← Critical Magic Theory: An Analytical Harry Potter Podcast
Critical Magic Theory: An Analytical Harry Potter Podcast
The Seriously Tragic Tale of Sirius Black
01:32:06
Loading summary
Transcript21 lines
- [00:01]
Professor Julian Womble
Welcome to Critical Magic Theory, where we deconstruct the wizarding World of Harry Potter. Because loving something doesn't mean we can't be critical of it. I'm Professor Julian Womble, and today we are talking about everybody's favorite escapee from the ban, everyone's favorite godfather for Harry. Some of y'all said, who is that? Everyone's favorite, favorite marauder. Some of you said, I don't know her, y'all. We're talking about Sirius Black. Okay, we're talking about Sirius Black and. Oh, you all. Okay. This episode is going to be so much fun. One, because so many of you have such strong feelings about Sirius and you made them known in the survey. And two, because Sirius introduces to us something that we haven't really gotten in the other episodes on the other characters. Because thus far, just to recap for those of you who may be joining us and haven't listened to the other episodes, we've talked about all the Weasleys and we've talked about all the Malfoys and we talked about Bellatrix Lestrange, and we talked about Regulus and Andromeda. And so we haven't really had a character who we have been able to see as a child or at least understand their kind of childhood experiences and then get to meet them as an adult. We haven't had that yet. And we also haven't had something that is also unique to Sirius, which is the ide of someone who is on the side of good but has a past that is littered with bad things and also is prone to prejudicial behavior against certain creatures, against certain people, against what certain people? I'm not editing that out. And so this will be one of the characters that we really get to dive into because he lives in this kind of morally grace face, despite all of the good that he does. There is a lot of bad that we have to contend with. And many of you brought this up in your comments. And I cannot wait to really dive into it because I think that that's the fun that we get to have. I'm also so excited and honored to have had Eric, who is one of the chronic overthinkers from Patreon, come on and have a conversation with me about Sirius. And when I tell you that Eric brought it, he was ready. He had the text prepared. There are receipts that were provided. The discussion that we have surrounding what it means to be a Gryffindor is one of the favorites, and I know that it'll be one of yours as well, and he brought so much heart and spirit to the conversation that I know that you all are just simply one not ready, but will love it. And so if you're not ready, it's time to get ready. Okay? It's time to prepare. Because some of this conversation is going to be sad because at the end of the day, Sirius's story is a very, very sad one. And a lot of us may disagree with that and a lot of us have very strong feelings, as I said before. But at the end of the day, a lot of what Sirius has to navigate and endure is really the byproduct of a system that simply doesn't care about a lot of people like Sirius. Have you ever wondered if Sirius is actually a good godfather for Harry? Or what instance or interaction or person had the biggest effect on his adult life? And how do we reconcile all the good that he has done with the bad that he did when he was a child? This is going to allow us to bring together a lot of things that we've talked about in past episodes. And I'm ready. We're gonna get into all of it. But first, you already know you were stretching, you were getting yourselves together to bop along to the theme song. The time is now. Let's go. We need to talk about Harry Pot. I hope you danced, y'all. I just want to say thank you to those of you who joined into the post episode conversation that we had on Patreon about Andromeda and Regulus. I really appreciate you all coming on and just kind of being yourselves and being open to having a meaningful conversation about these characters, especially those two, because it was a really hard kind of way for us to expand our thinking about them because we don't get a lot of them in the text. But you all really showed up and I feel like the conversation was so good and many of us kind of learned a lot about each other, but also about these characters. If you are interested in joining the Patreon, feel free to join in that particular conversation as well as answering a special Patreon question that I post for each episode, please feel free to do that. That if you don't want to click any of the links that are in my social media bio or in the episode summary and you just want to go directly to Patreon, please feel free to go to patreon.com criticalmagictheory. You can also go to the website which exists, criticalmagictictheory.com and there's also a link to the Patreon There as well. If you're interested in subscribing monetarily, there are lots of perks. The episodes drop earlier for the chronic overthinkers. There are my rants and raves. Anyways, it's a great time. The Patreon is a great place to be, whether you pay or don't pay. It's just a great place to be in community with one another. And I'm getting a lot out of it. And from those people who I've talked to, they are as well. And so if you really just want to nerd out and think deeply about Harry Potter, the Patreon is the place to be. Okay. It's also where we are cultivating our own lexicon, y'all. The ban is taking off. And while I was embarrassed, and both in terms of my own feeling, but also embarrassed by today's guest, Eric, who called me out and called me in really to think about the fact that in the Patreon survey, where I asked which of these institutions or individuals had the biggest effect on Sirius's life, I wrote ask a ban and not the ban. And it really just made me realize that I need to commit more to this. And I feel like, what's the best way to commit to a thing than merch? Just go with me here, y'all. I think it's time. I think it's time that we have merch. I think we need to wear our nerdiness, our chronic overthinkingness, our deep diving ness. We need to wear it somewhere or put it on our computers or a bumper sticker. I don't know. You all have to tell me what you want. But I think it's time. I think we've cultivated enough. We've got our own language, we've got, you know, exclusivity and, like, what's more exclusive than, like, merch? You see what I'm saying? So I am going to put something on the Patreon for us to think about what kind of merch we want. And I also am wondering if it's time for us to figure out a name for our broader community. Are we just a critical magic theorists? Is that too much? We just. It's time. We have to figure it out. And I'm just throwing that out there for us to kind of conceptualize and think about, because I think that the time is now before we get into this episode. I just have to say that I am currently on vacation right now. I'm recording this episode while away. And this episode is going to Be the last for a while, I think until September because I. I just need to take some time to relax and chill. And also this is your moment to get your friends who either like started the podcast but didn't like finish it or whatever reason, justification. Even if you haven't shared it with them, now's the time for you to catch them up on the last 15 episodes. Which is crazy that we're at 15, but here we are. I'm gonna take a break and then I'm gonna come back and we're diving right in and I am thinking and you all can tell me which one you want. In the post episode convo, do we continue on our Marauder Journey and go into James Potter or do we circle around and go to our favorite Neville? What do we do? I think it strikes me that many of you love a theme. That's the vibe I'm getting. And so that we should just continue on our Marauder Journey and go right into James. I'm totally down with that. That works for me. You tell me what you want and that's what we'll do. But we are going to take the month of August off and then when we come back, it's going to be time. If you're on the Patreon, don't worry, you're going to be getting many a rant and a rave because I never stop thinking about Harry Potter, even if I'm not recording the podcast. So you will still hear from me. Before I share with you some of the conversation I had with Eric about one of his favorite moments with Sirius, I thought I would share mine. You know, one of my favorite moments. And I don't. I couldn't really explain why I love it so much, but it is one that kind of tugs at my heartstrings every time I reread the series. And it is the moment where Harry, Ron and Hermione meet Sirius outside of Hogsmeade and go up to the cave and it's in the chapter Padfoot Returns. And I just, there's nothing about Sirius behavior. I think it's just the fact that he travels back to the UK or from wherever he was to find and be close to Harry when he needs him. And I think that this is the first time that at least as a reader, I felt like Harry has a support system outside of Hogwarts, outside of Ron and Hermione and the lanes to which Sirius was willing to go to be there for Harry. Eating rats, sleeping in a cave, like traveling away from these exotic Places after having been so kind of sun deprived, I imagine, and subjecting himself to this kind of world in the space of a cave outside of Hogwarts so that his godson knows that he is there and he can be there for him in a physical way. There's something about that that just really, really, really touches me. And there are so few of these moments for Harry. And there are so few of these moments that involve Harry and Sirius. So that when we get this one, I always am just so touched and so moved by it. And again, I can't really put my finger on it in terms of it means to me. But I always feel better when I read that chapter and I always feel better for Harry. I asked Eric what was one of his favorite moments or a moment where he felt like he learned about Sirius as a character and this is what he had to say. The first thing that I want us to start with is is there a moment that you love or a moment that you feel like quintessentially captures, like who Sirius is?
- [12:10]
Eric
Like, I have a handful, right? Like there's some canonical, some non canonical, but like the. So the first one, I think if we're going like chronologically through Sirius, life is like in the Prince's Tale when they're on the train, in the compartment on the train, when they're talking about what houses they're going to be sorted into. And Snape does his whole like Lily should be in Slytherin thing and James is like, why the hell would you want to do that? And Sirius says, you know, like my whole family's been in Slytherin. James goes, oh God, I thought you were all right. And Sirius says, I don't know, like, maybe I'll break the family tradition. And like some people I think could kind of view that as like Sirius is kind of ribbing James a little bit. But I really view that as like 11 year old Sirius knowing he doesn't fit in with this culture that he's born into.
- [13:11]
Professor Julian Womble
Right.
- [13:12]
Eric
Like he knows on some fundamental level that he's different and he's just not gonna tolerate the like pure blood madness, like tortious pure. Right. Like whole situation. It's just not his thing, you know, I'm not sure if that is him being a rebellious kid. Like we get this impression that he's like this really rebellious kid. I'm not sure that's him being a rebellious kid or having like a deeper core personal belief that this is just wrong. But that is like a right, that's a through line For Sirius's whole story is, like, is he being a rebellious kind of punk or is he, like, this deeply principled person? So the other one that really sticks out to me is shortly after they meet him in the third book and they've revealed Peter Pettigrew. And Peter's like, what did you want me to do? Voldemort was gonna kill me. And, like, Sirius gets right up in his face and he's like, you could have died, right? Like, the three of us would have died for you. Like, you could have just died. Like, that's. That is a viable option. Don't act like it wasn't. I think that, combined with that first moment really line up this, like, serious is, like, deeply principled person.
- [14:39]
Professor Julian Womble
When I asked you all what word best describes Sirius Black? The top three were loyal, reckless and impulsive. Honestly, y'all, you really nailed it. You really did it. I think that these three words offer us a very complete picture of who Sirius is as a character. And I also wonder, and we'll talk about this a little bit later because Eric and I had a very extensive conversation about this. But I also think that these three words really do kind of nail down what it means to be a Gryffindor. I said it, and I'm a Slytherin, and you all know that. And so you know that there's gonna be a little bit of shade, but mostly it's truth. And I think that we all just have to grapple with the reality of what it means to be a Gryffindor. And to be fair, Eric himself is a Gryffindor. And so it's not even slanderous, what I'm saying, because when we look at Sirius, what we see is someone who is outlandishly loyal. We see that he talks extensively about his willingness to die for Lily and James. We see the lengths he's willing to go to get to Harry. I mean, this is a person who literally, as a dog, escaped the ban and went on a hunt for a rat based on a newspaper article that he has loyal. There is no denying that loyalty. There's also no denying the recklessness and the impulsivity. We see him trying to push Harry in the direction of those things. And I think that there is something about both of those things that really taps into what it means to be a pureblood and how we get to see purebloods, even the good ones, kind of operate from this space of recklessness and impulsivity. And a lot of it comes down to the privileges that they have you get to be reckless when you're not really concerned about the consequences and you get to be impulsive as well because you're not very concerned with what it all means and what your actions mean for you or for others. And I think that when we look at Sirius and when we look at Fred and George and when we look at James and we look at all of these other characters and Lucius and Bella, there's a lot of impulsivity and a lot of lack of concern for other people and for the consequences of one's actions. And so in a lot of ways, it makes sense to me that these are the three words that are used to describe Sirius because time and time again, we get to see this loyalty and this impulsivity. I think the thing that is interesting is when we think about them all in connection with one another and we think about what it means to be someone who is impulsive but is also loyal and leverages that impulsivity and the recklessness for the sake of people and things that you care about. And we see Sirius doing that time and time again. And so, yes, there are aspects of the latter two words, the recklessness and the impulsivity, that are bad. But when you combine them with the loyalty and particularly the loyalty in the direction of good I think that we actually are able to kind of uncover the secret to who Sirius is as a person. And that, to me, is what makes him such a compelling character. Because a lot of these more negative attributes are seemingly turned on their head and in the direction of good in a way that we don't really get to see for a lot of other characters, particularly not the ones that we've spoken about thus far. Now is the time for our arithmancy lesson. For this particular arithmancy Lesson, we had 322 responses. And the first question that we have to grapple with, as always, is, is Sirius Black a good person? About 78% of us said yes. About 16% of us said, don't know. And about 7% of us said no. Someone wrote, at heart, I think he is a good person. He wants to see Voldemort defeated. He supports Harry. He cared about his friends. His experience in that Guantanamo of wizarding prisons. Azkaban, AKA the ban, cannot have been anything other than hideous even though he did so in the form of a dog as an adult. However, while he's criticizing Crouch for his treatment of Winky his attitude to poor benighted creature speaks to what he said of Crouch. How you treat a House elf says a lot about you. So fundamentally good, but flawed. Also, I'm cutting him some slack for having to live off of rats. And that is fair because who's doing that? Hmm? Who's living off of rats while you're trying to protect your godson? One answer I have for you is not me. It isn't going to be me. Someone else wrote, Sirius is such an unfortunate character where it seemed that too many unfortunate events have happened to him. That is being kicked out of his family home as a teen. Finding out his best friend was murdered would not take in his godson because Dumbledore stated Harry needed to be with the same blood family even though Lily at this point did not have any interaction with her sister. Then finding out that one of his close friends, Peter, betrayed them. After confronting Peter, he was accused of killing. Sent to the band. See someone, you see, this is what we're doing. We're cultivating a lexicon. Sent to the band without a trial. People believe he did it due to his last name. Whilst Dumbledore did not think to ask Sirius if he did. There is so much unfortunate events. I pity him as a character because he did not even have a fighting chance. This is important. I think there are a lot of reasons why we approach Sirius and we grapple with whether or not he's a good person or not. I mean, the vast majority of us said that he was, but there are still those of us who kind of find ourselves in an in between space because of his treatment of Kreacher, because of his bullying of Snape. There are lots of reasons why we have to find a way to think about how we understand him as a character. And I think that, you know, again, he's one of these characters that kind of finds us in a space where we don't really have the perfect answer. Someone else wrote Sirius is a good person in general. His morals and intentions are mostly good, as are his actions. I don't know whether that really makes him a hero, though. I can't think of anything particularly heroic that he does in canon. Okay, that's debatable. But you know, anyways, we'll keep going. But to be honest, he doesn't have much time. He's in Azkaban, aka the band, for 12 years, then he has to be hidden away for the rest of his short life. He didn't have the opportunity to be a hero, but I think he had the potential and the desire to help people if it wasn't for his circumstances. And obviously some of this jumps ahead to the question of whether or not he's a hero. But I think that what these comments speak to is a reality that his stint in the ban really is a fundamental shift in the way that we understand who he is and more importantly, who he could be. The next question is a bit of a departure from the normal questions we have in the survey, but also dovetails very nicely with the conversation that we had in the last episode about Regulus and Andromeda. I asked, is Sirius Black a good black family member? About 70% of us said no, about 20% of us said yes, and about 10% of us said don't know. Someone wrote everything his family wanted him to be. He was the opposite. Good for him. I would imagine that he had to do a lot of unlearning during school. Also from what his family taught him about Muggles and quote unquote, half breeds, etc. Because his family was so hyper fixated on the purity of it all. And he most likely unconsciously held those beliefs until school. So a for effort. Someone else wrote, he is such a good black family member, he keeps up the mistreatment or superiority to house elves. He kind of has a superiority complex in general to everyone else. He has no concern for his consequences, as if he's untouchable. He might have abandoned some of the ideologies, but he has some deep rooted traits as well as the Black's revere. This is the tension that we have to kind of hold with Sirius, right? Which is this idea that he both has jettisoned some of what his family has taught him, but also some of it is hard to shake. Some of it just, just doesn't go away because you will it to go away. It seems to me that there are a lot of things that are so ingrained and if you don't put in a conscious effort to kind of circumnavigate some of those things, you're stuck. And I think we see that in a lot of his treatment of certain people. I think we see that in his treatment of Snape. I think we see that in his treatment of Kreacher. I think that we just see that some of that pure blood privilege, the belief that you're untouchable, the belief that you are someone who can kind of get away with anything because of who you are, no matter what your ideological lean is in terms of your belief about Muggle borns and Muggles, those types of things don't just go away because we will them to. And privilege is one of those things. That's really hard to navigate and really hard to just kind of jettison because you want them to. And I think this is something that we see also with James Potter, this idea that you are raised to believe a certain thing about yourself. And again, that isn't necessarily connected to your ideological lean. It's connected to who you believe you are as a person. And the privileges that you have are not always just connected to, you know, your belief about other people. It's connected to your belief about you. And what we see from Sirius in a lot of cases is that there is a sense of untouchability, invincibility that he just operates with. And I think that it is not lost on me, as kind of put forth in the last question about whether he's a good person that we're talking about someone who was like, you know, you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their inferiors and the way he treats Creature is bad, y'all. And so we can assume that some of that comes from his own experiences and the way that he grew up. And sometimes even when you try your hardest, you can't shake some of those things. And the other reality is, is that there are not a lot of people in Sirius Orbit who are going to check that, because his best friend was the same. James had a similar upbringing. Good ideology. That's the only difference between them. But that does not change how you come to understand yourself as a pure blood person with all the privileges that that entails. You can be a good person with a lot of privilege and completely miss the mark on a number of dimensions, even if your intentions are ultimately good, even if your actions ultimately manifest in good ways. And I think that when we think about whether or not Sirius is a good member of the Black family, if I had to answer this question, I regret to say that I would say yes, because I think that there are still a lot of those biases and that level of prejudice that manifests in his behavior, which suggests that, like, his family did a good job. Maybe they didn't go the full tilt, but they did a good job. And there are just some things that you cannot shake and he cannot shake them. And there is a recklessness, this understanding of untouchability that he has, that all comes from being a black family member. We see it with Bellatrix, we see it with Lucius, we see it with Narcissa. We see this idea that, like, there are certain things and beliefs about who you are as a person that are not attached to the ideology, but attached to who you believe you are because of where you sit in the wizarding hierarchy. And Sirius embodies that on a number of dimensions. The next question that I asked was one that was on Patreon for the Chronic Overthinkers. And the question was, which had the worst effect, the noble and ancient House of black Azkaban, aka the ban or Dumbledore? About 20% said the noble and ancient House of Black, 37% said Azkaban, and 43% said Dumbledore. I asked this question because I felt like there are lots of ways that we can look at Sirius as a character and try and figure out kind of what motivates him the most and also what left the most lasting impression on him that kind of informs the way that he moves and operates throughout the series. And so I really wanted to see if we could kind of distill down what or who we think really did the work, because I think that there are ways in which we can blame his family and his upbringing, which, you know, I think we saw a lot of when we talked about Narcissa, when we talked a lot about Andromeda, Regulus, even Bellatrix. There are ways in which we understand that the stint in the ban also plays a really big part in in who he is and how he operates. And that came up a lot in your comments. And then there is also this very kind of fandom understood role that Dumbledore plays, namely in the way that he didn't advocate for Sirius in any capacity and seemingly just allowed him to go to the ban. And then once he was released or released, my goodness, that's generous. Once he escaped. Once he escaped, Dumbledore didn't do very much to try and clear his name. All he did was use his home. And so there are questions about kind of the role that Dumbledore played in this. Jonathan said, Hmm, I went with the House of Black Azkaban was horrendous and definitely played a part. Dumbledore I think the least Dumbledore being a center and Sirius just like drifting around. But it all started with his family and the legacy and guilt of not being like them, but belonging there nevertheless. And for a house so important, being in jail, scandalous. Yeah. My vote is for the family. Cassandra said Dumbledore hands down. Not only because of all the scheming I'm confident Dumbledore did to getkeep Sirius in the band to start with, but I think Sirius true mental breakdown started happening the moment Dumbledore kept him in hiding post breakout during order of the Phoenix specifically, even though his family was awful, he found his new family with the Potters, and being Padfoot while in the band clearly kept him sane. But being cooped up on the sidelines and having to take orders was never Sirius style, and being forced under Dumbledore's control was probably torture for him. Jodi Jane wrote, his family was trash, but they weren't creatures genetically engineered to suck the hope out of his soul. He was able to escape his family to Hogwarts just like Harry and Heather wrote. Honestly, it was losing James that really messed him up. That was his brother, his hero, and he lost a piece of himself that day. That's why he went straight for Peter. He felt in that moment he had nothing left. He's a Gryffindor and just as reckless and impulsive as any true Gryffindor is, y'all. While the results of this particular question point to Dumbledore, all of the comments point in different directions as to how we can understand which had the worst effect. But what I'm going to invite us to do is think about the compound effect of each and every one of these things when we think about who Sirius is and why he does what he does. If we start with his family, the thing that we realize and that we've talked about in past episodes is that you really can't shake your socialization as much as you might want to. There are things that you simply can't get past and that you can't quite release even if you want to. And so when we think about what this means for serious, it means that some of that recklessness, some of that haughty exterior, some of the superiority beliefs, those types of things don't just go. Even if you don't necessarily believe that you are superior because of your blood status and because you are, you know, from a particular family, you still have some of the belief and that like attitude in you, and it's really hard to shake. Especially when the invitation to kind of jettison some of those beliefs really just rest in your belief about who belongs in the magical world. Not necessarily that you're better than them, not necessarily that you're better than everyone. And even if you don't necessarily believe that, there are parts of it that you simply just don't get to get rid of because you want to. Especially if you're not doing serious amounts of work. Oh gosh, how embarrassing. Not serious amounts of work, Julian. Oh no. Anyways, that was an unintended pun, but here we are. There is work that has to be done and it has to be intentional. And there is very. There are very little things in the wizarding world that I think invite that level of work, especially for someone like Sirius. And then you have the ban, which I can't overstate how completely and utterly debilitating that must have been. Number one, because he knew he was innocent, which he says kept him sane. But also, you're still surrounded by Dementors. You're still surrounded by people who are actively losing their minds. Even if you are in the form of a dog, the Dementors may not be able to affect you, but the space, the place, it's desolate, it's dark. It is absolutely. There is so much depression and darkness there that even any glimmer of light that you may have that may allow you to hold onto your sanity has to be so faint. And all you are is reminded of all the things that you have lost. And it doesn't take the Dementors to be the thing that bring in those depressive thoughts. It doesn't take the Dementors to remind you that the only family that you have known and loved are gone. It doesn't take the Dementors to realize that there is a child from that very family who is now being sent away. It doesn't take a Dementor to remind you of your childhood like all of those things live in him. And the Dementors may bring it up but when you are in such a low state simply because of where you are in your life and the location of the band I don't think the Dementors are the only things that would make you feel a certain way while you're there. I think just having the life and the history that he has does a lot of work. And then there's Dumbledore, who, for all intents and purposes, left you there. There was no trial. There was no sense of justice. And I think even more than just Dumbledore in this case, for me, Dumbledore represents the magical world in that there is no justice there. There is no sense of, you know, what is right and what is wrong. Even Bellatrix got a trial. When Eric and I were having our conversation, he brought that up, you know, and Sirius didn't get any of that. And Dumbledore did not advocate for him. And then to Cassandra's point, when he gets out of. I keep doing it. When he escapes from Azkaban, he is free for all of Goblet of Fire. But once we get to the Order of the Phoenix, he is kind of confined in another prison that is his family home, and he is unable to feel useful. And he is also, again, trapped in the kind of mind palace that. That is this place that has nothing but bad memories for him. And so the compound effect of all three of these things, his family, the band and Dumbledore, as well as the kind of ministry of magic and the magical world broadly construed, have all contributed to who Sirius is as a person and what he is able to do for Harry, for the order for himself and how he treats other people and creatures. It all comes together in a way that paints such a bleak picture for who Sirius is and how he behaves. Eric and I had an extensive conversation about this and he gives his answer to this question and also explains something that I think is really important to kind of contextualize our understanding of what it might be to be kind of in the band. Listen in.
- [37:57]
Eric
And I think it's absolutely the band. I mean, like, Sirius has like, a very traumatic, right? Like, this is kind of inarguable, like with, you know, like comparably. Comparably bad to Harry's or snakes, right? Like, it's. It's really bad. And. But like, the ban is like this, to me, this, like, almost incomprehensibly terrible place. The way the ban is structured. The society won't kill them, right? They're like. But like Bellatrix Lestrange, Rudolphus, the crime Sirius is accused of. Barty Crouch Jr.
- [38:39]
Professor Julian Womble
Right?
- [38:39]
Eric
You've got these people who are, like, believed to be horrendously violent and so dangerous to society that you literally have to take them and put them on an island somewhere and make them comatosely depressed in order to remove them from society. You're really sentencing them to something worse than death, right? Like, Barty Crouch Jr. Goes in there terrified and comes out this, like, broken, deranged human being. Like, this, this place does something to you. Dumbledore at one point says that, like, dementors are vicious creatures, right? And, like, they are. They're self aware, right? They're sentient creatures, but, like, they're not anything like any of the other sentient creatures we run into in Harry. They're complete aberrations. Like even giants, elves, centaurs, whatever. Like, they goblins, right? They. They, like, have social structures that are different but, like, they're recognizable as, like, a social structure and, like, drives to exist and what have you. And like, dementors, like, are like uber apex predators. They do exactly what they can get away with, right? Like, so at the end of Prisoner, Prisoner of the Band, as I'm going to start calling, right, Like, Harry's about to get the Dementors killed. Like, the Dementors don't care that he is a child who's just like, they just got. He just, he's just there and they have an opportunity to do it, so they're gonna do it. And the wizard solution to criminality is to just take all of these people who have violated the rules of their society for in whatever way and for whatever reason, and to just put them in the middle of the North Sea, which, like, would be bad enough because it's like winter there all the time. It's a dark, cold, isolated place. And then you literally make it so that they can never feel joy, right? Like that. These people are incapable of feeling joy. Not only that, but they're like, like Sirius is basically in a 12 year long depressive episode. And like, anyone who has, like, anyone who's had a depressive episode knows, like, how terrible a two week, a two month depressive episode could be. You're there for 12 years, right? Like, this is you. He spends most of his time as a dog to just stay sane.
- [41:17]
Professor Julian Womble
Y'All. I realize as I'm going through the survey, both the regular survey, but also the surveys questions that I have on Patreon, this is chaotic. This is drama and madness. And it's all my fault because I wasn't thinking. I just was like, what are questions that I could be asking that you know, will get people thinking and get the conversation to be great and like, ooh, you know, chaos. But you know what, it's okay because I'm taking a little bit of a break and I feel like leaving us in a chaotic space is what I should be doing. So you're welcome is basically what I mean to say. The next question is, is Sirius Black a good godfather? About 56% of us said yes, about 30% said no. And 14% said don't know. Someone wrote, is Sirius a good godfather? I said, don't know because I think there are things that he does for Harry that Harry really needs and things Harry doesn't necessarily get from other adults in his life. For example, Sirius doesn't coddle Harry or try to hide too much information from him like Molly or Dumbledore when Harry is a teenager. So many adults in Harry's life make decisions around him and about him without including him in the conversation because they're trying to protect him, but mostly because they are trying to protect the cause. I appreciate that Sirius doesn't do this as often as others. However, Sirius will often regard his own opinions, wants and needs above Harry's, or hold them over Harry. For example, when he suggests meeting up in Hogsmeade, putting himself at risk by being discovered or caught, and Harry adamantly says no, Ceres throws in some emotional manipulation by saying, james would have thought it was a laugh. That is a really unfair position to put Harry in and a cruel thing to hold over his head. It does go to show that Sirius is stuck in the teenage brain due to the trauma he experienced, rejection of family, death of a friend, betrayal, and the ban. Sirius is really in a really difficult position because he is trying to recover from lockup, reclaim his freedom, and follow Dumbledore's order, which limits how much he is able to actually and be there for Harry and act as a role model. That was a very long passage, but I think it really does sum up the kind of, again, this kind of middle space that Ceres occupies as a guardian and caregiver for Harry, because he really has to kind of fight against a lot of impulses in order to kind of be present for Harry in a meaningful way. And I think he does do that. As that commenter points out, he does do it in ways that I think are meaningful in terms of really trying to make sure that Harry feels included and understands kind of what is going on and isn't left in the dark. But at the same time, he still has this thirst for adventure. And I can't imagine how difficult it is to have lost your friend, to not have been there when you lost them, and then to see said friend at basically the exact same age where you all were really getting up to, like, the hijinks of hijinks is. And now the goal isn't to do that with him, but to protect him from the very thing that you were getting up to with his dad. That's really, really, really, really hard, especially because you haven't healed. You didn't get a chance to do any sort of like, internal emotional mental healing because you went straight from the ban into action to protect this child from the person who betrayed you. So everything from Sirius's past is there with him in his present in a way that he simply cannot escape. And now this is, like, true for everyone in the wizarding world. And I'm going to talk about that in my reflection. But I think for Sirius, it's even more apparent because of how much Harry looks like James and how much things look exactly the Same as they did when he went into Azkaban. So everything around him has changed, and yet it also hasn't. And it looks the same, but it also isn't. And I personally. I don't know about y'all, but I personally don't know how I would manage that mentally, especially with everything that he went through in the ban. And so I don't know what this means for him. Trying to be a good godfather. That's a very tall order. Sirius barely has the tools to take care of himself, let alone take care of a child who has been marked for death for as long as he's pretty much been alive. And Sirius doesn't know what to do with that. And so I think, you know, there is this kind of desire to protect Harry, but also a recognition that there's only. But so much Sirius is gonna be able to. Sirius is also another person who isn't given all of the information from Dumbledore and everyone else. And so. And yes, I know that there is a recklessness to the way that he operates, and I will not take that away, and I will not excuse that behavior. I just think that we have to allow for some grace for Sirius because the emotional and mental lack of development that he experienced because he was in the band cannot be overstated. And. And he is an adult, but also isn't at the same time. And I think one of the big things that we struggle with is that we don't know how to navigate that because we want so bad for Harry to have an adult who actually cares about him and wants to take care of him. And we get part of that in Sirius, but we don't get all of it. And I think that it's the thing that drives us crazy because it's like, we just want Harry to have an adult that he can depend on who isn't trying to use him for some ultimate end and who simply just cares about his safety. And Sirius gives us some of that, but he also doesn't. And I think that there is something that kind of. It hits for many of us in a way that leads us to be very critical of him. But I'm simply saying that I just don't think that Sirius has the tools to be able to do the thing we want him to do as it pertains to being Harry's godfather because of all that he experienced and all the trauma that he has had to deal with and is dealing with while trying to be something for Harry that he never really had himself. I want to share a portion of my conversation with Eric where we talked about Sirius as a godfather. And Eric was able to bring his own experience as a dad to kind of help really situate our own thinking about what it might be like to go from being someone who was kind of a prisoner in the band to now being a kind of newly christened guardian of a wanted child in the wizarding world who you haven't seen since he was carried out of his family home. Listen in. We can imagine, particularly for Sirius, that there is, you know, the only thing that makes him super vulnerable is Harry at that moment, right? Like, he survived Azkaban. He's done all of these things. And so now he returns and he left. He left, not a parent, and came back like a guardian of a child who has been marked for death, literally. And I think that. I wonder kind of what that does to that sense of invincibility, right? And, you know, I'm not a parent, and so I can't. But I imagine, right, like, all of a sudden there is, like, this cosmic shift, this not cosmic, seismic shift in the way that you understand, you know, what your role is and how you understand all the things that you've come to learn about yourself prior to, like, having to care for someone. And I just. It makes me like, you know, one of the questions I ask, you know, for the survey is, is Sirius a good godfather? And from the comments thus far, there's been a lot of, like, questioning about that. But the idea of going from a space of, like, I've survived this deep, dark space and I have survived all of these other things and I have also been taught by one way or the other that I am this kind of almost invulnerable if I'm good enough. And I am good enough. I'm a prodigy for all intents and purposes. And now all of a sudden, I have this Achilles heel. I can't imagine what that does to a person and the kind of gear shifting you have to do especially now that you've just come out of, like, this particular. You've just been released from the. Not released. You've just gone and got out of the band as a parent, right?
- [50:04]
Eric
Like, this is something that I'm, like, intimately familiar with, right? Like, there's this. So Sirius is. He's Uncle Padfoot, right, for the first year of Harry's life. And, like, it's clearly, like, crazy about the kid. You see that from. From Lily's letter, right? Like, he sends Harry his first broom and is, like, he's James's best friend. Like, they are like complete. They're inseparable at school. They are basically like their generations, Fred and George. And you're right, there's like this especially for men, right? Like, I was talking to my wife about this. Especially for fathers. There is a difference for men becoming parents than for women becoming parents.
- [50:49]
Professor Julian Womble
Because women.
- [50:52]
Eric
If you carry the child while they're growing, but you get basically a year's head start on the father in like a heteronormative relationship, right? For you get a. My wife has a year's head start on me for, like, knowing our child and being invested in our child. But, like, so, like, all of that happens. Like, I remember, like deliriously tired. Like, all of that happens, like, in an instant that baby starts crying and you're like, holy crap. There is like, this world is different forever, right? Like, and so. And like Sirius has. He goes from being like fun Uncle Padfa to like, giving Harry up, right? Like, and I think in like a moment of like, shock and like deep seated trauma and like, lots of very confusing feelings, he gives Harry up. He gives Harry to Hagrid for Hagrid to take to Dumbledore to go live with the Dursleys, knowing full well how terrible the jerseys are. And then he goes to the band and then he comes out 13 years later and Harry is the spitting image of his best friend at 13 years old. And so serious doesn't get to grow with Harry, right? Like, one of the huge advantages to being a parent in most situations is, like, you have this little baby from its first day on Earth and you get to grow along with them, right? But like, Sirius is now goes from being uncle to a one year old to being like most influential male person in someone's life in a young man's life like that. And that young man is 13 years old.
- [52:46]
Professor Julian Womble
And also Harry Potter, you know what I mean? Like, it's not even just a regular. He's not just a regular 13 year old, right? And part of your reintroduction to him is the presumption of a plot against his life. And so then like, that completely throws everything off as well, right? To your point about, like, you know, so much shifts so quickly and that's in like a normal context and not in one where you have to immediately go into like ultimate protector mode, right?
- [53:18]
Eric
And like, so that's interesting too because like, Sirius is I want to content. But like, he sits in the band for 12 years, right? Like, he. Because he thinks Harry's safe, right? Like, he's like oh, Harry's like with the Dursleys Dumbledore, he's at Hogwarts like a Dumbledore's watching over him like we got this like my I can sit here right? Like I don't have to do anything. And then he sees that picture of Wormtail on Ron shoulders without even knowing that Ron is Harry's best friend, right? He's like oh crap Pettigrews at Hogwarts I have to do something and takes this like incredibly bold action and like secures Harry safety, right? Like does like accomplishes the mission, secures Harry safety and then goes away again, right? Like is like I'm gonna, I have to run off like but like and then at the drop of a hat when Harry winds up in the Tribals of tournament makes his way back right? Like so because I, I struggled with this question is serious a good God like this is like I think I answered don't know on the survey but as I thought about it more I think he is right like in I think we often struggle with like is he a perfect godfather? And the answer to that is obviously no because nobody's perfect in but is he a good godfather? Yes, like Sirius is a. He cares deeply about Harry. He cares deeply about the oath he presumably took.
- [55:10]
Professor Julian Womble
As we continue on this outlandishly chaotic journey of Sirius Black, the next question is a question that I asked the broader Patreon community which is, is Sirius Black a good Gryffindor? About 88% said yes, 5% said no and 6% said don't know. Momers said, I always think about Debt of Time, which is a fan fiction. It's a whole situation but we won't get into the plot of it. But just for context, I'll start over again. So now that you know that you know what we're talking about, Momers writes, I always think about Debt of Time and the way Sirius was described as quote, a Gryffindor who had to fight too hard not to be Slytherin, end quote. And I think that's absolutely accurate and so do I. But we'll get into that in just a bit. Nadia wrote, perhaps the most chaotic of them all. Salma also said yes in the Worst Traits of Being a Gryffindor. Magical Girl in Training wrote, I feel like the hat put him in Gryffindor because he asked for it. He might try to run from it, but Sirius has so many traits of Slytherin and his family. Honestly, Slytherin and Gryffindor are different. Fonts of the same thing. Carolina wrote. I'll preface this answer by saying that I always interpret these questions to mean does this person embody the house's traits? And in that sense I think Sirius is a good Gryffindor. Confident, charismatic, bold and brave, Loyal, brash, impulsive, hot tempered, self righteous, entitled, smug and with a great sense of self importance. And then they write, slowly walks back to the Slytherin common room. You know, okay, I'll just say that points have been made. Also snake life forever. Anyways, Mandy wrote, I agree with everyone saying that he is the best and worst of Gryffindor, but I am really considering, quote unquote, the worst as his worst traits are reflected in other Gryffindors. He acts impulsively for what he thinks is best, not stopping to analyze the situation to see what is actually best. For example, he goes as a dog to bring Harry to the train, which sets off a whole mess. While it is self serving, he is not cunning like a Slytherin. So what I'm getting from you all is that you all think that Sirius Black is a really good Gryffindor. But what we've not really talked about even with these questions is, and most of it is because we started asking these questions after we did all of our Gryffindors in the Weasley family and really started collecting grappling with this question when we got to our Slytherins. And so we haven't really had a moment to think about a lot of the kind of, you know, the good and the bad parts of this. We talked a little bit about that in the episode about Bellatrix and the kind of understanding of loyalty which is, you know, a dominant trait for Hufflepuffs in the context of like an evil person. In this way, I'm thinking about the kind of negative aspects of Gryffindor and how they manifest even for our good characters. In my conversation with Eric, we really, really, really got down into the nitty gritty of what it means to be a Gryffindor. Eric is a Gryffindor and so this is important because I'm not, you know, that. And so I think a lot of the comments that I read are ones that resonated with me because as a Slytherin, one of the big things that I can't quite grapple with when it comes to Gryffindors is the lack of preparation. It's the like we're just gonna bust the door down and whatever happens, happens. Am a planner. I prepare for the worst, I never really expect the best. And so having this conversation with Eric really did a lot to help me understand kind of the Gryffindor mentality. But as we were continuing in our conversation we really kind of nailed down a couple of things that I had never thought about before as it pertains to the houses. And I think you all are really going to be gagged. So listen in.
- [59:15]
Eric
I'm not sure if you asked this question but, like, is Sirius a good Gryffindor? Absolutely.
- [59:19]
Professor Julian Womble
Like, quintessential Gryffindor in my mind I did. And like, that's what people said. People said that he is the most Gryffindor to ever Gryffindor. And it's fascinating to think about because I think what we see in him is the, like, it's almost a compulsion to be brave. Like, I think we see from a lot of the Gryffindors that we meet with Harry, you know, this kind of bravery out of necessity as opposed to just like bravery for bravery's sake. And I think, which isn't to say that they're not brave but that there is this kind of, you know, you have to kind of cultivate what bravery means to you. Like, what courage looks to you. And I think when we look at Sirius, it strikes me that Sirius is someone who is just like. He operates from a space of like, I have to prove how brave I am. And I wonder, saying it out loud I wonder the extent to which there is doubt in him about his Gryffindor ness. Because I think one of the things that I read a lot in the comments on Patreon was like, that people were like, he is certainly enthusiastic is what somebody wrote. Somebody else said something along the lines of like, you know, he just like kind of shows the downsides of the downsides of bravery or the kind of dark side of it. And I wonder if because of where he comes from this he overcompensates because he's like everyone in my family, like you said, is Slytherin. And I'm sure, and someone else said this in the comments as well like that he requested being in Gryffindor. And so I wonder if he is constantly fighting to prove that he deserves to be there because he knows that it would have been so easy for him and for the hat to just place him in Slytherin. And instead he made a concerted effort and the question or. And the. And the request to be in it in Gryffindor. And so he then decides, like, I have to prove it with everything that I do, I have to prove that I belong here.
- [61:29]
Eric
That's a really interesting take. So I have a, I have a different like, like I'll say like foundation that leads to the same kind of conclusion, right? Like Sirius and Harry I think are like our best examples of like, consequences be damned. Like I'm, I'm going in, I'm going in head first regardless of whatever else is going on and I'm just gonna plow forward. I think it's because Sirius is so deeply principled, right? Like he, I go back to that scene on the train, right where he's like, like he doesn't want or like his bedroom in Grimwald Place, right where he's like fundamentally different from his parents. And I'm sure a lot of that is like a teenage kid giving the middle finger to his parents. Just think about breaking out of the band, right? Like he knows if the dementors ever catch him, he's getting dementor kissed and he ceases to exist in any meaningful way. He could drown in the North Sea, he could get hypothermia and die in the North Sea. Anything could happen. Anything could happen along the way that he would never get to Harry and he would fail. He still like gets a little whinging and like keeps an eye on Harry from the time he leaves his grand, his aunt and uncle's house until he has an opportunity to kill Peter Pettigrew.
- [62:51]
Professor Julian Womble
And he takes it.
- [62:53]
Eric
That is, that very much reminds me of Harry as opposed to someone who I think is like, like the ideal Gryffindor, which is King Neville. All hail. Like, there is no concern for self. There is no concern for long term impact. There's no concern for is this the best decision to make in the moment? It is. This is what is demanded of me by something, right. And, and I will act on it. And I think for you that, that that's like his desire to prove himself. And for me that is his deeply held principles that are born out of his fundamental difference from his family. Whether he's trying to show that he's not like his family or that he is just built different and we end up in the same place.
- [63:46]
Professor Julian Womble
Yeah, it's really interesting that you say that because when I think about Harry and I think about his sorting into Gryffindor, one of the things that the Sorting Hat says is that you have a thirst to prove yourself. And when we think about the way that Harry operates and his like willingness to go so far even when it Comes too serious. Because when Harry goes to the Department of Mysteries it's really. Hermione is like, dude, like you, this could be a trap. And Voldemort could really be just trying to get you here and using Sirius as a pawn. And it. That's what is true. And Harry is effectively like, I simply don't care. The only concern that I have is the fact that you all are coming with me and I don't wanna put you in that position. But it strikes me that there is this kind of. This notion of really wanting to kind of prove oneself. And it's interesting because I think Gryffindor is really the only house that kind of requires that of the people in it. Because the idea that in order to get Gryffindor's sword you have to be doing, you have to earn it, you have to prove that you are brave. And bravery is also one of the only things that one has to prove. It's not an inherently known thing. Intelligence people can at least assess and maybe the metric is wrong, but it's something that people can kind of get a sense of. Same thing with loyalty, same thing with ambition. It's something that is discernible without much work. But bravery requires someone to do a thing. And so it strikes me that, you know, there are people who go about doing the thing in very different ways and Harry and Sirius go about doing it by like going full tilt and not caring about consequences, not caring about self preservation, not caring about any of that. And I think it comes from, to your point, a very similar place. And whether it's a deep principle because I think Harry has the same kind of principled understanding of himself because of where he came from with the Dursleys and. Or this idea of like, you know, needing to prove that you're not like them or needing to prove that you deserve to be in this space. And it is fascinating that Gryffindor seems to be the only house that requires that level of kind of onus of the proof that you belong. Everyone else just kind of believes it, but you have to show it. And I think to another point that you made, this is where we all look at Neville and we're kind of like. Like, you know, initially have a lot of questions and then he ultimately does the thing but he does it in a way that is not. It doesn't have the same kind of fervor of needing to prove you that you belong that we see coming from Sirius and Harry. Serious black, a good pure blood, about 52% of us said no. About 32% of us said yes and about 17% of us said don't know. Someone wrote, I don't think we could label him as a quote unquote good pure blood because he stands for exactly the opposite of every single one of the morals of the black family and the pureblood supremacist. We talked about quote unquote unlearning behaviors with regards to Regulus and Andromeda, but I really don't feel that was necessary in Sirius case. He never bought into Pure Blood supremacy. He never bought into his family's beliefs and despised them for it. He ran away at just 16 years old because of his hatred for his family and all that they stood for. Someone else wrote, the whole pure Blood question also throws me off because he does fight for the Order, even if it doesn't benefit him. But do we actually ever see him denounce the problematic rhetoric of the Purebloods, or is he really that rebellious and just flat out will reject whatever black family pureblood community will say? Someone else wrote, I don't know if Sirius is a good pureblood. Does he believe in pureblood supremacy? Probably not. But his convictions are not strong enough to stop him from torturing Snape and taking part in the bullying the Marauders do while they are in school. More than not holding the same beliefs as his family, he just wanted out of a dysfunctional situation. And I'd also like to throw in here that I think when we think about what it means to be a good Pureblood, right, we talk about kind of disrupting the system and disrupting kind of the belief structures of Pure Blood people and his treatment of creatures. Another thing that stands out to me as an indication that some of this has just been really hard to shape. And this is another moment and maybe the most clear instance that we get to see that being anti Voldemort does not mean you're anti Pure Blood supremacy. And I think that a lot of what Sirius does, again, yes, I think he kind of jettisons a lot of the kind of hyper aggressive Pure Blood supremacist behavior, but some of it he doesn't and some of it he still buys into and some of it is still very much part of who he is. And I don't know that he's really doing a lot to combat that. Right? And so we find ourselves again in this position with Sirius where we can recognize his rejection of Pure Blood supremacy in the context of the way that it looks for his family and their own beliefs. But There are aspects of who he is as a person that really do still kind of uphold this superior complex that he has. And maybe it again, doesn't quite look like what his family did, but there are parts of it, particularly his treatment and understandings of certain people, that still feel very nasty. And I also think that one of the comments brought up a really interesting point, right? It's like, when we think about one's rejection of pure blood supremacy, does it matter why? Like, does the fact that Sirius's pure blood supremacist ideology, or lack thereof, really the fact that it comes out of kind of a rejection of his family, does that mean that he's actually rejected the ideology altogether or just the kind of ills of his family? That's a question that I'm asking, not a point that I'm trying to make sound off in the Patreon, because I think that that's a thing that we want to think about in terms of what does kind of our ideal version of the rejection of pure blood supremacy look like? And does Sirius fit into that kind of paradigm? Is Sirius Black a hero? About 65% of us said yes, 22% said no, and 13% said don't know. Someone wrote, is he a hero? Sirius is certainly a hero to Harry. Someone else wrote, sirius is a hero. He offers to be the secret keeper for Lily and James. This is a selfless act and one that ultimately cost him dearly. Someone else wrote, sirius is a hero in the end because he goes down trying to protect Harry. While I don't think that excuses his previous actions like bullying Snape, I think it speaks to how he feels about Harry and the cause, meaning he was willing to die for it and that wouldn't necessarily benefit him. Like the Weasley. Someone else wrote, he's an antihero, a jerk for some reason to Snape and dare I say creature, but an awesome friend to the Marauders. He was so freaking smart and would help Harry in keeping him aware of potential dangers. And he was also a bit selfish with Harry. He was perfectly imperfect and not the other way around. I think that this is interesting because to me, Sirius being a hero is very self evident. Like I just, I mean, he actively breaks out of jail, runs around the countryside, is often, you know, whether we agree or disagree with the choices that he makes in terms of how like out in the world he is when he shouldn't be because he doesn't want to get caught, he's still willing to do those things for Harry. Sometimes it's for himself. But you know, my favorite moment that I talked about at the beginning of this episode is a moment where he is trying to be there for Harry and is willing to risk it. And I think that, like, I mean, eating rats, as far as I'm concerned, is heroic, okay? But I think he's willing to put his life on the line when he could have easily just been like Dumbledore. You got this and dip and left. And not really concerned himself too much with taking care of Harry. Because, you know, he's got to protect himself. He's got to stay out of Azkaban. He's still a wanted person and that is not the decision that he makes. And yes, again, I will grant you that some of the choices that he makes are reckless and they are impulsive and they are just stupid and like gross and annoying. But at the end of the day, we are talking about someone who on multiple occasions has acted against his own self interest for the sake of like protecting someone that he loves. And that to me feels outrageously heroic. I think that we're also talking about someone who for one reason or another, has access to his money. Now, y'all, I don't understand how that works because I'm like, how is it that you just sent someone in to get money out of your vault to buy him a firebolt? But like, why you're the only living Black? Like, how is it that no one is asking any questions? Maybe the goblins don't care. But all of that to say like, he had access to his money and he could have gone and disappeared and gone somewhere else in the world and been able to live a life and do whatever he wanted and he didn't. He stayed. He died protecting Harry and protecting what he believed in. And that feels like heroism to me. And I was admittedly a bit surprised that the percentage of yes wasn't higher and that there are some people who said in the comments that they don't believe that he did anything that was heroic. And I'm like, are we talking about the same series Black? Because I feel like so much of his existence has been this heroism and this like self sacrificing behavior. And again, that doesn't take away from the selfishness and the impulsivity and the recklessness and the manipulation and all of those other things that he does. It doesn't take away from him being a bullied, a snake, none of that. But those things also don't discount the work that he did and how hard he strived to really try to provide Harry with what he could, given the tools that he had. And so all of that to say that I feel like him being a hero is clear. I feel like the text offers that to us in more ways than one. We get to see him be this person. And the complexity of it is that he is a heroic person who is very flawed and has bad like senses of certain people. And all of that can be true. It doesn't take away from his heroism. It simply doesn't. I mean, if we are willing to say that Narcissa is a hero, y'all, we gotta give it to Sirius. I just. I feel like we have to. Is Sirius Black a good friend? About 82% of us said yes, about 8% said no, and about 10% said don't know. I didn't expect for there to be any drama or chaos with this question because it feels very easy to answer. And you all said, but what if. Hear us out, Prof. What if. What if there was chaos? What if there was drama? And that's how I know you're my people. Someone wrote, is he a good friend? I smashed that yes button so fast. He is brave and loyal, not to his family, but to his ideals, which include friendship and justice. He would die for his friends, but he would also kill for them, given the chance, like we see with Peter. And in his final battle, he relishes the fight and the chance to win. Fighting for what's right isn't just a solemn duty to him, but a joyous adventure. I think this is in part because he went straight from hurt child to finding his best friends in school and fighting alongside them in schoolyard battles to fighting alongside them in a war, to the ban. Someone else wrote, I hesitate on calling Sirius a good friend. I think he's an excellent friend to James, but less so to Peter and Remus. Hot take. Uh oh, See, and this is what I'm talking about. This is the drama. This is the chaos. Hot take. I kind of understand why Peter turns on them. If you're supposed to be my friend, why are you constantly demeaning me and treating me like your sidekick? I'm also struck in order of the Phoenix when Sirius remarks to Remus, Remus, wishing that it was a full mood so they could run around as a dog. I felt this was such an insensitive thing to say to your friend, who is probably dreading every full moon when they have to make a painful and involuntary transformation into a werewolf. Not to mention when he took advantage of Remus being a werewolf to pull a prank on Snape that could have led to Snape being seriously harmed and Remus doing something that he potentially regretted. I don't see any of that as a mark of a good friend, y'all. How do we deal with this? Many of you brought up the prank not only in terms of the kind of bullying of Snape and what it means for the kind of person that Sirius is, but also in terms of how we understand his friendship with Remus and the fact that he was kind of using Remus as a tool to get back at Snape, which feels very dehumanizing. And is that a thing that you do to your friend? And it is fact, James, that has to kind of call the whole thing off and save Snape's life, because Sirius was gonna go through with it. And I think this is such an interesting point because it's one that I, you know, we're not really invited to think about in the books, about how Remus must have felt about kind of being used as a pawn in Sirius broader kind of game of trying to get back at Snape for whatever. And it really does resonate with me as kind of something that would have. If I were Remus, I would have felt so offended and betrayed even, because it's like, no, but this is a secret that, you know, I am really struggling with. This is an affliction that I have had to deal with since I was a child. And I've never really felt wanted or loved by most people. And what we also can recognize is that, you know, and this commenter points out a really important point about just the sheer visceral nature of. Of being a werewolf and the way that Sirius kind of aligns his own choice to become an Animagus to being a werewolf. And they are very different things. And it also just seems like they don't really understand what Remus is going through. Because even calling Remus, you know, his lycanthropy, a furry little problem, just completely, as far as I'm concerned, just. Just wipes away how difficult this is for him. And I won't take away from the fact that they spent so much time to learn how to become Animagi and what that means and how important that is and what it meant for Remus. There's a conflation of experience between Peter, James and Sirius and Remus, right? They chose to turn into animals. He didn't get a choice. And I think that they conflate their choice with his reality in a way that then we see when Sirius makes certain choices, like making the claim about, well, I wish it was a full moon, or, you know, using him as a pawn. It's like, you think this is kind of a party trick. And I think that there are aspects of that that I, if I were Remus, would find outlandishly offensive because it completely just takes away from the trauma that is his lycanthropy. And so I can understand why people are hesitant to say that Sirius is a good friend. All of that aside, I think we also see someone who deeply, deeply, deeply cares for the people that he cares about. And Remus is one of those people. And I think this is one of those moments where I get to use the refrain that you often use on me, which is like, he was a child. And, yes, like, what he wanted to do to Snape was really, really cruel. But what we see as he becomes an adult is that he is less that person. And I think that we have to give him some credit for at least some growth. Now, we know that when it comes to Snape, they know exactly how to push each other's buttons. But at the end of the day, Remus and Sirius are such an indication of how strong a friendship can be when they meet each other again in the Shrieking Shack and they apologize to one another and they decide that they're gonna, you know, kill Peter together. But there is something about the way that Sirius understands friendship and his willingness to go above and beyond. And I think that that can't be overstated. And I think that one of the things that we really are grappling with as we kind of think about our relationship with Sirius, is the reality that he is constantly in every single one of these questions. There are good things and there are bad things. And the decision that we have to make is, what are we gonna focus our energies? What outweighs what? And maybe we can hold these things in conversation with one another, and maybe we can kind of hold them in relationship with one another and say, yes, all of these things exist. No friend is a perfect friend. Many of you remind me of that when you talk about how you don't like the wording of these questions. That's okay. You know, I like chaos. But I think that there is a way for us to be able to think about serious as a friend, that wholly recognizes the fact that, yes, yes, what he did when he was a child involving Remus is a problem, and that there are aspects of his identity, again, that he cannot shake and that they show up in the worst ways. But Also, there are really, really beautiful things that he does for his friends. And the care and compassion and willingness to sacrifice for them is something that I feel like we have to give him credit for because we know that there are other people who don't do that now. You know, I think the comment about, you know, understanding why Peter did what he did, you know, let's talk about that in the Patreon post episode chat because I, I do kind of get it. I mean, I wouldn't want to be that person either. I don't know that it justifies what Peter ultimately did, but that is a different conversation to be had somewhere else, else, not here. But I kind of get it. Now is the time in the episode where I give a reflection. This isn't going to be a very long reflection, but I was just thinking about what I would want to say and listening back to my conversation with Eric and reading your comments, and one thing really stood out to me that I just wanted to kind of bring as a concluding thought on this journey that we've been on into Sirius as a character. And it's something that I think we talked a little bit about in the first episode of the podcast on Molly, which is the stuff that we bring with us to these characters now that we are adults. And I think I was a person, I don't think I know that I was a person for a very long time who looked at Sirius as a character and felt so annoyed with him. He was a man child, he was immature, he had. Was just not the kind of person that I wanted Harry to have in his corner because I felt like he was outrageously selfish. And the older I get and the more I really begin to reflect on what Sirius was able to actually pull off and accomplish despite the fact that he was in the band for so long. The more I'm in awe of him as a character, the more I realize that the trauma that so many of these characters have not dealt with but carry with them on a day to day basis, and yet they still find a way to show up for the people who are put into their charge and those who are not. It resonates with me because I think a lot of the way that we view Sirius is through the lens of someone who should be operating as a fully functioning adult person with a fully, fully functioning emotional and mental system. And y'all, that is just not realistic. One of the things that I think Eric does a beautiful job at really illustrating for us is just the kind of desolate nature of the ban and how much Serious was failed by the justice system. And I'm using air quotes within the magical world and what that then means for. For his ability to kind of operate within this world as a person who has to care for someone else who is also on the receiving end of the injustice of the very system and space that he had to kind of navigate as a convict. That cannot be easy. And I think, you know, one of the things that we as adults now are having to grapple with is that inherently inherent flaws of so many of these adult characters and what we wanted from them and how they didn't necessarily meet those expectations. Now, some of the characters don't meet those expectations because the writing is bad. Some of the characters don't meet our expectations because they are bad. But Serious doesn't meet our expectations because he doesn't have the tools to be able to do it. He went into Azkaban. And one thing that one of my students wrote in an essay about Sirius and prison abolition which was incredible, but one of the things she writes about is this kind of emotional and mental stagnation that happens when an individual enters into the carceral state. If we take that to be true. Sirius literally enters into the ban as someone who is in their 20s, living footloose and fancy free, but also not quite because they're fighting in a war. And what does that then mean for his ability to be able to show up? Because it's not as if he was exonerated. So even though he's not in the ban anymore, the physical place he still very much has the mentality of a prisoner because he can't even live his life out in the daylight as a human. He can only do it as a dog. And then he's sent back to Grimald Place where he has to stay within the confines of this abusive space that is a constant reminder of everything he did not want to be and everything he worked so hard to get away from from. It feels unrealistic and unfair of us to hold him to the expectation that he would be able to show up for Harry in the ways that we want him to. And I think that this is one of the realities that I have had to grapple with as an adult who has come to the realization when I look at my parents now and I look at my friends who are older and realize a lot of the unresolved trauma that they are bringing and leaving in my own life and that I am having to kind of work through myself as to not do that to other people who are put in my charge for one reason or another. And so that when we look at Sirius, I think it is so important and imperative that we recognize that this is someone who has experienced unspeakable trauma that has left him so undoubtedly debilitated, both emotionally and mentally and physically, and yet he finds a way to show up for Harry in the best way he can. It may not be the way that we like. Like, it may not be the way that we would hope or want for Harry, but, y'all, I don't know about you, but I can't imagine the. The effort that it must have taken to one, escape from the ban, but two, to then have to go back to grim old place and to have to do all of these things because you love this person. But the reality is, is that people do it every single day and we never know. And so I guess what I'm asking for is for those of us who took the survey and were very, you know, critical of Sirius, and I think that there are a lot of reasons why we should be. I'm hoping that we can extend some grace to him with a recognition that what he went through is not a failure of his, but a failure of the system and the. The world that he is a part of. And he's just doing the best he can with what he's. God. I just want to take a moment to thank Eric for his brilliant and beautiful insights into Sirius. I don't know about you, but I just. I feel like I learned so much and really just. You all spoil me. I'll say it like that. You all spoil me with just your willingness to go on these journeys with me and with one another. And you. You all bring so much of yourselves and your heart and your passion to this world that is flawed and its characters are flawed. And you bring so much understanding and grace. And it really is such an invitation for me and I hope for you to really just enjoy the process of what we do together on this podcast. And so, again, a million thanks to Eric and a million thanks to Eric's wife, who was so grateful, gracious in allowing him the time to spend chatting with me about Harry Potter. So, thank you so much, and I am so excited for you all to spread the word about this podcast and get it out into the world while we're on this break. We will be coming back in September with an episode. I think it'll be on. James, I think it's just. I think. I know I gave you a choice in the beginning, but I'm taking that choice back because I am a not so benevolent dictator. We're gonna do James. We're gonna keep it in the Marauders family. And so I am very excited. I might have a guess. I'm thinking of someone. So anyways, I'm excited about that. This was just so much fun. It's a longer episode. I hope you all don't mind. And yeah, this has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Wamble, and if you like, today, today's episode. First of all, thank you. Please feel free to, like, rate, subscribe, Share on the Internet, share on social media, share with your friends, share with strangers, share with your enemies. You know, just share with whoever you want to share with. If you want to follow me on social media, please feel free to do so at profw. On TikTok. Prof. JW on Instagram. Hold on, I got a jam. If you want to find us online, please feel free to go to criticalmagictheory.com or patreon.com criticalmagictheory we're taking a little bit of a break, so until we meet again, be critical and stay magical, my friends. Bye. See you in September.