A Sirius Question

[lls_mutant]

sleeper6 made a comment on For Educational Purposes Only that inspired a ranty little question:

Where does the fandom stereotype that Sirius is selfish and greedy come from?

I'm not remotely saying Sirius is perfect. He's thoughtless like anything, he can be cruel, and he's overly emotional and can be quite arrogant. But he's also the guy who lived in a cave eating RATS for Harry's sake. Sure, SWM stripped the shine off MWPP, but still...

Fandom, you are a mystery sometimes.

Comments

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

There are too many questions of fandom that I just can't be arsed to ask. For one, the answers will take forever to tell, and for another it will scare me half to death.

[lady-nimua.livejournal.com]

I think it's just like asking where is fandom stereotype that Remus is depressed and weak come from, when it's says in canon 'professor Lupin was being his usual cheerful self' (or something like that) and that he's obviously a very strong person that can easily make anyone feel like crap.
also, why do you think Sirius is arrogant?

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on what part of fandom you're looking at. People who hate Sirius will say he's selfish and greedy, and of all the things you could accuse Sirius of, I think greedy is at the bottom of the list. I think he *can* be selfish (who isn't?), but mostly isn't, in regard to Harry.

People who claim to like him but like Remus better will do that whole, "Remus is perfect and Sirius is unworthy" thing you see a lot of, where suddenly Remus is the brains of the operation and Sirius (and James) are dumb lunks who can't tie their shoes without him.

Personally, I've never understood that kind of bashing within one's OTP, but I've seen it a lot.

[marauderthesn.livejournal.com]

I think it's because of Hermione's (dubious, in my opinion) view that Sirius wants to live through Harry and sort of hoped that Harry would get expelled so he could live with him. Seeing as Hermione also thought that Tonks had survivor's guilt and Tonks doesn't seem to give a damn that Sirius is dead, I think this is questionable at best.

[medicinal-mirth.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's because when he shows up in PoA, he's already a nearly mythic figure, and when he turns out to be a good guy, and Harry's Godfather to boot, people had all these expectations of him; he would take care of Harry, be the father figure, keep him safe, yadda yadda.

He does try to do all those things, but like you said, he isn't perfect. He's been through a lot, he's not perfect, and so he makes mistakes, like everyone else. So much for being mythic.

I could be totally off the mark, but I've always kind of felt that might have something to do with it.

[lupinspatronus.livejournal.com]

Sirius can be selfish with respect to Harry, as illustrated in ootp where he was moping around a bit.. and he has many reasons to be so, but when it comes to things that really matter I think he's one of the most selfless characters, sometimes even unthinkingly so.

Maybe its a weird 'Black' thing that fandom likes to heap on him -shrugs-

As for greedy.. shakes head, doesn't get it at all. =P

[shaggydogstail.livejournal.com]

Oh, R/S shippers who don't like Sirius are one of my pet peeves in fandom, and there's just so many of them. If they really think Sirius such a stupid, selfish, lying, cheating bastard, why do they pair their precious Remus with him anyway?

Also, I can't stand the way Remus is characterised in those sort of fics. It's obvious the authors think he's some long-suffering saint, but he comes across as a spineless emo doormat.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

True. I suppose it's more rhetorical than anything else. It's just odd that, when I write Sirius as actually having moments of consideration, people are surprised. ::Sigh::

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

True. Especially since the two often show up in the same fic!

Sirius is a bit arrogant, I think, although moreso during MWPP days than OotP days. The bullying during school is a big thing that makes me think it. He's also convinced he's right, but I'd generally call that more overconfident than arrogant. And finally, taunting Bellatrix- not his brightest move and comes from arrogance. He's definitely got his share of it- he just doesn't show it to everyone he knows.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Heh. Because Remus is such a saint anyway, the lying, passive agressive snot he is. :)

[shaggydogstail.livejournal.com]

Well, there's fandom's collective anmesia about the whole of GoF for a start. *shakes head*

Accusing Sirius of being selfish is completely illogical, because that's one flaw he doesn't really have--he's remarkably selfless, as the whole living in a cave thing shows. I think some people just see Sirius as the stereotypical 'high school jock' and selfishness fits in with that stereotype. Logic isn't always fandom's strong point--I've argued long and hard with people who said it was selfish of Sirius to go to the DoM in OotP, because he obviously just did it for an adventure, not thinking about how upset Harry would be if anything happened to him. The fact that Harry's life was at risk and he couldn't be upset about anything if he died is apparantly neither here nor there.

I also think that some people who like Remus but not Sirius misunderstand the MWPP dynamic and Remus' lycanthropy. Sirius gets accused of being selfish for wishing it was full moon when he's bored, because he supposedly doesn't understand how awful it was for Remus. Of course, it wasn't awful for Remus--he describes his transformations once WPP were with him as 'the best times of [his] life,' but what Remus himself saw as friendship is seen as selfishness by some of his fangirls. Which I simply can't understand, but there it is.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's very strange. I can understand writing them both as flawed and sort of "they deserve each other" in both senses of the phrase, but Remus is so far from perfect that Saint!Remus with Sirius groveling at his feet pleading for forgiveness for existing just makes me wonder if these people are reading the same books as I am.

The suspicion thing always amuses me (or sickens me) too. For some reason, half the time it seems like Sirius just decided to suspect Remus for no good reason, because he's MEAN. The authors never ask what Remus was doing that made it possible to suspect him....

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

You know, I'd believe that Hermione was right that Sirius had that fantasy- it's just readers don't understand that that's exactly what it was- a fantasy. I mean, one of my greatest fantasies is a menage a trois with two guys, but I would never, EVER want it to come true because the implications and everything would be such a mess that even though there's aspects of the idea I would like, I KNOW it's bad. I can see Sirius having that secret fantasy of Harry getting expelled and living with him as a guilty sort of thing- something he doesn't REALLY want to happen.

Fandom. 'Tis a strange place!

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'd believe it, especially given fandom's response to his death. I mean, I loved Sirius and he's one of my favorite characters, but I would have killed him too. (I just wouldn't have done it with drapery.)

Poor Sirius. Can't live up to expectations anywhere. Even in my fic, where people are yelling at him left and right :)

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm often amazed at what's been assumed about the Black family in general. Fandom is weird.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the "Sirius really became an Animagus for the thrill of doing something forbidden, not because he truly wanted to help Remus" vein of logic.

But yeah- since you bring up the DoM, the whole reason Sirius felt depressing OotP was because he felt like he was being selfish. It wasn't just the action- it was that everyone was risking their lives and he was hiding in this house, doing what he felt was nothing. The only thing that kept him in the house was he understood his safety was important to Harry. I always felt like Sirius knew exactly what war was and what he was risking when he went out, and the people who said Sirius died the way he wanted to were RIGHT. (Well, that he died fighting. Not that he was killed by drapery at age 37.)

[shaggydogstail.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY! Why is this so hard for people to understand? Dumbledore basically spells it out in words of one syllable at the end of OotP, but still chunks of fandom just don't get it. It's very frustrating.

the people who said Sirius died the way he wanted to were RIGHT

Absolutely. Sirius didn't want to die, but he was prepared to. Fighting for what he believed in was at least a dignified death. (Though why JKR felt the need to inflict the ridiculous curtain business on him instead of a nice, clean AK I still don't understand.)

Oh, yes! Part 1

[(Anonymous)]

Glad to see someone questioning this very common stereotype! To me, it seems utterly counter to canon to characterize Sirius as selfish and greedy, and *I* tend to write him as being distinguished by an innate need to serve. But I have a few ideas about where it comes from. (Beware. Plenty of tl;dr ahead. Feel free to skip)

1. SWM
Some people read this scene, strongly identify with Snape as the powerless, defenseless victim, and cast James and Sirius as the same "mean girls" or "popular kids" or whatever group used to torment the reader in their school years. And every nuance in this complex scene that does not fit this paradigm gets overlooked. In other words, I think many readers react to this scene in exactly the same way Harry did, and that is in no way "foolish" on their parts, of course, anymore than it was foolish of Harry to be disturbed by what he saw. It's just that Harry, on being exposed to a more adult reading from Lupin and Black down the line, was able to expand his view of what he'd seen to take in more of the nuances, while some fandom readers were not.

So, when Sirius haughtily refuses to help Lupin study for the Transfiguration final, readers see it as evidence of selfishness, and when Sirius wishes it was full moon, they see it as evidence of greed for fun. These readings do overlook certain facets of the interaction, though.

Sirius had just finished one exam, and is not in a mood to study for another just then, for one thing. Also, Lupin asks him to help study for Transfiguration, of all things, when Sirius really does "know all that rubbish" - he's a 15 year old Animagi. Sirius clearly thinks Lupin is being a pain-in-the-arse swot, here, and, being a teen, is a bit self-involved in his response, rather than selfish. Lupin really IS teasing him, in a subtle, quite “Lupin-esque” way, as well. Sirius has just complained that he is bored, so Lupin is telling him he can make himself useful by studying, rather than whining about being bored. Lupin is, in fact, gently puncturing Sirius’ youthful posturing as the seen-it-all, terribly-terribly-bored sophisticate (a very common teen affectation, incidentally). And Sirius, amusingly, actually plays right into Lupin’s satire, by continuing to maintain his rather ludicrous “bored” façade.

Lupin also is the one who suggests that Sirius is being thoughtless when he wishes it was full moon, so he is continuing to bust his friend’s chops. One gets the impression that Lupin, as a boy, really thinks Sirius’ Young Lord act is absurd, and God knows, it is embarrassingly silly. Still, we also know that Lupin himself does enjoy their monthly full-moon expeditions, because he said so, in PoA. So Lupin is being deliberately contentious in this scene. Further, if Sirius is so selfish, why does he wish it was full moon? He can be Padfoot any time he likes, and his buddy James can be Prongs any time as well, so Sirius really doesn’t need it to be full moon at all, if he just wants to have a romp through the forest. I think it is quite telling that Sirius can’t even imagine having such a romp unless it is full moon, and Remus can participate. This, I think is evidence of Sirius’ truer nature, not his childish affectations. It never even occurs to him that he could pursue the fun of the Animagi transformations without also serving Lupin’s needs.

But all these are tiny, subtle bits of character movement, and easy to overlook (just as Harry overlooked them) in light of the more vivid and more disturbing action that comes later in the scene. Easy also to overlook the companion piece to this scene, Harry’s conversation with Lupin and Black via the fire, when Harry can’t quite understand the adults’ delight and nostalgia for James’ teenage mannerisms, and they can’t quite understand Harry’s distress over discovering his father and his friends were no more perfect or wise or even cool than he is, at his age. It’s a beautifully written bit of intergenerational confusion, but for fans who felt clopped on the head by the revelation that the Marauders were just kids, in all their unlovely glory, it’s eclipsed by the earlier scene of tormenting Snape.

Re: Oh, yes! Part 2

[(Anonymous)]

2. Larger stereotypes
Sirius is depicted, in these books, as aristocratic and coming from a wealthy and socially advantaged family. There’s a common stereotype forming from that – the Spoiled Little Rich Kid. SLRK’s are, of course, selfish and greedy, everyone knows this; we’ve all seen them in a thousand movies and books. So, even though JKR seems to be deliberately playing with this stereotype and turning it inside out in Sirius’ case, it’s still easy to attribute all the baggage that goes along with the common fictional trope to the character.

Some of us also ascribe the usual “Type” coding to James (Jock/Athlete), Peter (Dumb Sidekick) and Remus (Depressed Sick/Poor Kid). And since we don’t know the MWPP group as kids anywhere near as well as we do Harry and his friends, we have to search the text a lot harder to see where their characterizations differ from the expected stereotypes. We often have to extrapolate backwards, from what we know of the adult characters, to get a balanced picture of them as kids.

For those readers who still can’t forgive them for the SWM scene, such balanced character analyses seem a waste of time. “We’ve seen Sirius acting like a SLRK at least once; no need to look any further.” The facts we also know about Sirius that contradict the stereotype (that he ran away from the wealthy family, that they disowned him, that the actions of Kreacher and his mother’s portrait suggest that he was anything but spoiled as a child) are lost in the desire to reinforce the familiar and satisfying stereotypes. I imagine Sirius’ early home-life as being absolutely nightmarish, but in order to arrive at this reading, I had to stop using the SLRK Type as my mental sorting screen.

3. Identification with Snape
(Snape fans, I am apologizing in advance. Your hero has strong opinions, and though he is very bright, I just don’t think he is always right)

Severus Snape definitely would characterize his enemy, Sirius, as greedy and selfish. Of course, he would also characterize Sirius as A) a coward, B) a mass murderer, C) LV’s right-hand man, D) lazy and stupid – and so on. Snape doesn’t like Sirius. He ascribes negative character traits to people he doesn’t like. Just as he says Harry is an arrogant clone of his no-good old man, Hermione’s teeth are so freakishly huge that “he sees no difference”, Neville is stupid and incompetent 24/7, Tonks’ new Patronus is weak, people who express their emotions are “weak fools who wallow in old memories” - and so on. In other words, Snape doesn’t pursue objective judgment in his evaluations of the people around him. And that’s fine, that’s who the character is.

But identification with this character can sometimes lead his fans to take his opinions as truth, when Snape’s judgments are particularly biased and do not present the whole picture. Nor are they meant to. If one wanted to get a balanced and fairly accurate picture of who Sirius Black is, one would certainly have to take Severus Snape’s views into account. But one would also need the “testimony” of Harry, Remus, Peter, Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore, Molly, McGonagall, Madame Rosmerta, and Mudungus Fletcher into account as well, since all of these people also know Sirius and have expressed opinions about him. No one opinion, positive or negative, would be completely right, but all, taken as an aggregate, would present a reasonably accurate reading. Strong identification with one particular character can make a reader see things his or her way, but that does not mean that there is only one way to see them. Every point of view in the HP books is a bit skewed by personal bias. If one is a reader who sees things Snape’s way, Sirius does look greedy and selfish. But that does not mean that he is greedy and selfish.

You know, I could go on and on all day. I’m home sick with a flu and probably am not making a whole lot of sense, but it sure hasn’t stopped me from rambling on. Sniffle. Thanks for an interesting question and a bit of welcome distraction, anyway!

Oh, bleargh!

[nyxfixx.livejournal.com]

*Sneeze* All of the above LONG-winded ranting was me, not logged in!

[lady-nimua.livejournal.com]

maybe, but he's still hot.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying magnetic_pole's take on the suspicion years, for what it's worth. The links are all at http://magnetic-pole.livejournal.com/3020.html#cutid1, if you're interested.

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

I can see him being a little selfish, but greedy? No way. I've always thought of Sirius as generous. Look at the nice gifts he got for Harry. Or the risks he takes for Harry. Look at the way he opened his house to people. I may be wrong, but doesn't he give some of his family's possessions to Mundungus in OotP?

Generous makes more sense to me, anyway. He hated his family. He'd have been more than happy to give away their trappings.

Re: Oh, bleargh!

[lupinspatronus.livejournal.com]

Whoa, that was GOOD long-winded rambling. I totally agree with you.. I think it may be true that much of what Sirius is in canon is reliant more on other people's views of him - Molly Weasley, Harry, Snape, Hermione etc - than on how he is portrayed as himself. Unlike Remus in PoA we don't get enough time in the books to see him fleshed out as fully as a character, so he still remains kind of an enigma, with very strong and forceful, but rather scattered personality traits, although we DO know those that really matter, like loyalty and courage. It is sad that Harry never really got to know him as just a person the way say, Remus does..

So I think fandom likes to carve a Sirius out of these different and sometimes misleading points of view, ESPECIALLY from ootp, where he is for most part not portrayed very desirably (on the surface at least).. and since Remus has been portrayed for most part in the books as consistent, steady and always saying wise things - superficially the perfect, saint!guy, whereas his faults are more in the subtext - fandom goes wild! and loves to have Saint!Remus and Grovelling!Sirius.. I suppose there is a false sense of security in their characterizations cause they can say, look, it's all in the books!

Eurgh I can't stand those! -cringes- Fandom should explore the character traits not explored in Harry's story -nods enthusiastically- =P

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Absolutely no argument there! And it doesn't really bother me that he's arrogant at a young age- a lot of people are, and Sirius learned not to be. He's not completely insufferable... as long as you're not Snape ;)

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I glanced at it, but I think I need to avoid it for a bit. It's a little too close in terms of theme and tone for what I'm doing in Accidentally In Love, and I don't want to be influenced. But once I'm done (one day...), I'll have to go back and read it!

Re: Oh, yes! Part 2

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Totally agree with everything you say, but this:

Further, if Sirius is so selfish, why does he wish it was full moon? He can be Padfoot any time he likes, and his buddy James can be Prongs any time as well, so Sirius really doesn’t need it to be full moon at all, if he just wants to have a romp through the forest. I think it is quite telling that Sirius can’t even imagine having such a romp unless it is full moon, and Remus can participate.

Was especially brilliant. I've always just dismissed Sirius's casualness as being a 15-year-old boy more focused on the positive aspects of the experience, but this is an excellent point as well.

It's true that a lot of people are Snape fans, but that's not even what gets me. When sleeper6 made the comment, she was comparing my version of Sirius to other Sirius-es in the R/S pairing. As musesfool and shaggydogstail were discussing, it's often bashing within one's own OTP. Baffles me.

I do find the stereotype of the SLRK amusing (I agree with you), because it's the exact point that JKR is trying to make- people are more than their pigeonholes and stereotypes.

Thanks for the long rambling- I enjoyed it greatly! :)

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Generous is a better description than greedy, that's for sure. And sure, he's a little selfish, which I'm agreeable to believing. (As someone else pointed out, who isn't?) But it still just baffles me that people do write him that way. Ah well!

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

People are just determined to hate Sirius. It makes no sense, but it's true of other characters, so... *rolls eyes* I mean, they'll go as far as making shit up. I mean, if you listen to some people, Sirius and James gang raped Snape repeatedly, Sirius suspected Remus because...Sirius is an asshole and Remus is above reproach, Sirius actually thinks that Harry is James, Sirius only thought of himself when he went to the DoM (WTF?), etc.

I don't get it. I mean, there are plenty of characters that I don't much like, but the full on hatred that Sirius (and Ginny and Ron, and a few others) gets is just bewildering.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

If they really think Sirius such a stupid, selfish, lying, cheating bastard, why do they pair their precious Remus with him anyway?

I have no answer to that question, but I've seen it happen in numerous fandoms and pairings, so it's just another odd fannish behavior, I think.

Also, I can't stand the way Remus is characterised in those sort of fics. It's obvious the authors think he's some long-suffering saint, but he comes across as a spineless emo doormat.

Hee!

I think it's more interesting if he's actually meant to be a spineless emo doormat. I mean, I've written him as excruciatingly passive-aggressive, esp. as a teenager, but it's intentional. And had people comment about how noble and self-sacrificing he was in the story. *shakes head*

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

but Remus is so far from perfect that Saint!Remus with Sirius groveling at his feet pleading for forgiveness for existing just makes me wonder if these people are reading the same books as I am.

I don't think it's extrapolating from canon so much as it is a preferred relationship dynamic for some fans, and it gets repeated across fandoms. There was a ton of it in Smallville, with people hating on Clark and loving Lex; I've seen it in XMM and BtVS as well.

For some reason, half the time it seems like Sirius just decided to suspect Remus for no good reason, because he's MEAN. The authors never ask what Remus was doing that made it possible to suspect him....

Seriously. I mean, we know Remus was innocent, and given what we know about his work for the ORder now, we can piece together what he was doing, but I imagine it was a lot harder for Sirius when it was happening, especially if Peter was fanning the flames of his suspicions, which has always been my pet theory. Remus was always inwardly-directed and secretive, and Peter, to deflect suspicion, only had to repeatedly cast Remus's actions in a questionable light, without ever even saying anything outright - all innuendo and "Oh, but I mustn't say such things about Remus. He would never...."