Comments on: The Seer Overheard, by revgeorge

By: Tarot cards

Tarot cards — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:30:23 +0000

Hmm Well I was just searching on Google for some Tarot readings of some Tarot reader
and just came across your blog, generally I just only visit blogs and retrieve my required
information but this time the useful information that you posted in this post compelled me
to reply here and appreciate your good work. I just bookmarked your blog

By: Lily Luna

Lily Luna — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:54:47 +0000

In OOTP Sirius tells Harry no one has lived at GP for 10 years since his mum died except Kreacher. Sirius was sent to Azkaban almost 14 years earlier, so his mum died after he went to Azkaban. Even if she thought better of Sirius after he was arrested, her portrait would be swiftly disabused of any notion that he was a Death Eater when he came back and let the Order use it for HQ and allowed “mudbloods” and “blood traitors” in. By the time Harry/we meet her portrait they’ve already been using it as HQ for over a month.

By: SchoolMarm

SchoolMarm — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:19:48 +0000

revgeorge, that’s exactly what I was just thinking about. And Arabella Lily Luna, I agree that Sirius’s new reputation as being in deep with Voldemort would redeem Sirius in his mum’s eyes. That’s why I would guess that she might have been dead by the time Sirius got sent to Azkaban, because her portrait seems to think that Sirius is no good. I don’t know if portraits can change their attitudes after they’ve been done or not; Mrs. Black’s could just reflect her attitudes at the time it was done, so maybe it doesn’t tell us anything. But I’ll guess that someone did gather his personal things from wherever he was living and that those things were sent to the house, and that it was Kreacher, obligated to maintain the family’s possessions, who chucked them into the bedroom. Sirius may or may not have sorted through them, but I don’t suppose it matters.

By: Lily Luna

Lily Luna — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:33:49 +0000

Oops, meant to say “revgeorge and Arabella,” not just “Arabella”.

By: Lily Luna

Lily Luna — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:31:14 +0000

Arabella, I was thinking exactly the same thing, that if she thought Sirius was Voldemort’s secret servant, it would rehabilitate him in her eyes and she would save his belongings rather than throw them away.

By: Arabella Figg

Arabella Figg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:23:48 +0000

Well, now, revgeorge, that’s a point to consider. Screechy Mumsy may have felt he’d “returned to the fold.” Perhaps that’s why Sirius’ possessions were back in the house. Maybe he found a bag of them and put them away in his room.

By: revgeorge

revgeorge — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:04:28 +0000

Here’s a question off topic, but hey, I can side-track my own thread, can’t I?

I wonder if Sirius’ mother thought better of him after he was considered to be on LV’s side & a betrayer of blood traitors & mudbloods & a Muggle killer?

By: Lily Luna

Lily Luna — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:00:14 +0000

I wasn’t forgetting about Sirius living at GP during OOTP, Arabella. But Sirius RECEIVED the letter when he was 20 or so after he’d moved out of his parents’ house and before going to Azkaban (his mum died while he was in Azkaban and his father predeceased her). Where were his personal effects all those years and how did he get them back? Unless the Ministry bagged up the lot of them and gave them to his Mum who put them in his room, I don’t see how or why they were preserved when everyone thought him a murderer who’d die in Azkaban.

I guess the Ministry giving his possessions to his Mum makes the most sense. They would probably want to search his home/papers for any info on V and the Death Eaters and then who else to give them to but his mother.

By: Arabella Figg

Arabella Figg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:29:24 +0000

One more thing on the letter. Lily Luna. Don’t forget Sirius lived at the Black House for a year during OotP. Perhaps his room had never been cleaned (so no one–Kreacher?– would have to taint themselves). In any case, I can see him during his misery in OotP, comforting himself with his youthful possessions and “good old days” memories, i.e., letters and photos. Perhaps he meant to show such letter sand photos to Harry, along with others, someday.

As to Trelawney, perhaps here is again narrative misdirection. We’ve been trained, via Harry’s third-person limited omniscience, to scorn her and see her as “an old fraud.” Dumbledore doesn’t disrespect her, but doesn’t favor the arts of Divination. Thus we, the readers, actually look for things to discredit her. Yet there is more there than meets the “eye.”

By: revgeorge

revgeorge — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:53:18 +0000

Regarding the images of the Grim, I just read that this imagery could be perhaps a mild mockery by Rowling of certain Gothic story elements. To quote,

“Certainly the Grim subplot in Prisoner, in which Harry thinks he is being haunted by a Black Dog death omen, which turns out to be his godfather working to protect him from danger rather than supernatural sign, is an echo of gothic parody a la Austen, in which natural explanations always supplant superstitious fears eventually.”

I think this helps us understand Trelawney as well. Trelawney seems to be a sort of tragio-comic figure. She is often used for laughs in the story, & she is a bit of an old fraud to a great extent. But she also has a real gift of prophecy and she is also able to use certain divination devices to see things, like tea leaves and cartomancy. But she doesn’t know she makes prophecies, & she’s always misinterpreting her other real visions, & she’s always making more of things than should be made of them. And making lots of things up to.