TBAY: Peter Doesn't Get The Girl -- Sycophants and Evil Overlords

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 40828

"Get up, Eileen," said Elkins softly. "Stand up. You ask for 
forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget. Three long 
months....I want three months' repayment before I forgive you. Cindy 
here has paid some of her debt already, have you not, Cindy?"

Elkins looked over to Cindy, who continued to sob.

"Er, Avery, old man," George whispered, leaning over to the 
Indeterminate Character sitting in the chair beside his 
desk.  "Remind me again, will you?  Just what precisely is it that 
Cindy is supposed to have done to Elkins?"

Avery did not answer.  He was gripping the armrests of his chair 
tightly enough to sink his fingers to the first knuckle into the 
overstuffed leather, and his eyes were squeezed shut.  George 
blinked, then winced.

"Oh," he said.  "*Oh.*  Right.  Er, Eileen?  Elkins?" he 
called.  "Look. This little...vignette of yours?  Has it occurred to 
you that it might not really have been the most sensitive choice?  
Given that Avery's right here in the--"

"You returned to me, Eileen," Elkins continued, loftily ignoring 
him.  "Not out of loyalty, but out of boredom. You deserve this pain, 
Eileen. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, Elkins," moaned Eileen, "please, Elkins...please... I only... I 
only wish to serve, to...to..."

"To make a start on repaying your debt?" 

"Yes."  Eileen nodded gratefully.  "Yes.  I... I brought canon, 
Elkins.  *Canon.*"  She shuffled forward, her arms outstretched.  A 
number of small canons tumbled from her shaking hands.  Elkins 
glanced down at them.  She raised an eyebrow.  She smiled slightly.

"That will do," she said.


****************


<the infamous "hesitation" as defense for the Peter Doesn't Get the 
Girl Tew Ewwwww Variant>

Eileen wrote:

> But then one wonders why Voldemort even bothered to ask her to 
> stand aside. Perhaps he thought it would be sadistically fun to 
> hand her over to Peter, but having that documented disdain for 
> women, he decided he didn't care, and just killed her?

Well, let's see.

If we assume, as so many people have done when speculating about the
Voldemort's Wand Mystery, that Peter was actually *there* at Godric's
Hollow at the time, then it could have been just a tease, couldn't it?
To make Peter believe that she really was going to be spared, just for
a moment, before Voldemort casually offed her?



> I mean, what evidence has Peter to be so darn suspicious of 
> Voldemort's promises?

Yes.  That's really the question, isn't it?  To my mind, that's the 
strongest defense for a scenario in which Peter thought that he was
going to be able to secure at least one of the Potters' lives, and
Lily seems the strongest candidate by far.


> We all know that the devil is the prince of lies, but other than 
> that? 

Heh.  Well, yes, but then, we all know that it's a really *bad* idea 
to throw your lot in with Evil Overlords too, don't we?  I mean, that 
just never works out happily for anyone.  Just ask poor Avery.  Or 
ask Snape, for that matter.

But apparently Peter never got that memo, so I assume that he never 
got the one about Prince of Lies, either.


> And, he keeps jumping to the conclusion that Voldemort's going to
> kill him. A reasonable conclusion perhaps but what has got Peter's
> mind into "He's trying to kill me and double cross me" mode? The 
> only way he could already have been doubled-crossed is if we 
> involve Lily. 

I agree.

Peter isn't an ideologue, to say the least.  He's self-serving.  So if
he had always believed Voldemort to be the sort of Evil Overlord who 
reneges on his promises and kills his minions the second that they 
have outlived their usefulness, then it's rather hard to imagine why 
he ever would have become involved, isn't it?  His service to the DEs 
before the Secret Keeper fiasco seems to have entailed spying on the 
Potters' circle.  After his betrayal, his cover would have been, er, 
blown.  To say the least.  Would he have agreed to the plan -- or 
even engineered it, as it does seem likely to me that he 
*volunteered* the information that he had been made the Secret Keeper 
to Voldemort -- if he had believed at the time that Voldemort was 
such a "kill the spare" type when it came to his own followers?  I 
just don't know.  I rather think he might have tried to flee instead, 
or tried to keep the SK switcheroo a secret.

So what happened to change his mind, between his act of betrayal and 
Voldemort's return?  Something must have happened to alter his 
expectations.  I see only two likely possibilities.

One is Quirrell's death.  The other is Lily's death.

 
<the reminder of the "promise" in the graveyard>


> It isn't even bleeding to death that Peter's primarily afraid of. I 
> didn't notice this very much before but...

> "He caressed it gently, too; and then he raised it and ponted it at 
> Wormtail who was lifted off the ground, and thrown against the 
> headstone where Harry was tied; he fell to the foot of it and lay 
> there crumpled up and crying."

> As far as Peter can see, Voldemort is about to kill him, not just 
> leave him to die. He isn't even pleading for the reward, or even 
> for the bleeding to stop. He's pleading that he not be killed. 

Ugh.  You're right, of course.  That's precisely what he thinks.  
>From his perspective, he has just exhausted his usefulness, and now 
he is to be killed.  And probably in an unpleasantly slow and 
experimental fashion, too, since Voldemort seems to want to play 
around a bit with his new body and his wand.  And so, naturally, he 
responds as he always does when he thinks that he's about to die: he 
collapses into helpless weeping.  As, frankly, so would I.

Of course, he hasn't really quite outlived his usefulness yet, since 
Voldemort still needs his Dark Mark to summon the rest of the DEs, 
but it's clear enough from his reaction to being asked for his arm 
that Peter hasn't the slightest *clue* what that's all about.  

The reminder of the "promise" is interesting, though, because 
Voldemort has actually never promised Peter a damned thing.  Not "on-
screen," at any rate.  He doesn't even give him any real assurance 
that he *won't* be killed after the resurrection.  His actual words 
("Wormtail, Wormtail...why would I kill you?") sound far more like an
evasion than an assurance; if anything, they suggest that he really 
*is* planning on killing the poor wretch.  They certainly do not 
constitute a "promise."  And from his awed response later on to the 
hand reward, I think it fairly clear that he was never promised 
anything like *that,* either. 

So what *is* this promise he's nattering on about, eh?

> A perfect time to remind Voldemort. "You promised.." "So, you 
> killed Lily and now you're going to kill me?"

The more I think about this, the more eerily compelling I find it.


> Elkins then went into a lot of Freudian stuff. Eileen doesn't 
> really get Freudian stuff, but she did find it interesting that 
> Peter cut off his pointer finger. Kind of inconvenient.

Inconvenient on a number of different levels, really.  It's not just 
that it's his pointer finger.  It's that it's also the pointer finger 
of his *good* hand.  Peter is right-handed.  His right hand is the 
one that he instinctively raises against Harry in the graveyard.

Now, there are perfectly sound symbolic and magical reasons for a 
right-handed man to offer his right hand as a sacrifice in the 
rebirthing ritual of his Dark Lord.  But just to frame Sirius?  What 
on earth was he *thinking?*

Not only is the pointer finger of ones good hand quite far down on 
the list of digits that any normal person would ordinarily choose to 
sacrifice (it's better than a thumb, but that's about it), it also 
raises some logistical difficulties.  It left him forced to use his 
off-hand to do the actual cutting or wandwork or whatever it was that 
he did to lop it off in the first place.  This is counter-intuitive.

So it's really hard for me not to view that decision in a 
psychological light.  Leaving Freud out of it, it does seem to me 
that on some level he must have *wanted* to be maimed, and not only 
maimed, but maimed in a way that *would* be inconvenient for him, a 
way that would serve as a constant reminder to him of what he had 
done.  Otherwise, he just would have gone for a pinky.  

Hey, speaking of Pettigrew's self-mutilating tendencies, has anyone 
but me ever wondered whatever happened to his left ear?  At the 
beginning of PoA, when the woman in the pet shop is looking him over 
as Scabbers, he is specified not only as missing a toe, but also as 
having a "tattered left ear."

What do you think?  Did those real rats rough him up in the sewers?  
Or was it just some Weasley manhandling?  One of the Twins' little 
games, perhaps?



> > "Harry, James wouldn't have wanted me killed...James would have 
> > understood, Harry..."

> I could see Peter having convinced himself that he did everything 
> he did to protect Lily. Voldemort would sooner or later have made 
> him crack, or found out some other way, so he made a deal that 
> would save Lily. And surely James would understand that. Wouldn't 
> he?

Well, that's certainly one of the all-time classic rationalizations, 
isn't it?  The triage of the traitor?  It's as old as time, that 
one.  Or at the very least, as old as warfare.

Again, I find this eerily compelling.


> I'm not sure that his evident liking for Weasleys and Ron is 
> relevant, but if you say so.... 

It's relevant because it suggests that he might have a weakness for
red-heads.  You know, just like Hastings?  ;-)

Hey.  With a theory like this one, you take the canon where you can 
find it.  And besides, there's certainly more evidence in canon for 
*Pettigrew* having a thing about red-heads than there is for Snape 
having one.  We've never seen a shred of evidence that Snape gets all 
Weak and Sentimental -- or even unusually Bitter and Resentful -- 
when he sees a red-head, have we?  Nope.  None.  None at all.  But 
Pettigrew?

I'm telling you.  The guy's just a *soft-touch* when it comes to red-
heads.

Well.  In his own murderous sort of way, that is.

Maybe Florence wasn't the future Lestrange after all.  Maybe she was 
one of those mysterious missing Weasley cousins.  

But about Florence...

> You're right that the hex story should belong to Peter, not Snape, 
> not Sirius, or anyone else. It just doesn't make sense that 
> Dumbledore would bring it up here. I think Peter did take his 
> revenge on Bertha Jorkins. But what for?

> "I'll tell you what for!" cries Cindy. 

Cindy:

> "Bertha told Peter she had seen him kissing Florence, and it was a 
> *flat-out lie.* 

Er, but doesn't that sort of weaken your original canon, Cindy?  

I mean, your original "Peter Gets the Girl" canon was so very 
compelling in the first place in part because it set up such a lovely 
parallel.  It suggested that what the message from Dumbledore's 
subconscious was trying to tell him was: "This is a direct parallel.  
History has repeated itself.  Once again, Bertha Jorkins has come by 
knowledge of a secret that somebody very badly wants hidden, and once 
again, she has been victimized by Peter Pettigrew."

The other way, the parallel isn't nearly so tidy or so convincing.

Not to mention the fact that Dumbledore does ask her why she had 
to "follow him in the first place," which does rather suggest that 
she saw something that, er, really did *happen.*

I mean, don't get me wrong.  I do appreciate the fact that you're 
trying to grant Peter a bit of nobility here, by making his Love For 
Lily pure and uncorrupted and all that.  In fact, I'm really 
touched.  It's...well, it's downright SYCOPHANTSish of you, Cindy!  
It just plain makes me want to cry.

But...well, look.  I just don't know about this new UnTough Cindy 
we've been seeing around here lately.  First you go to George and 
start *snivelling,* and now you're tinkering around with a spec to 
increase its SYCOPHANTS potential?  That's...well, it's just plain 
Wrong, Cindy.  You aren't a SYCOPHANT.  You're *Tough.*  You're 
messing with my *mind* doing this sort of thing, okay?  It's 
really beginning to Freak Me OUT.

I mean, next thing you know, I'm going to become an Evil Overlord.

Not, of course, that that's so much of a stretch, really.  Sycophants 
and Evil Overlords are really just two sides of the same ugly coin.


*************


"May your loyalty never waver again, Eileen," said Elkins.

"No, Elkins... never, Elkins."

Eileen stood up and turned to take her place on the chaise lounge,
staring at her powerful new canon, her face still shining with tears.

"Oh," said Elkins, just as she had turned her back.  "And Eileen?
One more thing?" 

Eileen hesitated, a glimmer of apprehension crossing her face.  She
turned slowly.

"I...yes, Elkins?" she asked.

"You didn't really think I would fail to notice that you chose to 
spare yourself the Cruciatus Curse," said Elkins softly.  "Did you?"

"Well, I...I..."

"It does cast this...contrition of yours in a rather dim light, don't 
you think?  All of that humility.  All of that *grovelling.*  Yet not 
a touch of genuine *penance.*  Why, Eileen."  Elkins smiled 
thinly.  "If I didn't know better, I might even find myself doubting 
your *sincerity.*"

"Elkins, my devotion to your--"

"Your devotion is nothing more than cowardice.  Atonement without 
penance?  Remorse without restitution?  You're almost beginning to 
sound like *him.*"  She jerked her head contemptuously towards Fourth 
Man Avery With Remorse, who buried his face in his hands.

"But *Elkins,*" Eileen objected, spreading her hands helplessly.  "I--
"

"I am told that you have not renounced the ways of SYCOPHANTS, though 
to the world you present your bowls of CRAB CUSTARD.  You are still 
ready to take the lead in a spot of Death Eater Anti-Defamation, I 
believe?  Yet you never really *atoned,* Eileen.  Your little 
Graveyard pastiche was fun, I daresay...but might not your energies 
have been better directed toward a somewhat stronger adherence to the 
original canonical material?"

"Elkins, I am constantly thinking of the sensibilities of our 
audience," said Eileen rapidly.  "Had I had any assurance, any 
conviction at all that actual depictions of torture were not 
completely out of bounds for the standards of civility of this list, 
I would have been writhing at your feet immediately, nothing could 
have prevented me--"

"And yet you were perfectly willing to acknowledge the possibility of 
such a plot development back in message number 39000?" said Elkins 
lazily, and Eileen stopped talking abruptly.  "Yes, I noticed that, 
Eileen...You have disappointed me...But still.  Still.  You *are* 
only a sycophant, aren't you?  And not a house elf.  So I suppose
that it might have been a bit much to expect you to be capable of 
disciplining yourself."

"Yes, thank you, Elkins," Eileen gasped.  "You are merciful, thank 
you..."

"Fortunately, you chose to dress me in these ridiculous robes," 
Elkins continued, slipping one of her rather pudgy hands into a deep 
pocket and drawing out a wand. "So I'm willing to do you the favor of 
helping you to correct this unfortunate little...oversight of yours."

"Elkins," Cindy objected, half-rising from her seat.  "What are you 
DOING?"

"Oh, nothing any less forgivable than all of that Imperius that 
Captain Tabouli used to dole out below decks on the LOLLIPOPS," said 
Elkins casually.  "Nothing to worry about."

"Elkins," Eileen stammered, backing slowly away, her eyes fixed on 
the wand in Elkins' hands.  "Elkins, listen, please..."

"You can't *do* that!"  Cindy turned to George.  "She can't do that, 
can she?" she said.  "George, is this *your* idea?  Is this some kind 
of sick twisted THERAPY, or something?"

"Therapy?"  George shook his head.  "This isn't *my* therapy," he 
said.  "I'm *George.*  I stand for principle *over* inclination.  
Reason over emotion.  And restraint," he concluded, pursing his lips 
in disapproval at Elkins' somewhat fevered expression.  "Restraint 
over *indulgence.*  This *certainly* isn't my therapy.  But what can 
I do about it?"  He shrugged irritably.  "I'm just a Snapetheory.  
This sort of thing is really outside my purview.  In fact," he
said, frowning.  "I'm not even entirely sure what I'm doing in this 
thread in the first place."

"There has *got* to be some rule against this," muttered Cindy, 
fishing out her TBAY Rulebook and flipping through the pages.  "I'm 
sure there has to be SOMETHING against this."

"Oh, come now, Cindy," Elkins said coolly, advancing on 
Eileen.  "Where's your sense of intellectual *curiosity?*  Don't you 
want to settle for once and for all the question of whether she'll 
actually sound anything like that Second Task Egg?  After all, who 
knows?  She just might prove you right about that one after all.  
And we all know how much you do love being *right,* Cindy.  Besides," 
she added, with a nasty snigger.  "Cruciatus makes you *stronger,* 
right?  So I'm doing her a favor, really, aren't I?"

"Yeah, look," Cindy muttered.  "How about we just *forget* about 
Cruciatus Makes You Stronger, okay?"

Eileen collided violently with the water cooler in the corner.  She 
staggered, then fell to her knees.  "Please," she whimpered.  
"Elkins, please...*please*..." 

"It is customary to *thank* people who offer to correct your blunders 
for you, Eileen," Elkins told her.  "Where are your manners?"

"Elkins, please listen to me.  Please.  Just listen.  You've already 
been *through* this crisis once already.  Don't you remember?  In 
your argument with Cindy over the Egg?  You *resisted* the twin lures 
of power and vengeance.  Remember?  You said that you were a pacifist 
and that--"

"Oh, but that was to make a rhetorical point about *Neville,* 
Eileen," said Elkins. "This is to make a different rhetorical point 
altogether.  Now as for myself," she mused, eyeing Eileen 
contemplatively.  "I've always found myself wondering about those 
Longbottoms.  Could the Cruciatus Curse really have accounted for 
their condition?  Debbie thinks not, but I...well, I'm just not so 
sure.  It's not realistic, no, but it does conform to genre 
convention.  I do find myself wondering, though, just how long that 
might have *taken.*  Avery's never been willing to discuss it with 
me.  I mean, are we talking hours here?  Days?  What do *you* think, 
Eileen?"

Eileen burst into tears.

"Elkins," Cindy said firmly.  "You.  Are.  A.  SYCOPHANT.  *Not* an 
Evil Overlord."

"Oh, indeed," agreed Elkins pleasantly.  "Indeed.  But you know, the 
two are hardly polar opposites.  They're not incompatible in the 
least.  In fact, they're essentially the same position.  Inside every 
sycophant, there's an Evil Overlord just waiting to come out.  Have 
you ever read Fromme, on the totalitarian personality?  The type of 
person who toadies to his superiors, yet bullies his subordinates?  
Whose abject professions of loyalty and fanatic devotion to 
charismatic leaders and ideological doctrines are matched only by 
their equally extreme, yet seemingly-incompatible tendency towards 
self-serving hypocrisy and back-stabbing betrayal?  The sort of 
person whose fundamental capacity for inhumane behavior is masked by 
a somewhat sloppy sentimentalism?  One which often presents as a self-
professed love of animals?"  

She frowned briefly, one hand reaching up to toy absently with her 
Bleeding Heart-festooned feather boa, then shook her head and 
continued on:

"They're the same type of person, really, you know, Evil Overlords 
and their Sycophants.  It's a personality characterized by a...well, 
a very specific type of personal relationship with power.  Power 
over, that is," she specified, looking down at the huddled and weeping
Eileen with a faint and dreamy smile.  "Power over others," she 
murmered.

"Elkins," George said quietly.  "Are you aware that your nostrils are 
dilating?"

Elkins blinked.  "Are they really?" She thought about this for a 
moment, then shrugged.  "Oh, well, what else can you expect from me, 
George?  I wear my SYCOPHANTS badge pinned to my FEATHERBOAS, for 
heaven's sake!  Surely you must appreciate the significance of 
that particular combination?  Eileen here did try to explain it to 
Cindy once, sometime back in March, didn't you, Eileen?  But I fear 
that she may have been a bit too...delicate to really get her point 
across.  You see, Eileen," Elkins said, reaching down to force 
Eileen's head up to face her.  "Cindy's not Bent, like we are.  She's 
*Tough.*  Tough people really don't understand Bent all that well, 
I'm afraid.  You really have to spell it out for them."  

"I'm not Bent," sobbed Eileen.  "I'm *not!*"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," snapped Elkins, shoving her away in 
disgust.  "Of course you are.  You're a featherboa-wearing SYCOPHANT, 
aren't you?  That's a fundamentally sado-masochistic position.  Self-
flagellating, even.  You *did* used to torture your dolls, didn't 
you, Eileen?  And I'll bet you *identified* with them, even while you 
were doing it.  Didn't you."

Eileen shook her head wildly from side to side.

"Liar," said Elkins, with cruel amusement.  "I've seen the sort of 
specs you favor."

"I--"

"Just ask Avery here, if you don't believe me.  He knows all *about* 
the totalitarian personality.  Even Canon!Avery's rather obvious that 
way, but once you start talking about Fourth Man Avery...well!  At 
times he's been known to go absolutely Over The Top in that 
direction."

"I've *never* liked that Over the Top Fourth Man," muttered Cindy 
darkly, narrowing her eyes at Avery, whose head was now cradled in 
his arms on George's desk.  

"Oh, I think that Avery has quite enough troubles right now without 
you adding to them," said Elkins.  "Especially now that Peter's got 
that new *hand* of his.  We were talking about sycophants and their 
Inner Evil Overlords?  Just look at Mr. Pettigrew."

"Wormtail?" said George, frowning.

"Mmmmmmm.  Back in April sometime, your friend Marina said that she 
thought that he was likely to get pushed around quite a bit by the 
other DEs in future canon.  I seem to remember her calling 
him "eminently bulliable."  I'm not altogether sure of that, though,
myself.  The thing about sycophants, you know, is that they do have 
this way of getting *nasty,* if you're ever fool enough to hand them 
the good side of the whip.  It's that victim-turned-bully phenomenon 
that Tabouli's always writing about.  I found Wormtail's reaction to 
his silver hand rather suggestive of that possibility, myself.  *You* 
know the canon I mean, Eileen."

Eileen nodded slowly, sniffling.  "The...the twig," she offered, in a 
trembling voice.  "And...and..."

"And 'beautiful.'  Yes.  He's just been given some freaky magical 
*cyborg* appendage, it can crush things into powder, and he's lost in 
awe, isn't he?  He's calling it 'beautiful.'  Mm-hmmm.  I'd watch my 
back around that Pettigrew from now on if I were you, Avery," Elkins 
advised.  "If you ask me, he's headed straight for victim-turned-
bulliedom.  I certainly hope that you weren't in the habit of hexing 
him in any corridors back in your schooldays.  I certainly hope not.  
For your sake."

Avery let out a sick sort of moan.

"Indeed?"  Elkins smiled slightly.  "Oh, bad call, Aves.  Very bad 
call.  Let's just hope he doesn't remember that, then, shall we?  
Although I really wouldn't count on that, you know, if I were you.  I 
remember every single person who ever even once hexed *me* in the 
corridors at school.  Now," she said, levelling her wand at 
Eileen.  "As for *you,* Eileen.  Perhaps one more little reminder why 
I will not tolerate further disloyalty from you..."

"Elkins," sobbed Eileen.  "No...I beg you..."

"Aw, come on, Elkins," Cindy said.  "She did call you 'nice,' you 
know."

"Nice?"  Elkins laughed.  "Oh, yes.  Every bit as nice as the 
English, I dare say.  Every bit as nice as Eileen herself is.  Are 
you feeling a little bit sorry for Eileen right now, Cindy?  You 
needn't be, you know.  I assure you, if our positions were reversed, 
this situation would be playing out in *precisely* the same way.  
Don't you remember the relish with which she used to propose bloody 
ambushes?  Or Avery's outing as a DE at the office, with horrified 
Arthur Weasley slowly backing away from him?"  

Elkins shook her head.

"No," she concluded. "Eileen is not really nice.  No more than I am, 
in fact.  You had better leave her to me."


***********************


For an explanation of the acronyms and theories in this post, visit
Hypothetic Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin%
20Files/hypotheticalley.htm 

and Inish Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/database?
method=reportRows&tbl=13



-- Elkins, who really would rather cut her own right hand off than 
harm Eileen in any way