Comment on before the door of hell lamps burned

  1. basketofnovas (slashmarks) on Chapter 1 Mon 08 Mar 2021 08:35PM UTC

    Oh, sorry, I totally misunderstood that! I've heard people saying that he's literally a child or a teenager or at best twenty during OotP when he is, you know, in his thirties, since he didn't literally fall into a time void or get frozen in carbonate for ten years, and therefore he isn't capable of making decisions, pretty often so I thought that was what you were referring to. And yeah, he's definitely less isolated than in canon here, and that's a big part of what he's more stable - being on the run for years isn't good for anyone's stability.

    Re: Harry being wrong, basically I mean that Harry springing Voldemort's trap works on the premise that he assumes Sirius has done something reckless and gotten captured on the basis of his fears, which are fueled by Sirius's moodswings - but, as we find out later, Sirius never left Grimmauld Place until the Order was going to rescue Harry in force, he was exactly where he said he'd be the entire time. So, the plot of OotP functions on Harry being afraid of Sirius's instability and walking into a trap because of it.

    Comment Actions

    1. mistrali on Chapter 1 Tue 09 Mar 2021 12:28AM UTC

      Lief with Veritas and baby Forta

      Nah, you’re good, I should reread my comments before posting!

      I do think Sirius was sort of ‘frozen in time’ in Azkaban, in the sense that he suffered a massive amount of sensory, emotional/mental, intellectual, social, physical etc. deprivation. Presumably he wasn’t physically tortured, as POWs/captured journalists are, but he experienced something akin to severe depression (and PTSD) in solitary confinement, mitigated by his ability to escape into Padfoot for large amounts of time.

      But you’re right that he seems to have regained a lot of that functioning by OOTP, even in Grimmauld Place — that is, the basics of social interaction, life skills etc. What you seem to be talking about is people essentially writing him as incapable of any informed decision-making whatsoever.

      Oh, yes, agreed re: Harry haring off to the DOM.

      Comment Actions