Sirius Black

Okay so I'm just gonna be completely honest in these blog posts--and I am a diehard Harry Potter fan. I mean can I help it? I've grown up with him, read every book multiple times and own every movie (not to mention have watched them straight through in one sitting before) so you could say its been an ongoing thing.

But instead of just ranting endlessly about the magical world of Harry Potter for hours on end (there's so much stuff how could I get through it all in one entry?) I will just focus on one thing each time I do write within this wondrous category. And today I decided I would write about my all time favorite character--Sirius Black.

I remember when I first read book 3, The Prisoner of Azkaban, I was in 6th grade. I opened the book to see the little illustration on one of the first pages that depicted a dark mysterious picture of a person's face looking down sadly behind bars. That of course made me curious. (I love that illustration) And so after starting the book, I learned about the infamous evil Black who had escaped from Azkaban--and you knew he was bad--but he was such an interesting character, that you wanted to know more about him. He couldn't just be another death eater, there was something else. And of course, after being blown away by the ultimate twist at the end, the book fulfilled all of my expectations and Sirius Black became, one of my favorite characters.

Now I believe everyone pictures black differently but to an extent, Rowling gives him a certain quality that I think they failed to present in the movie--I certainly didn't and still don't picture him anything like how they depicted him in Prisoner of Azkaban. (Not trashing the movie--it was great. Love the movies) But I do think they should have really thought about their choice for who played him. It was a huge decision in the fans eyes, and personally I don't think they really realized the essence of Black. He was almost too 'nice'? I'm not sure if that's exactly the word I'm looking for, but I feel like even though he has been in Azkaban locked away for a number of years, (the fact that he knew he was innocent kept him from going insane) I feel like he should have kept the same sort of charm and 'marauder' quality that we all imagine him having in the books. Now a lot of people probably won't agree with me here, but I always wanted Johnny Depp to play Black. Not because he's obviously attractive--or that he's a great actor, but because he seems to have that same essence of being mischievous and up to no good, but at the same time he's lovable and loyal to his friends. Get what I'm saying? And a lot of people will disagree with this saying that it would draw too much attention to the character of Sirius making him more of a sex symbol than the heroic character that he is. And that would probably be true. But is that more of a sacrifice than choosing someone who just simply doesn't fit the character? Just an opinion. Not that the guy who played Sirius wasn't good--he was--he just wasn't what I wanted!

Anyways enough about that, on to book 5, The Order of the Phoenix. My personal least favorite book (I still love it and have read it multiple times) but it's just sad--ultimately because of Sirius's death (and of course Harry's teenage angst). When Sirius dies it's just so hard to read! I honestly couldn't believe it when it happened. But seriously!--I thought that there was no way he was gone forever. I knew she would bring him back--there was no way she could do that to me! ha. She did. But I learned to cope with my loss in the next book, The Half Blood Prince, which just so happens to be my favorite book! Love every part of it. Somehow though, my favorite movie so far, might have to be the 5th movie! I don't understand how my least favorite book turns out to be my favorite movie--probably because when Sirius died I wasn't half as effected by it as I was during the read. I just never got as attached I guess. And also, the woman who plays the terrible Dolores Umbridge is absolutely perfect. Spot on performance. She is just so evil it's entertaining. And of course, they didn't really go into very much depth with the occlumency with Snape, which was the cause of much of Harry's angst, so it lightened the mood of the movie immensely.

Sirius Black though, is just such an interesting character. And so much of his early life goes unexplained it makes him mysterious. We know he was best friends with James Potter, Remus Lupin, and the cowardly Peter Pettigrew. We know they all raised hell at hogwarts and were quite the trouble makers. And we know they all formed the infamous Marauders. I would love to know all of their stories. I hope one day J. K. Rowling decides to enlighten us by writing a book of Marauder's tales--or just another set of works focusing on that period of Hogwart's history. Or she could just leave it a mystery--and leave fans like me wondering.

                        A picture of the Marauders from the movie--a bit pathetic haha
                                                   I picture them much cooler.

Thanks, Rockwell.