Bashing

[kumainpink]

Bill, really? But his job is all the way in Egypt! Not to mention that he'd be gone all hours of the night and or day, sometimes gone for weeks at a time... Not only that, but Bill's job is hinted at to be dangerous. *shakes head* Can't see it...

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 7:09:02 GMT -5 kumainpink said:

Bill, really? But his job is all the way in Egypt! Not to mention that he'd be gone all hours of the night and or day, sometimes gone for weeks at a time... Not only that, but Bill's job is hinted at to be dangerous. *shakes head* Can't see it...

But Bill seems like a genuinely nice person who does not judge others and is very approachable. In terms of personality traits i think Bill would make a very good father. I am not necessarily saying that he could be Harry's father but i think Bill would have done a good job at raising Harry if for instance Harry had to move in with him when he was 14 or something.

[kumainpink]

Personality wise, I agree. *nods* And he could have made a good positive male role model, but I doubt he'd have been an actual father.

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 7:12:32 GMT -5 kumainpink said:

Personality wise, I agree. *nods* And he could have made a good positive male role model, but I doubt he'd have been an actual father.

See i doubt Sirius could be a father either and i think Bill would have been a much better role model for Harry and much more approachable and friendly than Sirius as well.

[kumainpink]

Sirius can and will be parental when he needs to, but there is no way Bill would have been that way. Yes, Sirius messed up at times, but Bill would have treated Harry more like a brother. That isn't a bad thing, but Bill wasn't ready to be a father figure at the time. Technically, neither was Sirius, but he would have pulled himself together if he'd had a chance at custody of Harry.

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 7:23:42 GMT -5 kumainpink said:

Sirius can and will be parental when he needs to, but there is no way Bill would have been that way. Yes, Sirius messed up at times, but Bill would have treated Harry more like a brother. That isn't a bad thing, but Bill wasn't ready to be a father figure at the time. Technically, neither was Sirius, but he would have pulled himself together if he'd had a chance at custody of Harry.

Neither Bill or Sirius were/are ideally choices to be Harry's father figure though for different reasons but at least Bill would not be petulant with Harry and i also think Bill is a more mature person than Sirius as well.

[kumainpink]

Bill is more mature for the most part, I'll give you that. But Sirius is more devoted and willing to do whatever it takes to keep Harry safe. Mature does not equal a better parent.

[Kitty279]

Jul 16, 2012 7:03:58 GMT -5 ykickamoocow said:

Bill

Bill's more the big brother than a father, due to age. He's only 10 years older than Harry. Plus, Harry barely even knows him. How many times did they meet? In GoF for the World Cup and later before the Third Task, and they saw each other a few times at the beginning of OotP. They barely spoke with each other. Not enough to give Harry the feeling he can trust Bill. That would take much more. Friend and maybe big brother, yes, over time. Father, no.

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 7:31:30 GMT -5 kumainpink said:

Bill is more mature for the most part, I'll give you that. But Sirius is more devoted and willing to do whatever it takes to keep Harry safe. Mature does not equal a better parent.

I think you underesimate Bill. I think he would have died for Harry as well.

Either way what Harry needs is a father figure whom he can confide him, whom he can listen to and take advice from and who is not going to act more childish than he (Harry) is.

I do agree that Sirius loves Harry but i just don't think he is mature enough to take on the father figure role.

[physicssquid]

I think that while Bill and Sirius would both have been good for Harry when he was 14, I don't think he wanted a parent, just someone to be there for him when he needed them.
I always thought that Sirius was the crazy uncle and Bill was the cool older brother.

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 7:35:40 GMT -5 Kitty279 said:

Bill's more the big brother than a father, due to age. He's only 10 years older than Harry. Plus, Harry barely even knows him. How many times did they meet? In GoF for the World Cup and later before the Third Task, and they saw each other a few times at the beginning of OotP. They barely spoke with each other. Not enough to give Harry the feeling he can trust Bill. That would take much more. Friend and maybe big brother, yes, over time. Father, no.

However if Harry moved in with Bill when he was 14 that relationship could have developed. Harry liked Bill from the first moment he met him and Ron seems to trust Bill more than he trusts anyone else in his entire family.

Bill may not have been able to be a father to Harry but i think he would have tried while Sirius was much more interested in seeing Harry as a best mate than a son.

[kumainpink]

Sirius has been known to offer Harry good advice, and has proven himself worthy of being a father figure. Not a perfect one, to be sure of, but a decent one. Yes, Sirius is immature, but Harry trusts him far more than any other adult - with the exception of, *gag* Dumbledore. Bill isn't that much older than Harry, and wouldn't have made a good enough father figure. Especially since, as Kitty mentioned, they barely knew each other.

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 7:41:39 GMT -5 kumainpink said:

Sirius has been known to offer Harry good advice, and has proven himself worthy of being a father figure. Not a perfect one, to be sure of, but a decent one. Yes, Sirius is immature, but Harry trusts him far more than any other adult - with the exception of, *gag* Dumbledore. Bill isn't that much older than Harry, and wouldn't have made a good enough father figure. Especially since, as Kitty mentioned, they barely knew each other.

He does provide good advice sometimes but he is also capable of being moody and very child like. Also Sirius does not want to be Harry's father figure, he wants to be like a best mate to Harry.

Also Bill was something like 24 when Harry first met him which is certainly old enough to take parental responsibilities. Bill was very mature and very level headed and i personally think Bill was also the one family member that Ron always felt comfortable talking to because he would know Bill would never judge him and always was very nice.

I think if he got to know him Harry could talk to Bill and trust Bill's advice better than he could talk to Sirius.

[Kitty279]

Jul 16, 2012 7:44:44 GMT -5 ykickamoocow said:

He does provide good advice sometimes but he is also capable of being moody and very child like. Also Sirius does not want to be Harry's father figure, he wants to be like a best mate to Harry.

Something I always saw differently. You are following the argumentation of Molly and Hermione - because Sirius treats Harry as an adult, not as a five-year-old, he wants him to be his mate. For me, that's nonsense. In GoF Sirius proved that he could be responsible and give good advice, and if he had been free, he would have continued. His problems in OotP stemmed from the fact that he was held prisoner "for his own good" in a house that brought up very bad memories, put down and insulted by Molly and baited by Snape. Frankly, in his place I'd not only been moody, I'd have thrown both out of the house in the end, after telling them exactly what I think of them. Why does everyone expect him to turn the other cheek when he's always insulted?

Also Bill was something like 24 when Harry first met him which is certainly old enough to take parental responsibilities. Bill was very mature and very level headed and i personally think Bill was also the one family member that Ron always felt comfortable talking to because he would know Bill would never judge him and always was very nice.

And Harry was 14. Bill would make a good parent to a baby, but not to a teenager.

I think if he got to know him Harry could talk to Bill and trust Bill's advice better than he could talk to Sirius.

And that would mean that Molly would be all over him all the time and baby him because Bill wouldn't be able to take care of him, at least in her opinion, and Harry'd end up even more annoyed. No. Besides, Sirius could offer him something no one else could - he knew his parents and could tell him stories about them.

[ykickamoocow]

I know you don't like JKR quotes in these debates but i am going to provide two of them showing it was not just Molly and Hermione who believed Sirius was treating Harry like a best mate.

------------------------------------------
JK says about Sirius Black: "I do like him, although I do not think he is wholly wonderful." She says he is "brave, loyal, reckless, embittered and slightly unbalanced by his long stay in Azkaban," but his redeeming quality is the affection that he is capable of feeling. He loved James like a brother, and has attached that affection to Harry.
-----------------------------------------

www.accio-quote.org/themes/sirius.htm

and

----------------------------------------
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
ES: When Sirius was framed for the death of Pettigrew and the Muggles, did he actually laugh or was that something made up to make him look even more insane?

JKR: Did he actually laugh? Yes, I would say he did. Well, he did, because I’ve created him. Sirius, to me, he's kind of on the edge, do you not get that feeling from Sirius? He's a little bit of a loose cannon. I really like him as a character and a lot of people really liked him as a character and are still asking me when he's going to come back. [Laughter.] But Sirius had his flaws – I’ve sort of discussed that before – some quite glaring flaws. I see Sirius as someone who was a case of arrested development. I think you see that from his relationship with Harry in “Phoenix.” He kind of wants a mate from Harry, and what Harry craves is a father. Harry's kind of outgrowing that now. Sirius wasn't equipped to give him that.

The laughter – he was absolutely unhinged by James's death. Harry and Sirius were very similar in the way that both of them were craving family connections with friends. So, Sirius with James wanted a brother, and Harry has nominated Ron and Hermione as his family. This is the thing I found interesting — it might have been on MuggleNet's comments, this is a while back when I was actually looking for fan sites of the month (or whatever arbitrary time period I do) — it was around the time I was reading comments for the first time and there was something in there where kids were saying, “I don't understand why he's shouting at Ron and Hermione, I mean, I’d shout at my parents, I would never shout at my best friends.” But, he has no one else to shout at. That was interesting from young kids, because I just don't think they could make that leap of imagination. He’s very alone. Anyway I've wandered miles away from Sirius.

He was unhinged. Yes, he laughed. He knew what he'd lost. It was a humorless laugh. Pettigrew, who they, in a slightly patronizing way, James and Sirius at least, who they allowed to hang round with them, it turned out that he was a better wizard than they knew. Turned out he was better at hiding secrets than they knew.
--------------------------------------------

www.accio-quote.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-2.htm

[physicssquid]

I can't see Harry, at fifteen, craving a father. He may want someone who can tell him stories about his parents, but he could take care of himself, so he'd just want someone to go to for advice.

[Kitty279]

*sigh* I have to admit, that I am with Kuma here - these quotes annoy me more than they help. Like Sherza, I don't care much for what JKR said outside of the books. I've seen so many interviews by people who kept contradicting themselves that I don't take these interviews seriously any longer. They think of one thing in their book/movie/whatever and comment on it and forget the five or more other incidents that contradict it. So, why should JKR be an exception? Besides, frankly, considering what I get from the books, I don't see JKR as very good with relationships and wouldn't trust her judgement. She may have meant to say something *so* - but to someone else, the facts she gives us sometimes scream the opposite. That has probably a lot to do with life experiences who are forming who and what we are and how and what we think about something. As a result, some of what JKR wrote and, worse, said later doesn't seem realistic to me, no matter how she tries to interpret it differently. (And I am not talking about especially the Sirius question here, but about HP as a whole)

[ykickamoocow]

It is not just JKR's opinion in a interview though as JKR gives Hermione the same opinion and that opinion is in the books and is canon so since Hermione believes the same thing then JKR's opinion is valid. Does that make sense?

[Kitty279]

In a way, but that still doesn't change the fact that Hermione's not exactly an expert in relationships, just like JKR, and she's got her opinion from Molly, who was obviously jealous that Harry didn't take her side against Sirius. Like I said in my last post, to me the books say something very different from what JKR wants me to read in some cases.

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 8:25:26 GMT -5 Kitty279 said:

In a way, but that still doesn't change the fact that Hermione's not exactly an expert in relationships, just like JKR, and she's got her opinion from Molly, who was obviously jealous that Harry didn't take her side against Sirius. Like I said in my last post, to me the books say something very different from what JKR wants me to read in some cases.

Hermione is well and truly smart enough not to just copy Molly's opinion. She may have arrived at a similar conclusion but i highly doubt Hermione would have just believed that Sirius wanted to be a best mate rather than a father figure simply because that is what Molly believed.

[G. Novella]

Yes, but Hermione adopts her opinions based on the authority figure's opinion.

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 8:29:43 GMT -5 G. Novella said:

Yes, but Hermione adopts her opinions based on the authority figure's opinion.

That may have been true in the first couple of books but Hermione evolves from that point. Plus this is in OotP and given what happened between Molly and Hermione back in GoF i highly doubt Hermione will respect Molly's opinions that much.

[Kitty279]

In OotP she insisted to trust Snape on basis of Dumbledore's opinions, and she doubted her decision on the DA just because Sirius was for it, but Molly against it. And even in HBP she preached that Dumbledore trusts Snape, so he's good, no matter what he does. Doesn't show much evolving to me. She still religiously follows Dumbledore and Molly's opinions.

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 8:37:13 GMT -5 Kitty279 said:

In OotP she insisted to trust Snape on basis of Dumbledore's opinions, and she doubted her decision on the DA just because Sirius was for it, but Molly against it. And even in HBP she preached that Dumbledore trusts Snape, so he's good, no matter what he does. Doesn't show much evolving to me. She still religiously follows Dumbledore and Molly's opinions.

That is because at that stage Dumbledore had done nothing to have Hermione question the faith she had in him. It should also be noted Remus trusted Dumbledore completely as well. As for Snape it is not surprising Hermione felt that way as herself, Harry and Ron had mistrusted Snape and suspected him of something every single year and every year they had been proven to be wrong. Hermione would probably just tired of mistrusting him as while she may not have liked Snape she no longer believed he was a potential enemy.

[Kitty279]

Did he? Sorry, but when he locked Harry away without news after a huge trauma, that would have been proof to me that the old man didn't know what he did do. She saw how much that hurt Harry, but she still insisted on trusting the man who hurt her friend and made her hurt him?

Sure, they had erred on Snape, but she still knows that he keeps humilating and bullying Harry and still insists he's trustworthy? She, the teachers pet? She thinks it's acceptable to treat children like that and then get to mind-rape them? And tells Harry off for not wanting that?

I still regret that JKR didn't have Harry tell her "Told you so" after the end of HBP - Dumbledore dead at Snape's hands, Death Eaters left into the school because Dumbledore thought it more important to allow a junior Death Eater to run amok to save him than to protect the rest of the school, that's what you get for trusting the old codger despite seeing the proof for 6 years that he was way too naive.

[kumainpink]

The thing is, Remus was someone that could be easily walked on. He admired Dumbledore and obeyed him rather well - just as nearly everyone on the Light side does.

As for Harry and Ron mistrusting Snape, there was good reason to. Especially for Harry. Would YOU trust someone who went around insulting you and trying to make your life hell? Would you want them inside your mind, or confide in them at all? No! Of course not!

[ykickamoocow]

Jul 16, 2012 8:53:26 GMT -5 kumainpink said:

The thing is, Remus was someone that could be easily walked on. He admired Dumbledore and obeyed him rather well - just as nearly everyone on the Light side does.

As for Harry and Ron mistrusting Snape, there was good reason to. Especially for Harry. Would YOU trust someone who went around insulting you and trying to make your life hell? Would you want them inside your mind, or confide in them at all? No! Of course not!

I don't think Harry, Ron or Hermione had any reason to like Snape but this isn't about that. Sirius did not like Snape at all either but even Sirius accepted that they needed Snape on their side.

[kumainpink]

Sirius may have accepted it, but he's an adult. Harry and Ron are teenage boys, and quite a few of them are rather stubborn.

And not liking and trusting can go hand-in-hand for teens. The younger you are, the more black and white everything is. It's impossible to see the shades of grey.

[ykickamoocow]

Haven't we already established that Sirius was not mature? Physically he was a adult but mentally he was practically still a teenager.

[kumainpink]

*sigh* But he's been through the last time Voldemort attacked, knows the horrors of war and understands the hardships that follow. He did not like Snape, but he knew the importance of teamwork. He also knew the difference between black, white and the gray areas in between.

A young person like Harry would have had a lot of trouble with that. In fact, I recall that he did for the longest time. And so did Ron. My point rests that the younger you are, the less worldly you are, it's harder to separate "not liking someone" from "not trusting them" and the shades of gray that are required in times of crisis.