Why Harry And Sirius's Relationship In Order Of The Phoenix Puzzles Harry Potter Book Fans
With a whimsical cast of characters and stellar themes to guide youngsters in the right direction, it's easy to understand why the Harry Potter franchise is among the most successful of all time. Fans have seven books and eight films to devour at their leisure, and even though there are more movies than books, many fans still feel as though the films didn't do justice to the source material. After all, there are plenty of differences between the two mediums — which is bound to happen when a screenwriter attempts to fit over 400 pages of material into a couple of hours.
For instance, Redditor PetevonPete took it upon themselves to point out several instances when a screenwriter lifted a line directly from the books into a movie, but removed the surrounding context. It leads to many cases where a character says or does something that just doesn't quite add up, such as Draco Malfoy's absurd insult in Chamber of Secrets. However, while it's one thing to eliminate an entire plot line from the books (remember Hermione fighting for House Elf rights?), it's another thing entirely to allude to a story beat in a movie that was expanded upon further in the books.
That was the case in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when it came to Harry and Sirius' relationship.
Harry's close relationship with Sirius Black in Order of the Phoenix seems rushed and jarring
One advantage books have over movies is that there's more time to build upon relationships. Instead of two characters only having a couple of hours to develop a bond, they can have hundreds of pages, and that was the case with the friendship between Harry and his godfather, Sirius Black. As Redditor The_Clockwork_Monk points out, "Since the Goblet of Fire movie cut out 90% of the interaction between Harry and Sirius, them smiling and hugging at the beginning of Order of the Phoenix and acting like they're already really close is really jarring and weird."
It's a valid point. In the novel version of Goblet of Fire, Harry and Sirius speak in secret conversations multiple times throughout the tournament. In the movie version, all of those conversations are condensed into a single talk, so to viewers who have only watched the films, it appears as though Harry and Sirius met at the end of his third year, spoke once in his fourth year, and then became the best of pals at the beginning of his fifth year.
From a storytelling perspective, it kind of makes sense to enhance Harry's connection with Sirius in the fifth movie. After all, that's the one where he dies, and his death functions as another way Harry loses a part of his parents' memory. Making their relationship closer only makes his demise more tragic, especially considering Sirius permanently has his chance of living a normal life taken away from him. Nonetheless, while the bond between these two seems rushed, it serves a greater purpose, helping make Order of the Phoenix one of the best Harry Potter films in the entire franchise.