Sirius Black's Character

Author's comments:

J. K. Rowling has said that she likes Sirius as a character, but she does not think he is "wholly wonderful":

"Sirius is very good at spouting bits of excellent personal philosophy, but he does not always live up to them. For instance, he says in "Goblet of Fire" that if you want to know what a man is really like, 'look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.' But Sirius loathes Kreacher, the house-elf he has inherited, and treats him with nothing but contempt. Similarly, Sirius claims that nobody is wholly good or wholly evil, and yet the way he acts towards Snape suggests that he cannot conceive of any latent good qualities there...Sirius' great redeeming quality is how much affection he is capable of feeling. He loved James like a brother and he went on to transfer that attachment to Harry."

Rowling also described Sirius as a "bit of a loose cannon" and a "case of arrested development" and once described Sirius as "brave, loyal, reckless, embittered and slightly unbalanced by his long stay in Azkaban."

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There are several points about her assessment that don’t add up for me, based on what I know of Sirius from Books 3 and 4.

The first point is that he “doesn’t always live up to” his “bits of excellent personal philosophy”. Her two examples of this are Kreacher and Snape… lets think about this for a min… Kreacher was utterly vile and I wanted to strangle him most of the time and Snape was heavily into the dark arts, even if he was against Voldemort. Not the best examples in the world, considering it would take a saint to get along with those two. Considering Sirius’ long history with both of them, it is only natural he doesn’t get along with them. They are not exactly innocent victims when it comes to their bad relationship (though that is a different subject).

The second point is her comment that he is a “case of arrested development” and “slightly unbalanced”. While I won’t argue that 11 years in the hell hole that is Azkaban wouldn’t leave someone unbalanced, I do argue that it left him immature. There is nothing about his actions in the 3rd and 4th books that even remotely imply this. In fact, he acted remarkable mature and sane considering what he had been through. As someone pointed out, after hunting Peter for nearly a year with murderous intent, he backed down easily at Harry’s request that Peter be turned over to the Dementors instead.

It is no secret that I think she butchered his character in the 5th book (along with several other characters). Not blatantly, but little things here and there that didn’t add up and ended up changing the feel of the character. I did not buy his family history, his relationship with his family, his relationship with Kreacher, his supposed bullying of Snape (implying Snape was a victim), nor how badly he handled being confined to his “old house”.

This is someone who befriended Remus and survived 11 years in what was effectively hell on earth, and it felt like she didn’t honor his character’s particular strengths and weaknesses. She used him to get across the points she wanted to and didn’t follow him where he would naturally go. The faults she gave him didn’t feel like the faults he would have. Not to say he didn’t have plenty of faults, but my impression of the character led me to expect different problems.

To summarize, I believe her comments that he is a “case of arrested development” and hypocritical to be inaccurate based on what I know of the character before book 5.

Now, to address the question of how I dare say something like this. Character often have a life of their own outside of the author’s mind. The author comes up with the concept but the characters are more than the author’s creation. In their own way, they are real people, though ultimately they aren’t of course. As such, it’s possible for an author to loose touch with their character, or misrepresent them, especially if the author is trying to accomplish something specific without regard of their character’s personality. This can include everything from unfitting character back story, family history, wrong personality, actions, attitudes and so forth. I have seen plenty of published authors admit this and have experienced it myself when developing my own characters. I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to have a character be a certain way or do a certain thing because I wanted it, only to have them protest in their own way. It takes, as Moody would say, constant vigilance and an attitude of listening to the characters instead of dictating. I feel that JKR dictated (especially based on some comments of hers) and as a result, she lost touch with her characters and misrepresented them. It isn’t rare and it does happen. That is why I’m willing to say her characterization of Sirius in the 5th book felt wrong.