Sirius Black—He’d Rather Die Than Betray His Friends (Requested)

**Due to recent misinterpretations of some one post from this blog, a disclaimer is now apparently necessary.  If this is your first visit to The Scratched Camera, please read the introductory post and discover, for yourself, that every typed word that follows is unabashedly my opinion and mine alone.  In said introductory post, which, shockingly, I did not simply type up for my own good health, I state that we all read events and characters with our own baggage in mind; no one observes with a perfectly clear lens—hence the name The Scratched Camera.  Therefore, it is completely your will to disagree with any material that follows, just as it is my will to agree and advocate for what is mine.**  ~End, irritating obligatory disclaimer~

Sirius Black—He’d Rather Die Than Betray His Friends (Requested)

            Sirius Black lived his life by extremes.  He was simultaneously an excellent friend and a wretched bully.  He had a potential for loyalty that is rarely seen in any character, but it was offset by an impetuous and impulsive need to act on his instincts, which would eventually lead to the premature death of one of the finest characters I have ever known. 

            The audience’s perception of Sirius Black rides out like a roller coaster.  Throughout the majority of Prisoner of Azkaban, he is labeled as the titular antagonist.  It isn’t revealed until the very end of the novel just how wrong Harry and the wizarding world have been in their assumptions towards Sirius Black. 

            Harry is originally told—well, I say told.  Really, he eavesdropped on the conversation—that Sirius was the secret-keeper for the Potters and was, therefore, in charge of insuring Voldemort didn’t discover their location.  Voldemort’s acquisition of this information could result in the death of Harry and, by association, Voldemort’s victory.  It is revealed the wizarding world believes Sirius Black betrayed his childhood friends to Voldemort in a cowardly move to save his own skin.  He then chased down Peter Pettigrew, who was supposedly truly loyal to the Potters, and murdered him and twelve Muggles with one spell—so strong it left behind nothing but one finger from Pettigrew.

            As we learn towards the end of the third novel, the wizarding community has gotten this story completely backwards.  Sirius was meant to be the Potters’ secret-keeper, but he insisted upon Pettigrew taking the post at the last minute, as he knew Voldemort would naturally expect the Potters to choose Black.  He had hoped to throw Voldemort off with this move, but, in actuality, gave the nose less evil mastermind everything he needed. 

            This, of course, renders Black guiltless in the murders of James and Lily.  However, he felt personally responsible for placing their trust in someone who only turned on them in the long run.  As such, he eagerly sought out the rat—a term that Pettigrew now defined both literally and metaphorically—to personally murder him for his crimes. 

            Did Pettigrew deserve to die?  Some would probably argue that he did not.  To a man as loyal to his friends as Black, though, he saw no other justified alternative.  Certainly, it was another in a long lifetime of rash decisions on Black’s part, but he felt it was the right thing to do. 

            Unfortunately, Pettigrew was prepared for him.  He killed the twelve Muggles and faked his own death, cutting off one of his fingers in the process to leave behind enough evidence to prove Black’s guilt.  Sirius was sentenced to Azkaban without a trial by Bartemius Crouch Senior—no, not the Tenth Doctor.  The other one—for the murder of Pettigrew and the Muggles.

            Black served twelve years of his time in the worst prison known to the wizarding world, all for a crime he didn’t truly commit. Black’s eventually easy escape indicates he could’ve chosen to leave the prison at any given time.  However, while his knowledge that he was not personally guilty for the deaths of the Muggles and Pettigrew allowed him to be one of the very few inmates to maintain some sense of sanity, it did not mean he considered himself wholly free of guilt; just because he hadn’t personally betrayed his friends, didn’t release him from all responsibility for their fate.

            However, as soon as he spotted Pettigrew on Ron’s shoulder in their picture in the Prophet, his mentality changed immediately.  Sirius returned to his old rebellious and dedicated self as he executed a plan to escape his cell.  When he succeeded, using his Animagus form, he was the first person to escape the inescapable prison—ironically, four years later, his godson will shock everyone by managing to break in to the impenetrable bank.  Wherever Sirius is in his after life, I’m sure he eagerly smiled down upon Harry on that day.

            Sentencing one’s self to an extended stay in a prison for the sake of a crime that one didn’t really commit requires a certain level of dedication to whatever the act is completed in the name of.  Sirius was deeply devoted to James—viewing him like the family he had never had at Grimmauld Place.  To not only insist upon his hold in a prison, but to manage to rise above the extreme conditions and maintain some level of sanity requires an extreme amount of dedication. 

            Sirius’ sense of loyalty is my favorite of his characteristics.  It is truly rare to find a fictional character who is as faithful as Black; not to mention, people in reality rarely even come close to this particular mark of dedication.  As a teenager reading Prisoner of Azkaban for the first time, I marveled at Sirius’ resounding guilt over an event that he actually held very little responsibility in.  His next declaration, his sweeping statement to Peter that he should’ve sacrificed himself for the Potters, that it was cowardly not to do so, that had it been him in that situation, he would’ve died rather than betray his friends, took my breath away. 

            This statement seemed to embody all that it meant to be a Gryffindor to me—an example of the very remarkable level of bravery and loyalty required to live up to the house name.  After this, Sirius Black was the model by which I ran my friendships.  He showed me that, in order to receive loyalty and trust in return, you must first hand it out. 

            After this, my opinion of Sirius only steadily increased.  The signing of Harry’s permission slip makes me coo in joy to this very day.  Potter’s following sly and cheeky threat issued to the Dursley’s has Sirius’ influence written all over it.  Most of all, I recall a resounding relief at Harry’s chance to have a father figure present in his life—someone who was willing to open their home to him after a mere few hours of acquaintance.  This connection is only made increasingly special, as the figure is in the form of someone who was so intimately connected to his father. 

            Unfortunately, Sirius feels very similarly towards Harry.  Black, in all of his admirable traits, simply wasn’t prepared to play the role of father.  Instead, he treats Harry as if he is simply James 2.0, another best friend for him to play with.  With this comes some good and, of course, some negatives as well.  He does treat Harry like an adult, providing him with the information he really needs to be prepared for the battle to come.  Mrs. Weasley tiptoes around the issue; Sirius refuses to hold back in explaining just how miserable the last war was.  While I can appreciate Mrs. Weasley’s desire to coddle him, I do firmly believe that if Potter is to stand a chance of succeeding in his task whilst maintaining any sense of sanity, Sirius is making the correct move with his blunt delivery.  In my teenage mindset at the time, I also respected Sirius for merely trusting Harry was capable enough to hear what everyone else seemed to discredit his ability to comprehend.  It simply wasn’t the ‘adult’ thing to do, which only served to make Sirius appear more appealing.

            However, the negatives of Sirius’ brotherly and immature disposition far outnumber the positives.  He urges Harry to embrace his rebellious inclinations towards Umbridge, expressing a high approval of his creation of Dumbledore’s Army.  Again, while I agree with Sirius here—someone needs to teach the students how to survive the war and if Umbridge isn’t willing to, someone needs to step up and do so—it isn’t necessarily the best advice to give a fifteen-year-old boy. 

            This inclination comes from Sirius’ own instinctual sense of rebellion—yet another trait teenaged me, and adult version, really, shared with him.  He disobeys Dumbledore’s orders and leaves Grimmauld Place to escort Harry to the Hogwarts Express, knowing full and well he could very easily be arrested for doing so.  Black takes on the large risk of corresponding regularly with Potter during the Triwizard Tournament in Goblet of Fire, despite the fact that the Ministry is checking more letters than they ever have before and that his nickname does little to hide his identity.  While I admire his gumption deeply, some could argue it hardly sets a good example for Harry—even I heard that last bit in a mashed rendition between Hermione and Mrs. Weasley’s voices.

            His immaturity doesn’t end there.  In his time at Hogwarts, while he may have made an admirable friend to James, Remus and Peter, his morality left something to be desired, as he regularly bullied Snape.  When Snape’s worst memory is revealed to the audience in Order of the Phoenix, it is really the first time the character is seen as anything other than positive.  Sure, his advice to Harry often displayed a dangerous impetuousness to it, but it wasn’t necessarily an inherently incorrect reaction to the situations at hand and, therefore, was forgiving with quite a bit of ease. 

            This was not the case for his treatment of Snape.  I resisted believing it at first, as by this time I had grown quite attached to Sirius, relating to his personality and demeanor in several ways.  He was rebellious, witty, confident, charmingly rude and brash—all the things I was and yet wanted to be at the same time.  However, I had never experienced a desire to belittle and bully others as we see James and Sirius engage in as they hang Snape upside down from a tree.

            While I’m certain Snape is not innocent in this either, as the three of them had developed a habit of taking turns picking fights in their time at school, that does not excuse the cruelty we see Snape suffer through here.

            I won’t deny that I was bluntly disappointed in Black after learning how the spent his time at Hogwarts.  I had always known he had suffered from a horrible temper and a passion to follow his gut and ignore his brain, but I had never expected him to take his bad decision making to such an incredibly high standard.  Truly, I believe his fatal flaw is acting before he thinks the move entirely through—coincidentally, this is another fault I share with the character.  However, the question remains, was I originally like this or is this simply the result of Black’s prevalent influence on my formative years?  I refer to such a conflict as the Pop-Tart Reaction—in which Lorelai Gilmore states she is uncertain whether she really enjoyed Pop-Tarts because they were delicious or as a reaction to her mother’s intense disapproval of them. 

            This flaw does prove to be fatal, as he insists on accompanying the Order to the attack in the Department of Mysteries at the end of OoP, despite the fact that he hasn’t properly dueled in quite a long time, due to his fugitive state and house arrest status.  His negligence doesn’t hinder his bold attitude, though, as he proudly taunts his cousin Bellatrix—whom he of course hates—as she fails to land a curse.  Had he simply checked his tongue, checked his impulsiveness, he could’ve perhaps completed a defensive move and saved his very life.  Unfortunately, he speaks offensively instead of moving defensively, resulting in the death of one of the greatest and most flawed characters the series provides.  Sirius Black, the first man to successfully maintain sanity in Azkaban, the first Black to insist on being placed in Gryffindor, the first person to escape from the inescapable prison, dies from one fall into the wrong curtain. 

From Gary King to Nicholas Angel:  Is Sirius a good role model?  While Sirius will always be one of my favorite characters, I can’t pretend that he is by any means perfect.  There are good behaviors that Black models.  He has a fervent dedication about him—as he remains loyal to his friends and Harry until his very last breath.  His lack of loyalty to his family actually serves to commend him as well.  He rejected their belief that their pure-blood status inherently made him a better person or wizard than those who had less magic flowing through their blood.  Although, in his rejection, he unfortunately became as vehemently prejudice towards the exact opposite side of the issue, believing almost all Slytherins are intrinsically evil.  His inherent need for rebellion inclines him towards the underdog of an issue, frequently resulting in him going against the social norm and siding with the less popular but more morally correct choice. With this, he shows an open and independent mind, something everyone could use to see more often.  He also applies his dedication to this, as he sticks to his opinions and is willing to make a stand for issues he believes in.  However, this dedication sometimes causes him to cross a line from which he can’t return.  While his surface-level reasoning behind bullying Snape is technically correct—his belief is that Snape supports the Dark Arts and is, therefore, no better than his deranged family—it doesn’t excuse the travesties he exacts against the smaller, more vulnerable kid.  He also focuses on an immediate action and, as a result, often fails to see things through, a mistake that leads straight to his own fatal end. 

Role Model Rating:  6/10

From Peter Parker to Spider-Man:  Is Sirius relatable?  Where Black’s imperfections hinder his potential to be a role model, they only flourish his ability to be a relatable character.  He makes mistakes and is willing to pay for them, as he settles himself into Azkaban for twelve long years based on residual guilt over James and Lily’s deaths.  While it was his impulsive thought processes that orchestrated the whole debacle that led to the deaths of his friends, he still fails to learn from his mistakes, as he consistently continues to capriciously coordinate his life, always in search for a fight to break up the monotony of a routine.  The same could be applied to his adult bickering sessions with Snape, which reflect neither boy’s ability to really reach for the maturity of adulthood.  While this is not commendable, it is relatable, as we all have certain people from our pasts that we wish we could relate certain scathing messages to as a hypocritical declaration of our developed states.  However, whereas Snape is depicted in the far more common bullied position and Sirius is shown as the authoritative bully that most kids have found at one point or another in their time in a public school system, it does take some credit away from Black on the matter of relatability. 

Relatability Rating:  7/10