On following rules

[Porphyria]

No: HPFGUIDX 37398

I've been intrigued by the recent Percy discussions and the question of 
whether or not he will get himself into trouble on account of his 
propensity for following rules. I feel I have little insight into 
character types like Percy, and all I can say with certainty on the 
topic is that JKR is definitely setting her readers up to wonder about 
him, and worry about just how bad a time he will have of things in 
future books. I'm tempted to say he'll turn out to be a red herring (*I* 
thought he was the villain in CoS, so what do I know?), but I'm also 
sure things will get very complicated for him before we find that out 
for sure who's side he's finally on.

But what this really got me thinking about is the whole question of 
following rules as it's presented in the series. Characters as otherwise 
different in personality as Hermione, Snape and Percy all have (or claim 
to have) a tendency to stick to rules to the point where it becomes a 
fault. And it nearly is always a fault, isn't it? In Percy's case, his 
being a stickler for rules is seen as a lack of common sense, a 
propensity for focusing on petty details rather then the whole picture, 
as with the cauldron bottoms. It's also manifested in a failure to 
understand people and situations; he  blames his father's lack of proper 
procedure for Rita Skeeter's article attacking him and he idolizes 
Crouch Sr. for being a stickler himself. This combination of qualities 
is very worrying and does suggest he'll be easily manipulated if he 
doesn't wisen up in time.

Now Hermione goes back and forth between being portrayed as shrill when 
she insists upon rules and blithely breaking them herself. The text 
notes with audible relief the point in PS/SS where "Hermione had become 
a bit more relaxed about breaking rules since Harry and Ron had saved 
her from the mountain troll, and she was much nicer for it." But she's 
back to being a nuisance in CoS when she's the only Gryffindor (besides 
Percy) who's furious at Harry and Ron after the Anglia incident. Of 
course then she goes on to mastermind the polyjuice plot -- the point is 
that her rule-breaking usually shows her in more pleasant light.

But there are times when both characters are shown to have very 
protective instincts at work in their choices. A good example in Percy's 
case is when he lays down the law when the twins are teasing Ginny in 
Cos -- he's genuinely worried about her, as she herself notes in her 
diary. And the point in GoF where Percy loses his stuffy composure and 
runs into the lake after Ron is more evidence that he has a strong 
protective streak at heart. In Hermione's case, she evolves somewhat 
from preferring rules for their own sake or the sake of her house's 
reputation, to mostly insisting on rules when there is genuine danger. 
For instance, her alerting McGonagall to her suspicion of Harry's 
Nimbus, while outraging Harry, was truly prudent, and her policing of 
the Time-Turner in PoA was again in the interest of not doing 
considerable damage with it.

The problematic dichotomy of rule-adherence is most evident in Snape's 
case: very often he represents a perversion of the law, applying it only 
when it most subverts the 'fairness' that laws were designed to insure 
(i.e. every time he deducts points from Gryffindor), but in other cases 
his insistence on obedience is truly in the interest of the students' 
(and particularly Harry's) protection.

It's been suggested in both Snape and Percy's case that some prior 
traumatic event (that they blame themselves for) has resulted in their 
current attitudes. In her recent post #37373 Heidi made an excellent 
case for why Percy would have been a more vulnerable than his siblings 
to having the equation of rules and life-saving impressed upon him at a 
young age: LV's reign occurred right during his most formative, 
personality-shaping years. And as for Snape, whom I imagine I 
understand ;-), I'd have to say his confusing pattern of rage and 
over-protectiveness is consistent with what I've noticed in the real 
world from people who have suffered the death of a child or some other 
catastrophe which they felt responsible for yet were powerless to 
prevent. My interpretation is that he does in fact blame himself for the 
death of the Potters which occurred, as he sees it, on his shift.

And yet as much as I want to portray all this rule-adherence as loving 
and protective and all-good, in a way the text rarely bears this out. 
The Nimbus 2000 wasn't jinxed after all, Ron was never in danger of 
drowning, and Harry was never being stalked by a psycho-killer in 
Hogsmeade. Oddly, Harry needed to break the rules with the Time-Turner; 
he *did* see himself and that's what let him understand how to save 
everyone's soul from the dementors. Worse yet, Snape fails to protect 
Harry during the hairy climaxes of books 1, 2 & 4, and however 
protective Percy is of Ginny in CoS, he still fails to understand how 
endangered she actually is by her situation. If anything, the text often 
suggest that even the most well-meaning rule-adhering protectiveness is 
excessive, useless, or misapplied.

And of course half the time when Harry *breaks* rules it's a protective 
gesture; so far he's saved Norbert's and Buckbeck's lives, Sirius' soul, 
and occasionally the world at large by creative rule-breaking.

In fact, one of the issues frequently cited by those who feel the books 
are a bad influence on children is what they perceive as it's support 
for rule breaking. Even if we can usually argue that Harry and Co. break 
rules for a good reason, we still have to admit JKR writes the plot that 
way. This leads to a related question: what do we make of the 
extraordinary injustices of the Wizarding world in general? I mean it's 
obvious that 11 year old children will resent rules that restrict their 
curiosity and freedom, but JKR has set up a Potterverse in which abound 
injustices unthinkable in our society. It's clear from the circumstances 
of Sirius' imprisonment that not only are lawyers unheard of, but he was 
never even allowed visitors or the freedom to send an owl while 
incarcerated. There was a thread a while back asking why Dumbledore 
never visited him in prison. My interpretation is that it was simply 
forbidden: when Fudge goes to see Sirius it's not a visit, it's an 
*inspection* and when Crouch Sr. and his wife got to visit their son it 
was an exceptional circumstance that Crouch apparently had to pull 
strings and rely on rank to accomplish. Further miscarriages of justice 
abound, such as Buckbeak's conviction and Bagman's trial-as-popularity 
contest. And the most tragic (IMHO) example of a character whose actions 
make a perversion of rules is Crouch Sr.: his sentencing his own 
(apparently quite guilty) son is portrayed not as a measure of his 
justice but of his failings as a parent; while his later  attempt at 
'mercy,' policed by that nightmare of enforced rule-adherence the 
Imperius Curse, is yet even more misbegotten. To some extent, those 
complaining about the books favor of rule-breaking have a point; JKR 
*has* gone out of her way to portray a society whose sense of Law *must* 
be contested on ethical grounds.

So, questions:
Is the horror of Law and rule-abiding in the books justified? Do the 
books teach common-sense over blind following of rules, or to they 
promote a dangerous distrust of proper authority figures?

What do you think JKR's deal is with rules and rule-breaking? Is being a 
stickler for rules seen as a pathology? A symptom of a traumatized 
personality? Something to outgrow and get over? When is it ever a good 
idea?

When are characters punished or rewarded for rule breaking? What does 
this mean?

~~Porphyria, who will sign off with a lovely little poem from another 
not-just-for-children author, who also had a horror of the Law:

            Fury said to a mouse,
                  That he met in the
                         house, 'Let us
                            both go to law:
                             I will prosecute
                           you.-- Come, I'll
                          take no denial;
                        We must have
                      a trial: For
                    really this
                  morning I've
                nothing to do.'
                    Said the mouse
                          to the cur,
                            'Such a trial,
                               dear Sir, With
                                   no jury or
                                 judge, would
                                be wasting
                            our breath.'
                         'I'll be
                    judge, I'll
                  be jury,'
                Said cunning
              old Fury:
                 'I'll try
                   the whole
                     cause, and
                         condemn
                             you
                               to
                                death.'

	-- Lewis Carroll


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