"I Can Fix Him" Not In A "I Can Make Him Into A Better Person" Way But In A "if He Was My Character I

"I can fix him" not in a "I can make him into a better person" way but in a "if he was my character I would've handled his story better" way

i’m okay with fictional men becoming unhinged over the loves of their lives actually 

Why are people who are super into “fashion” and streetwear always just wearing like the baggiest black jackets and cloaks on earth and giant fucking black parachute pants… “rate today’s fit”girl you look like snape

what are your thoughts about sirius black and gender and class and trauma and toxic relationships and british homophobia and mental illness and kill the gays tropes and the suffocation of hope and found family

ALRIGHT DANI LETS GO

exec summary: JKR’s class anxiety is a big part of her bigotry and her punishment of characters who run away from her. it shapes a specific set of rules, which Sirius breaks in more ways than most other characters, and it draws out a hatred from JKR that leads her to punish him through her writing in painfully particular ways. that includes inflicting brutal tragedy on the heavily implied/coded queer relationship he has with remus, in a kill your gays trope that is peak 90s/00s. and so Sirius’s storyline overall becomes a morality lesson for queer/enby/neurodivergent kids that teaches them whatever love or found family they have will inevitably be destroyed - and they deserve it

~ spicy meta essay below the cut ~

JKR and class anxiety

class divides people in the UK to such an extreme extent its bizarre for people outside to conceptualise. like most of Europe we had centuries of strict class hierarchies, but ours never got entirely broken down because we never got rid of the royal family and aristocracy. class is such a strong form of division that we truly 'other' people from another class to us and generally avoid the excruciating ordeal of mixing with someone from a class different to us. this isn’t always the case - i know people reading this will feel differently - but it is predominant in the middle class

middle class in the UK is entirely different to the US. it's not at all about income, it's about identity markers that signal you are better, more well to-do, more refined than people of a lower class than you. the majority of the UK are working class, so the middle class work hard at the idea they're better than everybody. except, obviously, the upper class, who they will never be as good as under these rules, so instead they aggressively enforce them to try and cling onto power over those below them. think white Republican women

the middle class enforce this generally through keeping everyone and everything in a nice and tidy box. a good education, a respectable job, a large (but not extravagant! that would be chavvy) house, nice (but not flashy! also chavvy) cars, modest and neat clothes that don't draw too much attention, excruciating and often fake politeness. the most important thing in being middle class is not drawing attention to yourself. if you're loud, if your appearance is out of the norm, if you're queer or trans, if you're disabled, if you're neurodivergent, then god help you. you will be abused and shunned (i'm not joking, this happened to me by my school). this interacts with race in a very complicated way which i am absolutely not qualified to speak on, and isn’t relevant to Sirius, so I won’t be attempting to talk about it - but I don’t want to erase the fact that it exists. 

JKR grew up working class but gained so much wealth and notoriety in an educated profession that she shifted to middle class, which is unusual to the point of being forbidden. so when she wrote the later books especially, her need to firmly, clearly follow middle class rules in order to gain acceptance bleeds through her writing

JKR hates Sirius

Sirius breaks every single one of nice middle class rules. every single one. and offensively so. and she hates him for it. I don't think it's a coincidence she only made him a shunned aristocrat until she became famous and classism rose to the forefront - she wanted that power for herself, and she'd never have it, so she punished him for it

Sirius is loud. he's brash. he's talkative. he's argumentative. he's mentally ill. he's neurodivergent. he's gay. he doesn't give a fuck about gender roles. he's extreme, coded a thousand times over as manic depressive. he's unapologetic about all of it. and she can't stand it. no one is allowed to be like that - and especially not the madman side character she created just to provide some spicy background for Harry

so JKR does what every bigoted classist Brit does in this situation and silently, viciously, hatefully and passive aggressively punishes Sirius. she has every character shame him for all his rule-breaking traits by patronising him, looking down on him, criticising him, humiliating him, belittling him, all because he is apparently incapable of being trusted by normal society. Molly is literally JKR's mouthpiece for this, passively aggressively keeping Sirius in line, and getting away with it because she's so sweet and loveable no one ever sees her as a bigot. I have met one hundred thousand women like in her my lifetime. so has JKR. she knew exactly what she was doing

why would these characters turn on him like this, though? Sirius is highly competent, incredibly intelligence and very astute, as shown over the previous books, and both the characters and readers know that. so it has to be something else, something that overrides all of that

it's because of who he is, and that's what we absorb between the lines of the book. that who Sirius is is wrong, and people like him will inevitably be shunned by society around them

12GP, mental illness and Sirius's death

Sirius is (quite literally) characterised as mad, and it's used as a justification for punishing him. by OotP his rebelliousness is explained as a sign of instability. and by god - that instability is toxic. so he's locked in a madhouse for his own good (to keep him alive! to protect Harry!). he's then tortured as painfully as possible to drive him even madder, leading him to the inevitable conclusion of bringing about his own death through his irresponsibility. he has to die, because he has to face the consequences for rebelling

the way that JKR weaves his rule-breaking and depiction of "madness" together is intentional, and truly vile. it's evident in the sharp contrast of his characterisation in PoA/GoF and OotP. he's coded as mentally ill and neurodivergent from the first time we hear of him. he's portrayed as a man of manic depressive extremes (I wrote a bipolar meta here talking about this in more detail), and is clearly suffering from PTSD. we can assume this continues in GoF

alongside all of this, he is so smart, competent and compassionate he manages to keep himself alive and hidden from the ministry whilst living outdoors, basically figures out the entire GoF plot through newspapers and a few rushed conversations through the fire, and is single-mindedly dedicated to his godson

in OotP he is a fundamentally different person - not in a way that is caused by mental illness, but genuine changes in his core character, however it’s still characterised as mental illness. so it becomes justifiable to punish him, to restrict him, to criticise and curtail and humiliate him

and most of all the traits JKR hates about Sirius so much are part and parcel of being bipolar (and also having ADHD, which he's implied to have as well). bipolar people are capable of extraordinary feats when we're manic, which aren't always bad - like, for example, breaking out of a wizarding prison! being on the run for two years just for take care of your godson! we feel everything incredibly deeply - like, for example, devotion to the point of death for your friends, strong emotional reactions to them being mistreated! we have tendencies towards being incredibly creative, smart, and making intellectual leaps that are impossible for other people, all of which are traits Sirius has that make him such an extraordinary wizard, and person. he literally wouldn't be who he is without neurodivergence, and yet JKR portrays it as an entirely negative characterisation, a punishable offence

kill the gays - queer and mentally ill people will never be happy, and they don't deserve to be

Sirius and Remus's story is about two traumatised, scared, lonely kids doomed to be outcasts forever, until they find acceptance and love in found family, and each other. that is the story of every fucking queer kid growing up before like 2015, and everyone now who doesn't live in a liberal town. we look at that story and we know it, we feel it in our bones. i could will write an essay about this in itself but for now:

the way that that story should play out is Sirius and Remus getting to grow up and begin adulthood in a stable environment where they can slowly unlearn their trauma, toxic coping mechanisms and/or terrible relationship models, and form a healthy, mature and long-lasting relationship with each other. but they don't get the chance to do that, because of the First War, and instead their unstable and immature relationship is put under an existential pressure it could never have survived

okay. but then we should be able to see them slowly, if painfully, recover from and/or learn to live with the impacts of that war and eventually get to a stable place where they can deal with their formative trauma as well. except Sirius goes off to be tortured for 12 years, and Remus is sentenced to living as a lonely, isolated and unsupported outcast, who’s lost everything good that he gained in his life

okay... but then when they're finally released from this slice of hell frozen in time for 12 years, they should be able to spend the rest of their lives, guess what? fucking recovering from it all, and maybe, perhaps, being able to salvage a healthy relationship from it. instead they get thrust into another war, where every bit of trauma they've already gone through is magnified, and they have one (1) year together in absolutely awful circumstances before Sirius is killed

at every single turn in their story queer and/or ND people are taught that they will never find safety. they will never be given a reprieve and the chance of stability and happiness they see others have. it's not on the cards for them. it is simply not possible. JKR hams this home three fucking times. it’s brutal. it’s vicious. it’s beyond what anyone should ever have to go through. it’s entirely unnecessary for the plot. it is just punishing them for who they are

it’s a trope we all know well from that era, but the fact that it’s used as a punishment for so many other aspects of Sirius's character is what makes it so doubly awful

conc

nothing about what JKR did to Sirius was an accident. it was deliberate, it was targeted. and it has very, very real impacts on kids growing up reading those books

we should be learning that what makes us different is nothing to be ashamed of, that everyone is different in some way, that difference is all a matter of perspective, that you should be allowed to express every aspect of who you are without so much as a comment, let alone stigma. we should be learning that in a world which doesn't afford us that luxury, we can still build our own sanctuary where we can have that, full of found family and meaningful, lasting love. we should be seeing people like us unlearn the harmful ideas they absorbed growing up so we learn how to do that as well; we should be learning what people like us look like in relationships; we should be made to believe, in our very bones, that happiness is possible for us

instead we watch someone who we see ourselves in be tortured, humiliated, punished and denied every ounce of happiness until their premature death

Sirius deserved better, we all deserved better, and i'll never be quiet for a fucking moment about it lest this wrongdoing go ignored

happy pride to all the gay characters who aren't actually gay but like THEY ARE

Harry steps closer to the field, his shoes crunching over gravel before he steps onto soft grass.

"These fields," he repeats, slowly reaching out and brushing a hand over the tall canola flowers. Still green and young, they haven't yet reached the brightness of Cornwall's canola fields. Harry stares intensely across the field, his eyes narrowed with focus. As though, if he looks hard enough, he might see the ghost of a young Draco racing between the canola plants.

Harry grins and takes a step forward.

"Where are you going?" Draco asks, sounding slightly startled.

"Away from you," Harry says, and takes off.

It's one thing he and Draco have in common: a lonely childhood. The only time Harry ever got close to playing games like tag was when he found himself running for his life as a jeering Dudley waddled after him, or Aunt Marge's bulldogs snapped at his heels. It's a very different experience to be racing through a field, the night sky clear and crisp above him, listening to the sound of light footsteps behind him. Draco's voice cuts across the field.

"You're insane, Potter! Are you seriously playing games — "

"We're playing games, you mean," he calls over his shoulder. "You're chasing me, after all."

"I am not chasing you! Get back here!"

"Make me!" Harry laughs and picks up speed; behind him, the footsteps quicken. Harry takes a sharp left, feeling the thin stalks of the canola plants feather through his fingers. He zig-zags his way across the field, running faster and faster until all he can hear is the blood thumping in his ears, the effort of breathing in his throat, and then he pauses. He can't hear footsteps behind him anymore.

Harry turns around. The field seems empty, the canola plants swaying gently in the night air. He frowns, his brow creasing, and drops his hands to his side, his fingers slowly uncurling. The silent night gives nothing away; not the slightest footstep nor the faintest draw of breath. Harry takes a step backwards.

Someone grabs him; he shouts out and nearly jumps out of his skin. Behind him, Draco starts laughing, his arms still around Harry.

"You shrieked," Draco manages between fits of laughter, his voice unnervingly close to Harry's ear. Harry reddens.

"I did not! I — I shouted, that's all. You startled me," he adds accusingly.

"You shrieked, admit it. For a moment, I thought I'd grabbed Astoria."

"Oh, very funny! Hey — where are you going?" Harry asks as Draco drops his arms and turns, poised to flee.

"Catch me." And Draco's bolting away, quick as a fox, racing through the field again.

Harry starts running.

——

Illustration based on this specific scene from running on air by @tinyhistory (eleventy7)

This is part 1 of the illustration I drew for an edit

The edit :