Weak vs. Unwilling, Fidelius, Pettigrew's Poor Strategy

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 34990

Porphyria, in response to my "Where are the Weaklings and Patsies?"
query, wrote:

> That's a good question, but I guess my reply would be, where do you
> draw the line between weak and unwilling? 

That's an excellent question!  There's certainly a continuum there, 
even in the real world.  And as someone (Judy, I think it was?) 
pointed out some time ago, the entire question of personal volition 
is even more complicated for wizards in the Potterverse, where there 
are things like Imperius and Fidelius and the mental side-effects of 
Transfiguration to contend with.

And then there are also...well, genre conventions.  In real life, for 
example, revealing secrets under torture is essentially a blameless 
act.  Torture subverts personal volition -- that's its purpose -- so 
people can't really be held responsible for their behavior under its 
influence.  Even members of certain branches of the military, who 
receive special training in resisting interrogation, are not really 
expected to hold up to it very well at all; those who do show a 
native facility with resistance (and yes, there are such people) are 
generally not considered so much "heroic" as they are seen to be 
possessed of an unusual and somewhat freakish talent.

In most types of genre fiction, on the other hand, virtuous people 
resist interrogation.  They just do.  It's a convention of the genre: 
Good Guys Don't Crack. So the question of personal volition is 
complicated even further in the world of HP by the extent to which 
the world might operate under the laws of genre convention, rather 
than those of real life.

This is an issue that touches directly on my question of a week or so 
ago, as to why Pettigrew might have chosen to go for that muggle-
blasting-fake-my-own-death-and-frame-Sirius stunt, rather than simply 
claiming that the DEs had somehow figured out that he was the 
Potters' Secret Keeper and then wrested the secret from him by means 
of magical or physical coercion.

I argued that the latter plan seemed far more sensible to me, and it 
would have had the added bonus of placing him under Dumbldeore's 
protection in case the other DEs came after him for betraying 
Voldemort to his doom.

In response, Marina wrote:

> Did he know that Volemort was down for the count? At the time,
> everyone pretty much thought that V was invincible, so Peter 
> probably thought that the disappearance was just a temporary 
> setback, and that V would be back any moment, kicking more butt. 
> In which case worming his was back into the good guys' graces 
> would've been a really bad move.

But...but...but...But he was a spy in the first place, wasn't he?  He 
was a mole: he'd been passing on information from the inside.  So 
surely 'in the good guys' graces' would be precisely where Voldemort 
would expect for him to be?  I mean, that was a very important part 
of his *job.*

Really, worming his way back into the good guys' graces would seem 
like a no-lose strategy to me.  If Voldie never returns, he gets pity 
and protection from the good guys, and if Voldie *does* 
return...well, he's just been carrying on doing his job like a loyal 
little DE.  Win-win.

But (and this is the big "but") it's a strategy that only makes sense 
if one makes certain assumptions about how the Fidelius Charm works --
and specifically, about what is meant by the phrase "chooses to 
divulge it."  (It all depends on what "chooses" means.)  What degree 
of volition is required for the SK's information to count as "freely" 
divulged?  Could it be divulged under torture?  Under Imperius?  
Under Veritaserum?  How does the Fidelius Charm _itself_ answer the 
question of at what point personal volition is negated by coercion?

This is a question that puzzles me because on the one hand, the only 
reason I can imagine for Pettigrew not utilizing the "they found out 
and came after me, and I just couldn't keep it from them" strategy 
would be that the information hidden by the Fidelius Charm *can't* be 
wrested from the secret keeper by force.  If this is the case, then 
the fact that the others consider Pettigrew to be both magically weak 
and physically delicate is irrelevant: he still wouldn't be able to 
get away with claiming magical or physical coercion as a defense.

But on the other hand, if this is the case then I confess myself
puzzled by the decision to try to bluff the enemy by switching secret-
keepers in the first place.  "They'd never suspect we'd use a 
weakling like Peter" would seem to imply that the Fidelius Charm is 
*no* proof against extreme forms of coercion, that the Secret Keeper 
can indeed be forced to reveal his secret through torture or Imperio 
or Veritaserum or whatever forms of magical mind-reading might exist.
In which case I'm left once more wondering why Pettigrew didn't 
choose the far wiser strategy of claiming that this was what had 
happened to him.


Cindy wrote:

> I can only think of two reasons why Peter wouldn't try this. First, 
> it could simply be that he is dedicated to the Dark Lord, as Sirius 
> suggests in the Shrieking Shack. Peter was just biding his time, 
> waiting for a chance to help his master, so being a rat for 12
> years would probably provide a better vantage point than Azkaban. 

But if the Fidelius Charm *can* be broken by torture or Imperius or 
Veritaserum or magical mind-reading or whatever else, then why on 
earth would he wind up in Azkaban?  On what charges?  Being 
Overpowered By a Bunch of DE Thugs?  He could share a cell with the 
Longbottoms, perhaps?

Nope.  That explanation just doesn't cut it.  If Pettigrew had 
claimed coercion, then he would have been perceived as a victim 
(always a role  enjoys), not as a criminal, and he would have wound 
up far *better* positioned to wait for a chance to help his master 
than he did as a pet rat.

Once again, I'm left with the conclusion that the only reason that 
Pettigrew could possibly have chosen the strategy he did was that he 
knew full well that Sirius Black's "nasty temper" -- or maniacally 
homicidal tendencies, depending on how you look at it -- would have 
caused him to be blasted to smithereens on the street in *spite* of 
the fact that this would have been a monstrously unjust and indeed 
psychopathic response on Sirius' part. 

So *there.*

<Elkins nods with supreme satisfaction, takes a long drag on her 
cigarette, and then blinks, frowning>

Although actually...

<long sigh>

Yeah, okay.  Okay, Cindy.  Fine.  Never mind.  I just realized.  
Sirius really *would* have been perfectly justified in blasting 
Pettigrew into a faint red mist had he tried out my strategy after 
the Potters' deaths, and you want to know why?

No, not because Pettigrew's a coward and a weakling, nor because 
Sirius would have thought that he *ought* to have been able to stand 
up to any degree of coercion, nor because the Secret Keeper's resolve 
can't be broken by magic or force.  None of that.

No.  No, Sirius would have been utterly justified in blasting 
Pettigrew on the street for the simple reason that Pettigrew is a 
*terrible* liar.

And no, I don't mean 'terrible' as in 'incorrigible.'  I 
mean 'terrible' as in 'he's just no damn good at it.'

He never would have been able to pull off my strategy successfully 
because the man can't lie his way out of a paper bag.  It would have 
been pathetically obvious that he was making it all up, and Sirius 
would have blasted him.

<exasperated sigh>

You know, I really do have very little patience with pathological 
liars who aren't even any *good* at it?  God, I hate that.  That just 
annoys the hell out of me.  What's wrong with Peter, anyway?

It's just depressing.  I really do find myself wanting to believe 
that Pettigrew was once a competent liar, and that maybe it was just 
all those years spent in rat form that dulled his edge or something, 
because otherwise I really do find myself wondering about Sirius and 
the Potters.  They went an entire year without realizing who the spy 
really was?  When it was *Pettigrew?*  The worst liar in the
entire Potterverse?  The man whose tells are visible from a hundred 
yards away?

I mean, it just kind of boggles the mind, doesn't it?


Back to Porphyria:

> Peter sure seems to me to act more on fear than conviction; he 
> seems really disgusted with what he's doing and living in constant 
> fear that he'll be axed once his usefulness is over. Do we know the 
> dark mark on his arm indicates that he's truly a *willing* DE, or 
> is that just another thing he got browbeaten into?

"But they would have killed me if I hadn't agreed to enter into a 
binding magical compact with Voldemort and swear my undying loyalty 
to him!  I was browbeaten into it!  I didn't really *want* to!" 

No.  To my mind, that's willing.  Weak, yes, to be sure, and if the 
browbeating was severe then rather sad as well, but come on!  There 
are lines beyond which you just cannot venture while still claiming 
to be "unwilling."  Once you're bearing the magically-binding token 
of your oath of eternal loyalty to the age's Great Dark Wizard, then 
I'd say that Checkpoint Charlie isn't even in your range of *sight*
anymore: you've already gone *miles* past that line.  

Then, much of this depends on how one interprets the status of the 
DEs and the nature of their compact with Voldemort.  I don't really 
believe that there *can* be truly "unwilling" Death Eaters.  

For one thing, the DEs would seem to be Voldemort's elite followers, 
not fellow-travellers.  Whenever people talk about the dark days of 
V's original reign, the impression given is that he had a *lot* of 
supporters -- people didn't know who to trust, they were fearful of 
talking to strange wizards, *anyone* could turn out to be the enemy, 
and so forth.  But there are only thirty some-odd DEs in the 
graveyard scene.  Even allowing for attrition due to imprisonment and
death (not to mention cowardice and treachery), that number is just 
too small to represent all of Voldemort's original supporters.  I'd 
say the DEs are an elite group.

Also, the Dark Mark would seem to represent a rather serious 
relationship: it's not exactly like bearing the Nike Swoosh on your 
ankle.  It's not just a tattoo; it's a form of magical binding.  It 
is intrinsically connected to Voldemort's state of being (it grows 
more visible as he approaches recorporation).  It's linked to all of 
the other Dark Marks (Voldemort can use Peter's to activate all of
them, and Snape claims that part of its original function was to 
serve as a means of identification and recognition between Death 
Eaters).  Through it, Voldemort can summon his DEs to his side over 
great distance without giving them any explicit directions to his 
location.  And when he's accusing them of infidelity in the 
graveyard, he reminds them that they once "swore eternal loyalty" to 
him.  

That all sounds like serious ritual magic to me.  While canon never 
actually makes it explicit, I think it's pretty strongly implied that 
the Dark Mark represents a *compact,* one that is both personal and 
binding, and one that really could *not* be entered 
into "involuntarily."


> Also, Avery seems like a coward -- maybe he's really evil but 
> just hyper. 

Oh, Porphyria!  Surely you meant to say "he's *not* really evil, but 
just hyper," didn't you?  I certainly hope so, because otherwise we 
may need to have words.  You *know* how I feel about Avery.  ;-)


> So far it seems like only Lucius and Mrs. Lestrange stick with 
> Voldemort because they feel they have a stake in what he's doing.

And I'm not altogether certain about Lucius.  Yes, I'm sure that he 
and Voldemort do share certain agenda.  But still.  Lucius doesn't 
seem at all happy to see the Dark Lord back in action, and IMO 
there's more to that then simple fear of punishment.  I definitely 
get the impression that there's a *reason* so few of the DEs went out 
looking for Voldemort the way the Lestranges did.  I think that by
the end there, he'd grown so completely mad and erratic and bwah-hah-
hah villainish that all but the very nuttiest of his followers 
(Crouch, Lestranges...) were more than a little relieved to see him 
go.


> Does anyone but me wonder if Rita Skeeter will wind up delivering 
> information to Voldemort -- wittingly or unwittingly? She's be a 
> good candidate for some Imperius duty.

You think she really *needs* Imperius?  Rita's on the make.  I would 
think that she'd be so easy to manipulate by the usual means that 
there'd be no real need for mind-control.


> Did JKR ever say something in an interview about trying to paint 
> some characters in shades of gray, or depict degress of evil, or 
> words to that effect? 

Not that I recall.  There was an interview in which she responded to 
the suggestion that GoF might have been a tad too dark for her 
audience with the response that she saw no point in writing about 
Evil unless one were willing to portray it as truly *bad,* which is 
where that "JKR has said that she wants to show Evil as bad" line 
that gets cited so often around here comes from.  But I'm damned if I 
can remember the source -- probably someone else will know.

I do remember that in its original context, it came across as a 
considerably less trite statement than it usually does when cited 
here.  ("No!  You mean to say that evil is...is *bad?*  But surely 
you can't really *mean* that!  Say it isn't SO!")

<rolls eyes>

"Evil is bad."

<snort>

Sheesh.


-- Elkins