g.j. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
in_the_blue) wrote2004-08-25 02:39 pm
in_the_blue) wrote2004-08-25 02:39 pm
Some Musings
This has been percolating since yesterday.
These are thoughts on Sirius's personality if he were still alive... or if you follow my role-play board and know he still is alive. Otherwise, don't bother because these are all musings on his personality at age 44. So if you're not living in denialville with us and think to yourself, oh, don't be such an obsessive idiot, the guy is dead, then don't click the link.
There is great and incontrovertible damage for Sirius. Anyone who had been through the things he went through would be damaged and some of that would of course be beyond repair. Last night one of my new RPers said that she liked Sirius on our board because he was happy, and she liked seeing him happy. I told her that he saved most of his less happy moments for his LJ, and the unhappiest ones of all never even would be given public viewing.
So... Sirius has been without a family since his early teens (keep in mind this is my AU Sirius, I'm not going to deal with the whole Grimmauld Place thing and the family that JKR gave him, though he grew up to be exactly the way JKR painted him in OotP regardless... and the adult situations are the same). When he was very young... 22 in my 'verse (you can make him whatever age you like in yours) after having been on his own since 13/14, he found his best friends murdered and his only connection to them -- his godson -- taken away. He was the only one who knew that it was a mutual friend who'd caused James's and Lily's murders and because he was rebellious and reckless and quick to action, he took matters into his own hands, and it landed him in prison for life.
Without a trial.
I can only imagine how horrible it must have been there. I don't imagine that people walk out the door and are ever quite whole again... especially not after twelve years. There would be a complete and utter brainwashing, an indoctrination, and every day would be a reminder that not only can you not have happy thoughts, but you don't deserve to have happy thoughts. Everything that made some sort of sense in your life would be taken away and you'd be left with nothing at all. Not even a glimmer of hope.
The fact that Sirius had his Animagus form lessened it somewhat, as he says in POA. And he knew he was innocent and that wasn't a happy thought so the Dementors couldn't have it. So you have this combination of innocence equaling unhappiness, but it also served as a sort of ballast to keep him from suicide or complete insanity. Personally I can't imagine feeling like that for 12 hours never mind 12 years. And so after he escaped, would those 12 years just fall away and all of a sudden you get to be happy and whole again?
I don't think so.
So when I RP adult Sirius, I have to keep this in mind. As time passes he gets better and the devastation suffered at the hands of the Dementors lessens, but it never goes away. He's got moments of great happiness, but then the pendulum swings the other way and he has moments of bleakest despair. And at those moments he becomes the same way he was in prison: inconsolable, grief-ridden, depressed, and on the worst days, suicidal. He takes everything personally and every comment is a criticism, and everything he can't 'fix' or control becomes a crisis beyond management for him.
I don't write those darkest thoughts of his for public consumption, but for a very limited audience. It can get too painful both to play out and inflict on others.
And so because the universe likes balance (the medically correct term is homeostasis), I'm writing a much happier and far more innocent (though still really clever and intelligent) 15-year-old canon!Sirius right now. It makes RPing adult Sirius easier.
These are thoughts on Sirius's personality if he were still alive... or if you follow my role-play board and know he still is alive. Otherwise, don't bother because these are all musings on his personality at age 44. So if you're not living in denialville with us and think to yourself, oh, don't be such an obsessive idiot, the guy is dead, then don't click the link.
There is great and incontrovertible damage for Sirius. Anyone who had been through the things he went through would be damaged and some of that would of course be beyond repair. Last night one of my new RPers said that she liked Sirius on our board because he was happy, and she liked seeing him happy. I told her that he saved most of his less happy moments for his LJ, and the unhappiest ones of all never even would be given public viewing.
So... Sirius has been without a family since his early teens (keep in mind this is my AU Sirius, I'm not going to deal with the whole Grimmauld Place thing and the family that JKR gave him, though he grew up to be exactly the way JKR painted him in OotP regardless... and the adult situations are the same). When he was very young... 22 in my 'verse (you can make him whatever age you like in yours) after having been on his own since 13/14, he found his best friends murdered and his only connection to them -- his godson -- taken away. He was the only one who knew that it was a mutual friend who'd caused James's and Lily's murders and because he was rebellious and reckless and quick to action, he took matters into his own hands, and it landed him in prison for life.
Without a trial.
I can only imagine how horrible it must have been there. I don't imagine that people walk out the door and are ever quite whole again... especially not after twelve years. There would be a complete and utter brainwashing, an indoctrination, and every day would be a reminder that not only can you not have happy thoughts, but you don't deserve to have happy thoughts. Everything that made some sort of sense in your life would be taken away and you'd be left with nothing at all. Not even a glimmer of hope.
The fact that Sirius had his Animagus form lessened it somewhat, as he says in POA. And he knew he was innocent and that wasn't a happy thought so the Dementors couldn't have it. So you have this combination of innocence equaling unhappiness, but it also served as a sort of ballast to keep him from suicide or complete insanity. Personally I can't imagine feeling like that for 12 hours never mind 12 years. And so after he escaped, would those 12 years just fall away and all of a sudden you get to be happy and whole again?
I don't think so.
So when I RP adult Sirius, I have to keep this in mind. As time passes he gets better and the devastation suffered at the hands of the Dementors lessens, but it never goes away. He's got moments of great happiness, but then the pendulum swings the other way and he has moments of bleakest despair. And at those moments he becomes the same way he was in prison: inconsolable, grief-ridden, depressed, and on the worst days, suicidal. He takes everything personally and every comment is a criticism, and everything he can't 'fix' or control becomes a crisis beyond management for him.
I don't write those darkest thoughts of his for public consumption, but for a very limited audience. It can get too painful both to play out and inflict on others.
And so because the universe likes balance (the medically correct term is homeostasis), I'm writing a much happier and far more innocent (though still really clever and intelligent) 15-year-old canon!Sirius right now. It makes RPing adult Sirius easier.