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

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 35020

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "ssk7882" <theennead at a...> wrote:

> 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.
 
Umm.... did I mention I'm a Tolkien fan? :-) Now, you'll find out why. 
First of all, you're right. Most run-of-the-mill fiction works on 
"Good Guys Don't Crack". Good guys can become bad guys, and vice 
versa, but you can't stay good and crack under pressure. Star Wars is 
just getting interesting, with the suggestion that Luke could crack, 
when he suddenly stops, announces he's good, and we understand that he 
just missed becoming irrevocably evil. Story after story I read as a 
child where the good guys said, "I'll never talk!" and didn't. After 
all, Princess Leia could resist torture, why couldn't everyone else? 
Why couldn't you just do a Philip Mannering (Blyton's Adventure 
books), and stare at the evil foreign spy while he was hitting you 
over the head with a pistol? 

And, then, one day, I was reading "The Lord of the Rings", and it 
suddenly occured to me that Frodo fails. That he completely cracks 
under pressure. Yet, Frodo's a good person, as good as they come, and 
he completely fails. Very good. I started noticing that it happens 
over and over in Tolkien's stories: Boromir, Beren's companion in the 
Silmarillion, even Denethor. How far are they responsible for what 
happens to them? On the one hand, there's Saruman, who can take full 
blame for everything he's done. (Saruman is the Karkaroff of the 
Tolkien stories. No-one ever defends him.) But then, there's everyone 
else. 

Can Harry Potter examine this? Well, yes, even without breaking the 
rules of the genre. After all, Tolkien did a lot of work on the 
genre's rules. HP is completely original, but it bears many marks of 
being influenced to some extent by Tolkien. There's an indefinable 
touch of Tolkien at all corners. Pettigrew never fails to remind 
people of either Gollum or Wormtongue (and he is called Wormtail isn't 
he?) The Whomping Willow, I would vouch for it, has something to do 
with Old Man Willow. Dumbledore and Gandalf are more similar than they 
are to Obi Wan-Kenobi or any other aged mentor. For one thing, they 
both share what Tolkien the academic knew a lot about, "The Northern 
Theory of Courage" (as opposed to Greek mythology), in which you fight 
not for an eventual victory, or a heaven after, but in the face of 
defeat, for the right side. Just check out Dumbledore's speech at the 
end of the "Goblet of Fire". I've heard many people complain that it's 
hardly motivating and almost sounds like a threat, "Be good and you'll 
end up dead!" but it is so Tolkienian, that even the obnoxiously picky 
professor would have liked it. (Though he would then have launched 
into a critique of Rowling's nomenclature, or a listing of problems 
with the goblin language, as presented.) Now, I know Rowling said 
she's only read Tolkien once, and this is what makes me so certain 
that he's a influence. If you get like me, to where Tolkien is very 
much a key part of your life, you can keep him out of your writing to 
some extent. It's the books that you enjoyed and now only half 
remember that really play around with you. "Les Miserables" and "War 
and Peace" seem to be the most important influences on my writing 
(when I get to revising it), even though I read each only once. 

So, I think there's hope that the fantasy genre will actually push 
Rowling to considering this. My Dad, in fact, is certain that it will 
be addressed, and being rather subversive, has picked Snape.

Most people's reaction to this suggestion, "But no, Snape is the good 
guy. He can't go bad."

No, I don't think he can go BAD, BAD, BAD. But why do we assume that 
he will be strong enough to resist and oppose Voldemort everywhere? Is 
it possible for Snape to betray the good guys under intense pressure? 

The other likely candidate for breaking under pressure might be Percy. 
My poor Percy. /me more identifies with Percy than any other character 
in the story, and is also convinced he will end up dead. Even more 
disturbing is that people seem to see the self-identification as a 
problem, and try to talk me out of it. "Oh, no. You're not anything 
like Percy, even if you do act a bit like it sometimes." 

>>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.  

Do we know that Peter had the mark in the past? Perhaps, he only got 
it recently? 

> > 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.

Lucius didn't want Voldemort back at all, imho. After all, how would 
Voldemort look at a party? Lucius was living the good life, chumming 
it up with Fudge, donating to worthy causes, and suddenly, Voldie's 
come back, and wants to go all Snidely Whiplash. I'm looking to Lucius 
to betray Voldie when the time comes, and can't see why Voldemort 
isn't expecting it. Much as I hated Voldemort, I'm secretly hoping 
that the plan backfires on Lucius. 

Eileen