Do people like SYCOPHANTS?

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 36693

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

If they die, they die in a disturbing ridiculous fashion. If they 
survive, they survive in a demeaning ridiculous fashion. Tolkien was 
an exception who gave his sycophants and neurotics the best death 
scenes in the book. And Gollum got some pretty interesting (if 
not snappy) dialogue too, plus more screen time than Sauron. But have 
you ever heard of one of the miserable ones living out his life 
productively afterwards? The closest I can get to is Smee being a 
nanny for the Indians and telling people that he was the only person 
James Hook ever feared. And that's still in the realms of the 
ridiculous. 

So, unless JKR is unique among all writers, we can safely assume that 
Avery and Pettigrew will get no pity. Authorial sympathy on the other 
hand.... I don't know. Pettigrew. Will Pettigrew have the famous 
Gollum/Smeagol scene where he finds Harry and Ron sleeping, reaches 
out to touch Harry, and is hexed by Ron who wakes up thinking 
Pettigrew's trying to kill Harry? (BTW, can't wait to see that in the 
Two Towers movie. I'll be crying volumes of tears.) Will JKR? I don't 
know. She's blackened Pettigrew's character grievously, but every once 
and a while there's a passage that makes me wonder if she feels for 
him. The line that most touched me in the whole book is "You look like 
James.", though, and I'm sure she meant that to demonstrate how 
devious Pettigrew was, shedding crocodile tears. 

> 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.

I was in a different discussion group once upon a time, and was 
similarily shocked. The reason I think PoA is such a good book is that 
my stomach goes into a hard knot everytime I remember that scene. Each 
time I read it, I feel sick for Pettigrew. 

It's not because he's likeable. To answer Dicentra's question, I have 
no wish to cuddle Peter. But I couldn't kill him. I'd let him live, 
because I'm a bleeding heart. Perhaps, it's that thing called pity. I 
remember at an early age falling in love with this conversation of 
Tolkien's. "It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had the 
chance." "Pity? Pity stayed his hand." "But he deserved to die." "Many 
who live deserve death, and many die who deserve life. Can you give it 
to them?" 

> 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).

Agreed. The old cliche of Death the Leveler. But not only are people 
equals in Death, but they tend to equalize (in my psyche) when facing 
death. The Star Wars thing again. I don't mind when the stormtroopers 
go down because they don't ever come across as people to me with those 
outfits, and not much dialogue - snappy or otherwise. But I can't 
cheer or smirk when Darth Vader disposes of Needa and Ozzel, nor when 
the roof crashes in on Piett, or when Han and Luke shoot that guy who 
didn't believe their story on the Death Star, and that guy who called 
down to ask them why they weren't at their places. They come across as 
people for at least a moment in the story, and I just don't like 
seeing their faces when they die. Amuses my friends immensely. 

> 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.

Ditto. 


> 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.)

Oh sorry, I did mean Sirius. Lupin was charming all right, though. 

> 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.

It's not like Sirius was ever in the position of being tortured by a 
Dark Lord, is it? It's not thaaat fun. I'm sick and tired of virtuous 
characters never ever cracking. Like Princess Leia in Star Wars, who 
never told Darth Vader anything about the rebel base because she was 
the heroine, except when she was threatened with having her planet 
blown up, in which case she lied. ARGGGHH. 

Cracked characters in HP. Let me think.

Bertha Jorkins. Bertha Jorkins definitely cracked. And she is 
portrayed heroically in the end, so I'll take this as a good sign. 

> 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.

I was wondering whether we ever gave an impression of toughness to 
Cindy, and suddenly vaguely and blurrily remembered, under the 
influence of Cindy's bloodlust, jumping up and down and screaming 
"Bloody Ambush!" 

But, bloody ambush appreciation can co-exist with SYCOPHANTism. It's 
the Avery thing again. Avery who is both sickened and attracted by 
violence. 

> 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.

LOL! Despite the sob story about the evil Muggle father and the 
orphanage, Riddle really doesn't have much reason for turning out 
badly.

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

I couldn't stand Wormtongue as a child. Probably the intimation that 
he probably ate Lotho Pimple Sackville-Baggins (or was that just 
Saruman's slanders? He sure reacts guiltily.) That and the fact that 
our "tEWWW EWWWW tEWWW be trEWWW" gained many of its few converts 
because it reminded them of Grima Wormtongue's aim in life. (In fact, 
I remember someone on this list writing, "No. Snape's not nice. Not 
nice at all.")

Still, the more I read it, the more I feel sorry for the guy. He 
didn't even get much respect when he was helpfully running Rohan for 
Theoden. 

The parallels are way too obvious, of course. "Wormtongue" vs. 
"Wormtail." Pathetic minions despised by their masters, who snivel a 
whole lot. Does it mean Pettigrew will kill Voldemort, not in a heroic 
burst of enthusiasm for Harry, but because he's fed up with V. ruining 
his life? 

Eileen