Do people like SYCOPHANTS?

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 36659

Well, I guess you all probably know already how I'm bound to respond
to Eileen's questions about the sycophant characters, right?  

But I'm going to answer them anyway.

Eileen wrote:

> Sycophants make great characters at point. Note Grima Wormtongue 
> and Peter Pettigrew. But do people actually like them? Do you ever 
> feel sympathetic with a sycophant? 

Yes. I always identify with weakness -- weakness is really the one 
characteristic that unifies all of those character types included
under the SYCOPHANTS banner -- and the minions are almost always my 
favorite characters.

Part of the reason for this, I suppose, is pure sympathy for the 
underdog.  Head Villains very rarely win in the end, it's true, but 
at least until they finally get what's coming to them, they *do* get 
to be powerful.  (The story wouldn't be very satisfying if they 
didn't.)  They may be doomed to failure within the wider scope of the 
narrative, but until the end of the story, they get to kill and bully 
and torment and otherwise lord it over everyone who crosses their 
path.  And because it's genre convention that proper villains ought 
to be charismatic, they often get really snappy dialogue, as well.

Their minions, on the other hand, don't even get that much.  Not only 
are they doomed to failure, they're also subject people even while 
their own side is winning.  And not only that, but even the authorial 
voice often doesn't seem to care for them!  If they're not cannon 
fodder, pure and simple, then they're secondary villains that the 
reader is supposed to roundly despise: they hardly ever get any cool 
lines of dialogue, they rarely have a decent dress sense, they're 
almost never good-looking, and their dignity is stripped from them as 
a matter of course.  Minions just get no respect or sympathy from 
anyone: they're despised by their enemies and their evil overlords 
alike.  They're losers, through and through.

And of course that garners my sympathy!  I mean, what sort of person 
*doesn't* instinctively root for the underdog?  


> When you read the Shrieking Shack scene for the first time, were 
> you feeling it more from Sirius/Lupin's angry POV or Pettigrew's 
> desperately afraid POV? 

This is very similar to one of the questions proposed for discussion
at the end of the summary of Chapter Nineteen of PoA, back when this 
list was still doing weekly chapter-by-chapter discussions of the 
books.  The question then, IIRC, was something along the lines 
of: "Did you feel any sympathy for Pettigrew?"

And I have to admit that I was *shocked* to read the responses.  I 
kept scrolling through the messages, reading "no," "no," "absolutely 
not," "are you kidding me?" and the like, over and over and over 
again, and my jaw was just dropping to the floor.  I honestly could 
not believe what I was seeing.


> Well, it might be something strange in me but I was seeing it from 
> the second POV. 

I guess I must share your strangeness then, because for me, if 
there's one person in the scene in fear for his life, then that's the 
person who *always* gets the first claim on my sympathy.  It doesn't 
matter who it is or what he's done: the desire not to die is just so 
compelling, so universal, so utterly *fundamental* that it garners 
sympathy and identification as a matter of simple human default -- 
very much as physical pain does.  I could no more have withheld 
identification from Pettigrew in Shrieking Shack than I could have 
withheld it from Harry in the graveyard at the end of GoF (to take an 
example in rather striking contrast when it comes to the character's 
actual *behavior* in the face of imminent death).

And also, really, identification with Pettigrew in Shrieking Shack is 
just so very *easy,* isn't it?  I mean, it's a total no-brainer.  
There's absolutely nothing alien about his situation except for its 
sordid and excessive details.  

Afraid of death?  Yup.  Been there.  (Hell, I *live* there.)  
Hopelessly overpowered by those around you?  Yeah, I've been there, 
too.  Anyone who didn't spring fully-grown from their father's 
*skull* has been there.  Know perfectly well that you've done 
something wrong, and that you have absolutely no real excuse for it?  
Well, yeah, I've been there as well.  Hasn't everyone been there, 
at least once in their life?

I sympathized very deeply with Sirius and Remus, of course, but I 
can't say that I was really identifying with either of them in the 
same way.  I wasn't feeling their rage.  What I was feeling in regard 
to them was pity, mixed with a very deep concern.  I was fearful for 
them and worried about them, and I wanted to protect them from 
themselves -- which I suppose placed my reader identification far 
closer to one with Harry in that scene.


On a related note, Eileen also asked:

> BTW, did you feel a twinge of sympathy for Pettigrew when he said 
> the Dark Lord forced him to betray the Potters? I did (at least the 
> first time around) and Lupin's reaction still doesn't feel good for 
> me. 

Hmmm.  Lupin's reaction?  Do you mean his charming "You should have 
realized if Voldemort didn't kill you, we would?"  Or were you 
thinking more of Sirius' "you should have died rather than betray 
your friends" statement?  

(Or...no.  No, excuse me.  What I really *meant* to say, of course, 
was Sirius' "YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS" 
statement.  So sorry.)

That line of Sirius' has never made me feel too good either.  I 
mean...

<Elkins squirms uncomfortably>

I mean, of course we all like to *believe* that we'd die rather than 
betray our friends, don't we?  But...well...I mean...

<more squirming>

> I mean, "Who doesn't crack every once and a while?" 

Yes!  Exactly.

<brightly>

But actually, you know, the situation wasn't really like that at 
*all!*  So we don't have to worry about it any more.  Right?

> Now, of course, it looks like Pettigrew's guilty as sin.

Right.  Phew!  What a relief *that* is!  Weaklings all across the 
*globe* were just swooning with gratitude when JKR made *that* 
authorial decision, I can tell you.


Cindy, on the other hand, is not Weak, but Tough.  She therefore Has 
No Sympathy:

> My goodness! What's going on here? Are you guys starting to -- 
> well, there's just no gentle way to say it -- go *Soft* on me? What 
> am I hearing? Sympathy for Pettigrew? Doubt about Crouch Jr.'s 
> guilt? What next – Tom Riddle was just misunderstood?

Er...not to quibble, but haven't we *always* been "Soft?"  I mean, 
Eileen and I have always been the Bleeding Heart Sycophants around 
here, haven't we?  Neither of us has ever made the slightest claim to 
Toughness.  So I don't really know whether it's even *possible* for 
us to "go" Soft.  We started out that way.

But as to Tom Riddle, of *course* he was misunderstood!  He was 
terribly misunderstood.  After all, back in his student days, it 
seems that just about everyone but Dumbledore thought that he was a 
really nice guy.  I'd call that a case of being fairly well 
misunderstood.

The poor dear.

> No, I don't think I can sign on for the Pity Party that seems to be 
> forming here. Pettigrew was Evil. Evil, evil and really evil. 

I'm with Eileen here.  Yeah, Pettigrew's a rotter.  He's seriously 
bad news.  But people don't have to be *good* to get my pity; they 
just have to be wretched and miserable and helpless and trapped.  And 
Pettigrew's certainly all of those things.  In fact, I pity Pettigrew
far more than I would a truly admirable person, because he doesn't 
even have the solace of knowing himself to be essentially blameless 
to see him through.  He knows that he's guilty, he knows that he's 
got no one but himself to blame for his situation, and he knows that 
even though his behavior is sickening, he's still not going to change 
it.  

And yeah, I really do pity people like that.

> You know why I'm not cutting Pettigrew or Crouch Jr. a break? 
> Because neither Pettigrew nor Crouch Jr. is *sorry*.

Crouch Jr. indeed shows no signs of remorse for anything he has done
anywhere in GoF, unless one counts his evident fatigue, twitchiness, 
and possible absent-mindedness the morning after his father's murder.
And even if one *does* choose to interpret these as signs of remorse, 
he would seem to have quashed those nasty little feelings of qualm
quite adequately by the time he reaches his "mad, am I?" monologue 
at the end of the book.

Pettigrew, though?  Oh, I think it's quite clear that Pettigrew feels 
remorse.  What he *doesn't* do is to allow that sense of remorse to 
override his sense of self-preservation, and thus to do anything to
actually atone for his wrong-doings.  Instead, he just falls into
self-loathing.  

Now, self-loathing isn't at all a *useful* response to remorse, it 
is true.  It does absolutely nothing to mitigate the original offense,
it doesn't make you feel any better -- in fact, it does absolutely 
nothing beneficial for anyone.  But it's still certainly evidence 
of remorse.

> Pettigrew never expresses any regret at all in the Shrieking Shack. 

That all rather depends on how you interpret his breaking down at the 
end of the scene, doesn't it?  I mean, I suppose that you could read
his bursting into tears there as purely manipulative behavior: his 
one desperate last-ditch attempt to inspire mercy.  You could view it 
as a manifestation of simple terror.  Or you could view it as 
indicative of the guilty despair of remorse.

I read it as a blend of all three, myself.


Back to Eileen:

> Now, I can take the pain given to weaker characters, and, being a 
> FEATHERBOA, enjoy it, but my heart still goes out to every 
> miserable fictional character that comes along. 

<Elkins smiles in sympathy and offers Eileen a sprig of Dicentra 
Eximia, the Western Bleeding Heart, which grows bountifully here in 
the drizzly Green city of Portland, Oregon.>  


> Is this wide-spread phenomenon? Or are we only a few whose supply 
> of pity is infinite?

We may be few, Eileen, but at least it's not just the two of us 
anymore.  Jamie actually purchased a *SYCOPHANTS badge!*  

She did so off-list, admittedly (that shame factor is just *so* hard 
to combat, isn't it?), but she did say that it would be okay if I 
shared the news with everyone.

And I also just noticed this, from A Goldfeesh:

> A Goldfeesh -who wonders at the Sorting Hat putting her in 
> Slytherin, not being too ambitious or cunning and so likely 
> destined to be a lowly sycophant...

<Elkins peers into the Goldfeesh's bowl, offering a badge and a 
packet of pamphlets>

SYCOPHANTS membership packet, Goldfeesh?

Eileen:

> I have this tendency to get along well with sycophants, neurotics 
> and the rest. One of my first fanfics was about how Gollum survived 
> Mt. Doom and Merry and Pippin brought him back to the Shire and 
> reformed him by taking him swimming and on picnics. (I was very 
> young.)

Oh my God.  Eileen, that is so *cute!*

But how about Grima?  No redemption scenario for poor old Grima 
Wormtongue, the patron saint of sycophants?

> Grima Wormtongue, the patron saint of sycophants! But he didn't 
> survive, Elkins, he didn't survive. Even Frodo couldn't save him.

> Eileen goes off polishing her SYCOPHANT badge sadly. 

<sigh>

No.  He didn't survive.  

But then, you know, if the sycophants were really in the habit of 
*surviving* their stories, then I highly doubt that we'd feel such an 
overwhelming desire to champion them.


-- Elkins, polishing up her own SYCOPHANTS badge as she wanders down 
to the beach to see how the Fourth Man kayak is bearing up under the 
pressure of its recent population explosion.