A Few Short Percy Apologetics

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 37752

Hullo.  Weighing in a little late here, I'm afraid, but I just
had to deliver a couple of Percy apologetics.  Because, you 
know, guys, Percy is just *so* not evil!

----------

On Percy and the Rules:

Penny wrote:

> Has Percy learned his lesson about blind adherence to rules? 

Hmmm.

You know, I've never quite been sure where this notion that Percy 
is such a blind follower of rules comes from in the first place.
He really doesn't seem to me to be that type at all.  

In Chapter Seven of PS ("The Sorting Hat"), when Dumbledore
announces that the third floor corridor is out of bounds "to
everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death," Percy
has the following exchange with Harry:


"Harry laughed, but he was one of the few who did.

'He's not serious?'  he muttered to Percy.

'Must be,' said Percy, frowning at Dumbledore.  'It's odd, because he
usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere - the
forest's full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that.  I do think
he might have told us Prefects, at least.'"


That doesn't strike me as at *all* the reaction of a believer in
blind obedience to the rules.  Far to the contrary, it is the
behavior of an independent thinker who fully *expects* for there
to be some explanation given for a new rule.  When no explanation
is forthcoming, Percy is disturbed and troubled.  

Nor does Percy expect his subordinates to accept regulations blindly.
His explanation to first-year Harry of the reason that the Forbidden 
Forest is off-limits shows that when Percy does understand the 
reasons for the rules, he is not only willing to share them with the 
younger students, but even goes out of his way to volunteer such 
information.  He's not a blind follower, and he's not a martinet, 
either.


-----


On Percy and 'Prefects Who Gained Power:'


People keep bringing up that scene in CoS in which Harry and Ron
catch Percy in the junk shop, poring over the copy of 'Prefects
Who Gained Power.'  When Ron teases him about it, Percy snaps: "Go
away."  Many people seem to have read this as evidence that Percy 
is actually madly ambitious, so ambitious that he is both secretive
and defensive about it.

Er...was I the only person who assumed that Percy was actually
hanging around in that junk shop because he had previously 
arranged to meet Penelope Clearwater there?  From what Ron 
and the Twins say about his behavior over the summer, I think 
that we can safely assume that he'd been corresponding with 
her.  When he takes his leave from the rest of the Weasleys 
outside of Gringotts, he does so by "muttering vaguely about 
needing a new quill."  Ron and Harry run into him *very* 
shortly thereafter.  If he needs a new quill, then what is 
he doing in a junk shop, a shop which the text emphasizes 
quite strongly sells nothing but old and fairly useless items?

I thought it fairly clear on rereading that what was really
happening there was that Percy had previously arranged to 
meet Penny in this obscure little shop, a place that he had
*thought* would be safe from his younger siblings, and that 
he was waiting for her to arrive when Ron and Harry stumbled 
across him.  He was quite understandably annoyed, and desperate 
to get rid of them, and that was why he snapped so rudely at Ron.

Of course, I'm sure that he found the book perfectly interesting.
But this notion that his defensiveness in that scene is due 
to some unwholesome degree of ambition is pure misdirection, IMO.  
After all, at that point in the novel, JKR is setting Percy 
up as a red herring in a big, big way.


-----


On Percy and Favoritism:


Whirdy wrote:

> Equally fascinating and perhaps a point of discussion I may 
> have missed is the fact that Percy assessed points against 
> Gryffindor when Ron was disrespectful to Percy "Prefect." Later, 
> Ron as Crabbe confronts Percy and Draco Malfoy is told that he 
> should "show a bit more respect to a school prefect," Percy does 
> not cry out "five points against Slytherin" for their disrespect.


Percy would seem to be quite concerned about the appearance of 
favoritism, and at times goes overboard in his efforts to avoid it.

There's another example of this tendency in the first book, right 
after both Harry and Ron are sorted into Gryffindor.  Percy greets 
Harry in a perfectly friendly and normal manner, by standing up and 
shaking his hand.  His greeting to Ron, on the other hand, ("Well 
done, Ron, excellent"), is stilted, awkward, and undeniably pompous.  
(In fact, it warrants Percy's very first "pompously" in the entire 
series, quite a precedent!)  I tend to view this as a sign of his 
discomfort: he doesn't want to appear to be showing any favoritism 
to his brother, and so he tries for formality -- and just plain fails 
to pull it off.

It is an interesting trait in light of his later identification with
Crouch, though, isn't it?  All the same, I don't know if I'm prepared
to believe that five points from Gryffindor falls into quite the
same category as conviction to life in prison on the basis of scanty
evidence.

And besides, in the end poor old Crouch *did* value his family 
relations over the rules, didn't he.  Much to his detriment.


------

On Percy and his family:


There's, uh, material here for an essay, to be sure, but just a 
few minor points for now.

Percy's conflict between his extra-familial relationships and his 
familial ones is a running motif throughout all four books.  In the
first book, his extra-familial relationships are represented by his
Prefect friends, in the second by Penelope Clearwater, in the third
by both Penelope and his affiliation with the staff of Hogwarts, and
in the fourth by Crouch and the Ministry.  

Given that Percy is a teenager, I always find myself wondering why
people find this so very striking.  Isn't it normal for teenagers to
begin to value their extra-familial relationships quite highly, while 
they start to feel slightly annoyed and restricted by their familial 
ties?  This tendency of Percy's is certainly an ongoing source of 
tension within the Weasley family dynamic, but is it really so odd as 
to warrant such great suspicion?


Debbie wrote:

> In PS/SS, after putting on his robes and prefect badge the minute 
> he crossed the barrier at Platform 9 3/4, Percy rushes off to the 
> prefects' compartments, leaving his family on the platform. 

Yup, agreed.  He just can't *wait* to get his farewells over with so
that he can get away from his Mum and his little siblings and go be
with people his own age instead.

To my mind, this shows that Percy is guilty of the terrible sin of 
being a perfectly normal fifteen-year-old boy.  


> That he chose to associate with the prefects all term is evident 
> from the fact that George has to demand that he spend Christmas day 
> with the family.

The Twins do bully him into wearing his Weasley sweater, true, and 
they insist that he eat Christmas dinner with them.  But although 
Percy makes his feeble protests, he not only does eat dinner with 
them (when, in truth, there was actually no way that the Twins could 
have forced him to do so), but he also spends the entire rest of the 
*day* with them.  He has a snowball fight with them, and then he 
goes back to the Gryffindor common room with them and watches Harry 
and Ron play chess.

This is a fifteen-year-old, mind.  Spending the entire day horsing 
around with two thirteen-year-olds and two eleven-year-olds, instead
of spending the time with people his own age.  It's only a couple of
years' age difference, but those are important years.

And besides, if he hadn't wanted the Twins to manhandle him into his
Weasley sweater and then march him down to dinner with them, then he 
wouldn't have poked his head into the first-year common room in the 
first place, would he?  I mean, complaining that they're making too 
much noise?  On Christmas morning?  When there are hardly any 
students around in the first place?  Puu-leeze.  Even for Percy, that 
would really be a bit much.  Me, I think that he wanted to hang out 
with them all along.


I think that Percy likes his family just fine.  Well...in the first
book, anyway.  

By the end of GoF, I still think that he loves them, but I also think 
that he's 'way overdue for moving out of the Burrow and into a place 
of his own.



-- Elkins, always happy to fly the PINE banner