[HPforGrownups] Malicious vs. mischievous

[ladjables]

No: HPFGUIDX 36216

Hi Elkins,
I was going to wait until you posted your mammoth
Percy post before pouncing yet again, but I figured
maybe we should just wrap up the discussion so no-one
will collapse from sheer exhaustion! I think I
understand where you're coming from, but dangit, we
really do see the twins differently!

--- ssk7882 <skelkins at attbi.com> writes:> 
> Percy's relationship with the rest of his family has
> been in a steady state of decline ever since the 
> first book, and by the time we reach GoF I see a 
> great deal of genuine animosity there, a great deal
> of anger and bitterness and resentment festering 
> under the surface of the Weasley family dynamic.  
> What was once good-natured has by Book Four become 
> not at all friendly; things that were previously 
> merely sources of tension have become rather serious
> schismatics. 

I didn't see this as cause for alarm.  I thought that
this was just a natural progression, that families
like the Weasleys all experience this as their kids
grow up and have to face a harsh economic reality.
Poverty experienced during childhood, and then
adulthood, can alter perceptions and thus
personalities.  I'll get back to this... 

> I wrote:> 
> Percy has always been perceived as an insufferable
> prig.  

> Elkins replied:
> No, I don't agree that he has.  Nor do I see an
> indication that Percy's family has always perceived
> him as an insufferable prig.  Far to the 
> contrary: Fred and George both evidently value 
> Percy's company enough to bother bullying him into 
> spending Christmas with them, rather than with his 
> Prefect friends.  Family or no family, I don't 
> really think that they would have bothered to do 
> that if they had really considered him to be an 
> "insufferable prig." 
> 
> Mind you, by the time we reach GoF -- possibly even
> by time we've hit PoA -- I think that the Weasleys 
> for the most part *have* begun to think of Percy as
> an insufferable prig.  But then, can you really 
> imagine Fred and George trying to convince Percy to
> spend some quality family time with them in PoA?  Or
> in GoF?  

My mistake; I meant the twins perceive Percy as
insufferable, in the way older siblings are perceived.
 And I do think F&G would continue to want Percy
around; they may consider him a pompous fool, but he's
their pompous fool.  When it gets right down to it,
he's their brother and they love him.  I don't think
they have ever held his priggishness against him,
which is a sign (aha!) that they bear Percy no ill
will.

I may have to re-read all the books because I did not
detect a new hostility towards Percy in GoF.  I simply
thought that, allowing for increased exposure to the
characters, character growth, and life's vicissitudes,
the twins' treatment of Percy was more or less
typical.  Mind you, I am looking forward to OotP,
where Voldemert's presence should bring out some very 
interesting behaviour in the characters.  But I guess
you could say JKR has laid the groundwork for this in
GoF starting with Fudge, so why not Percy and the
twins.

Moi:
> it's his attitude, revealed by his penchant for 
> bombast, that convinces the twins ol' 
> Percy needs taking down a peg.  And he does!
Elkins:
> Well, if by "taking Percy down a peg" one means 
> "making mock of him," then I'd say that this is 
> precisely the sort of thing that actually 
> *encourages* him in his penchant for bombast.  The 
> pomposity and the puffing and the self-
> aggrandizement all seem to be how Percy responds 
> to feeling insecure and unhappy.  

I've never looked at the situation from this angle. I
like the idea of the vicious cycle that you speak of,
and I do sympathise because I like Percy as well.  But
I don't think Percy's pomposity is caused by the
twin's harrassment; I think it's the other way around!
 I think Percy's vainglorious nature is just a red
flag waving at the twins, making him an irresistible
target.  No, no, a red balloon to be popped!  As soon
as he puffs up, the twins ready their pins!  That's
how I see their relationship.

> The relatively content Percy of PS/SS is not nearly
> as pompous or as unpleasant as the secretive and 
> worried adolescent Percy of CoS, who in turn is 
> *still* more bearable than the utterly stressed-out 
> NEWT-bound Percy of PoA.  By the time 
> we get to GoF, Percy is feeling genuinely alienated 
> and unhappy.

I think Percy was always pompous, but again, if this
change in Percy is true, couldn't this be the result
of 1)Percy's own character developing and 2)greater
opportunity to observe Percy's character developing? 
Perhaps Percy's maturing (from 14 to 17?) and
therefore increased awareness of his family situation
precipitated depression.  Following your theory, as he
gets older, the more unhappy he is about his situation
in life, and hence the more we see of his "puffing". 
Because of his own mental state the twins could
irritate him more, but I don't think they're really
the root cause of his deepening misery.

Me:
> I believe if the twins really were malicious, if
they
> had really taken their mother's words to heart,  
> they'd have become saboteurs.  Yet in GoF we never 
> see the twins stealing and altering Percy's homework
> or destroying his cauldron reports; instead, they 
> limit their pranks to childishly bewitching his 
> badge and sending him dragon dung at work, hardly 
> spiteful IMO.
 
Elkins: 
> Well, there are degrees of malice, certainly.  In 
> PoA, the twins do not, it is true, try to sabotage 
> Percy's schoolwork or (heaven forbid!) his NEWTS.  
[contrapuntally]:
> if someone sent me dragon dung at my brand new desk
> job at which I was very eager to make a good 
> impression, then I think that I would most 
> *certainly* consider that an act of sabotage!  

See, for me, how the joke is carried out reveals
intent.  I had read that bit in GoF to mean that Percy
really believed the dragon dung was a sample of
fertilizer from Norway, which implied the twins,
thinking of Percy, took the time to disguise the trick
as an official package, so Percy would NOT get into
trouble, rather than out and out just sending a packet
of the stuff to leak all over his desk.  Again a point
in the twins' favour.

Elkins:
> I tend to think that Percy's coping mechanism isn't
> so much his ambition per se as it is his "puffing".

Yes, you're right:puffing is Percy's coping 
mechanism, whereas ambition, as expressed in his
grades and other academic achievements, is the
motivating force behind creating the tools for social
mobility.

Elkins:
> Hmmm.  Perhaps I'm just a bit more willing to 
> forgive malice than you are?  Even people who are on
> the whole well-meaning can still act with malice, 
> and often *do,* particularly when they are angry. 
> Feeding the Canary Cream to Neville, for example, 
> may have been a bit unkind, but I don't think that 
> it was intended that way -- I don't think that it 
> was intentionally malicious.  But I do think that 
> malice does motivate a number of their pranks -- the
> toffee incident with Dudley leaps to mind -- and 
> that this tendency is particularly evident when it 
> comes to their harrassment of Percy.

How funny!  And here I am thinking Elkins just won't
give those boys a break!  It's not that I'm unwilling
to forgive malice; I truly believe that the prank
Sirius played on Snape was full of spite, and my love
for the twins is nothing compared to my love for
Sirius!  I also think Snape should get over it, and I
say this from a prankee's perspective.  I just
honestly don't read the twins' pranks as
mean-spirited, and I think unintentional malice is
oxymoronic-if there's no intent at all, how can there
be malintent, a.k.a malice?!  

But I think I see what you mean, that one can have
subconscious ill-will.  Even though I cannot reconcile
harmful intent with the twins' playfulness, I admit
human nature, because of its complexity, always
requires us to have various, even contradictory
reasons for doing something; it's never just cut and
dried.  

A prank, as a concept, isn't bad. IMO, pranks are
necessary.  We need to laugh.  Pranksters also serve
an important social function, and in an old post I
described the toffee incident as F&G punishing Dudley
for his treatment of Harry.  Like moongirlk, I see
nothing wrong with the canary cream incident, and I'm
very fond of Neville.  It is certainly true that
pranksters need to know when they have crossed the
line, but prankees also need to know when to take a
joke.  I would even suggest the ability to take a
joke(discussed also in my old post as a quality the
twins have) indicates great depth of character, and
Neville's behaviour is exemplary-he earned even more
of my respect for the way he handled that joke.

And I have to throw Amy Z in here (well, you know what
I mean Amy Z!) on sibling behaviour:
>It's not bad on the overall scale of sibling
>relations, though I could do without the "dungbrains"
>and all that.  I grew up thinking that was 
>perfectly normal sibling behavior until I met
>children who actually liked their siblings and whose
>parents expected the siblings to treat each other 
>with respect.  

I also grew up thinking teasing and insulting were
part of normal sibling behaviour, and still do.  Why
should it mean the Weasleys dislike and disrespect
each other?  In my reading of the books, (and in my
own experience) it actually indicates how close the
siblings are.  I don't see it as having a corrosive
effect on mutual respect and affection at all.


I think this is where I sign off on the twins.  I
can't believe I've spent so much time defending the
wretches!  
Ama



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