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Some Black-related musings
Nov. 7th, 2006 06:28 pmMeta for a change. :)
A couple of things caught my eye in passing recently while looking up other bits of information, and since they left me a bit baffled I thought I'd see if anyone else had any ideas! Apologies if this has been done to death before and I missed it.
Firstly, a question and answer from the transcript of JKR's "cub reporter" press conference shown on ITV shortly after HBP came out, which I can't remember seeing before. Emphasis mine:
So by the sound of that, there's some structural plot reason why Sirius needs to be dead by Book 7, beyond the 'strip Harry of his protectors' aspect? I'm struggling to think what it might be. The best theory I can come up with is that Harry needs to be the owner of 12GP and/or Kreacher in order for some particular plot-critical magical effect to take place, but I'm not exactly convinced.
And while on the subject of 12GP ...
I was thinking of submitting Toujours Pur from the back catalogue to Checkmated, so I thought I'd check it against the Black Family Tree and make sure everything now fitted. When I did I noticed (yet another?) oddity with the dates. For a start, we have Sirius' parents as follows:
Orion Black 1929-79
Walburga Black 1925-85
Fair enough -- 12GP went to Walburga on Orion's death, then to Sirius on her death. As he says in OotP, it had been empty (apart from Kreacher and the portraits) for ten years, which fits in nicely with the Tree. She wouldn't have let the disinherited Sirius get the house if there'd been anyone else to leave it to, right? Except there was. Sirius wasn't the 'last Black' at the time. There were lots of 'em left:
Arcturus Black (Orion's dad) 1901-1991
Pollux Black (Walburga's dad) 1912-1990
Cygnus Black (Walburga's brother, father of Bella etc) 1938-1992
Cassiopeia Black (Walburga's aunt) 1915-1992
Lucretia Prewitt, nee Black (Orion's sister) 1925-1992
All of which set me wondering:
Early nineties were a bit of a bad time to be a Black, weren't they?
Why didn't Walburga leave 12GP to one of these people instead (given that there clearly isn't a 'normal' down-to-the-bottom-of-the-tree-then-across family entail on the house if Sirius could leave it to Harry rather than Bella)?
Why didn't they just live there regardless, or at least give Kreacher someone three-dimensional and (relatively) sane to take orders from occasionally?
Why was Walburga (and presumably Orion before her) in sole possession of the Black Family Seat anyway, given that both their fathers were still alive?
Do any of the dates on that Tree make sense, or did Jo just pull them out of thin air?
A couple of things caught my eye in passing recently while looking up other bits of information, and since they left me a bit baffled I thought I'd see if anyone else had any ideas! Apologies if this has been done to death before and I missed it.
Firstly, a question and answer from the transcript of JKR's "cub reporter" press conference shown on ITV shortly after HBP came out, which I can't remember seeing before. Emphasis mine:
Sorley Richardson for Publishing News - Why did you have to kill Sirius when it was the best thing that happened to Harry for years?
JK Rowling: We are back to me being a murderer, aren't we? People have asked me this a lot. I have been repeatedly told Sirius was my favourite character, why did he have to die? You can imagine how bad that makes me feel and in fact after I killed Sirius I went on the Internet and somehow stumbled across a fansite devoted entirely to Sirius and I killed him in the last 48 hours, so that wasn't good.
I think you will realise why he had to go in terms of plot when you read the seventh book. It wasn't arbitrary although part of the answer is the one I have given before. It is more satisfying I think for the reader if the hero has to go on alone and to give him too much support makes his job too easy, sorry.
So by the sound of that, there's some structural plot reason why Sirius needs to be dead by Book 7, beyond the 'strip Harry of his protectors' aspect? I'm struggling to think what it might be. The best theory I can come up with is that Harry needs to be the owner of 12GP and/or Kreacher in order for some particular plot-critical magical effect to take place, but I'm not exactly convinced.
And while on the subject of 12GP ...
I was thinking of submitting Toujours Pur from the back catalogue to Checkmated, so I thought I'd check it against the Black Family Tree and make sure everything now fitted. When I did I noticed (yet another?) oddity with the dates. For a start, we have Sirius' parents as follows:
Orion Black 1929-79
Walburga Black 1925-85
Fair enough -- 12GP went to Walburga on Orion's death, then to Sirius on her death. As he says in OotP, it had been empty (apart from Kreacher and the portraits) for ten years, which fits in nicely with the Tree. She wouldn't have let the disinherited Sirius get the house if there'd been anyone else to leave it to, right? Except there was. Sirius wasn't the 'last Black' at the time. There were lots of 'em left:
Arcturus Black (Orion's dad) 1901-1991
Pollux Black (Walburga's dad) 1912-1990
Cygnus Black (Walburga's brother, father of Bella etc) 1938-1992
Cassiopeia Black (Walburga's aunt) 1915-1992
Lucretia Prewitt, nee Black (Orion's sister) 1925-1992
All of which set me wondering:
Early nineties were a bit of a bad time to be a Black, weren't they?
Why didn't Walburga leave 12GP to one of these people instead (given that there clearly isn't a 'normal' down-to-the-bottom-of-the-tree-then-across family entail on the house if Sirius could leave it to Harry rather than Bella)?
Why didn't they just live there regardless, or at least give Kreacher someone three-dimensional and (relatively) sane to take orders from occasionally?
Why was Walburga (and presumably Orion before her) in sole possession of the Black Family Seat anyway, given that both their fathers were still alive?
Do any of the dates on that Tree make sense, or did Jo just pull them out of thin air?
