

Why is it an amazing crossover? Well...

SPOILERS FOR THE BUNKER DIARY (I'm not spoiling how it ends, but this does include telling you what never gets explained)

So six people who seem to have no connection to eachother are thrown down into/trapped in a bunker which is fully kitted out and designed for them to "live" down there. There is no way out. There are anti-escape features. There are cameras everywhere. Some things seem to be done purely to fuck with people's heads (the clock speeds). The characters despair of what's going on. As more time passes, things start getting increasingly fucked up... Who kidnapped them and chucked them in there and why they did it is never explained.

SO THE OBVIOUS ANSWER IS JUNKO. RIGHT? Seriously, Junko would love that plan. Maybe it's pre killing life massacres, or maybe it's her branching out. Somebody needs to write this crossover. This will never happen due to nobody having read The Bunker Diary, though. Alas. There is a surprising lack of crossover fandom.

...Now I'm wondering what would happen if Komaeda was in this book, too. My brain hurts.