Do people like SYCOPHANTS?

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 36910

Dicentra wrote:

> Dicentra_spectabilis_alba looks at her name and over to the 
> SYCOPHANTS charter, then over to her name again and realizes that 
> she chose as an alias a freaking bleeding heart, which she is not.

And a *lily-white* bleeding heart, at that!  

The first time that I saw your handle, actually, I figured that you 
must be poking some fun at your own political leanings -- much as I'm 
doing, in fact, whenever I cheerfully declare myself to be a Bleeding 
Heart.  But then I reconsidered because, really, you're one of the 
less bleeding heartish people around here, aren't you?

Not that I'm saying that you're mean or sociopathic or unkind or 
anything, you understand.  Just that, like Cindy, you're pretty Tough.

So would you rather be a pair of Dutchman's breeches, then?


> Just out of curiosity, Elkins, does this pity you feel for 
> SYCOPHANTS like Peter extend to Mercy? 

Hmmm.

I've been pondering this question for some time now, trying to decide
how to respond.  Part of the problem here is that I'm not quite sure
what you mean by "mercy."  If what you mean is "do you find yourself
wanting Pettigrew to be spared further pain?" then I guess the answer 
would have to be yes.  I think that he's a pretty piss-poor excuse 
for a human being, but I can't take pleasure in his suffering.   

But of course, there's a line to be drawn between wishing to spare 
people unnecessary pain and allowing them exploit you.  I don't think 
for a minute, for example, that the proper response to Shrieking 
Shack ought to have been: "Aw, look.  Poor Peter's really *miserable.*
It just wouldn't be nice to send him to prison when he's already so 
desperately unhappy.  So why don't we just let him go?"

Even if that is, um.  Sort of what ended up happening.  In the end.  
But of course, no one could have predicted that.  

Well.  Except for Trelawney, that is. 

If by "mercy" you mean "forgiveness," though, or "rapproachment," as 
in: do I find myself, while reading that scene, desperately wishing 
that Sirius or Remus would cut the poor guy a break already, give his 
shoulder a gentle compassionate squeeze, tell him that they
understand, reassure him that it's all going to be okay, commiserate 
with him over what a rotten time he must have had these past thirteen 
years, and then hand him a nice cool glass of water, 'cause he must 
be really thirsty after all of those hysterics?

No.  Of course not.  Peter has, after all, just spent pages and pages 
continuing to try to pin the blame on Sirius.  He's in no position to 
ask for either their forgiveness or their friendship.

And for what it's worth, he never does.  Even Pettigrew doesn't do 
that.  He does try to enlist their sympathies, but only for the 
purpose of swaying them to *mercy,* which isn't at all the same thing 
as forgiveness.

In past discussions, Cindy has cited this as a big black mark against 
Peter in her books.  "He never once apologizes!" she is wont to cry.  
But you know, I gotta say that to my mind, that's probably the only 
thing to Peter's credit in the entire scene.  He may tell terrible 
lies.  He may try to rationalize his behavior.  He may shamelessly 
seek to exploit the childrens' youth and innocence.  He may beg, and 
he may weep; he may whine and wheedle and grovel and cajole.  But at 
least he never once tries to *apologize.*

Because really, offering an apology under those circumstances would 
have been simply _obscene._


> When you see Peter writhing on the floor, crying, do you want to 
> comfort him, or are you content, though sad, to see him get his 
> just desserts?

> --Dicentra, who probably shouldn't have mentioned dessert...

Oh, no.  You *really* shouldn't have mentioned dessert.  ;-)

Because now you've set me off on this subject.  I've always had some 
genuine difficulties in comprehending the notion of "just desserts."  
I honestly just don't get how that's supposed to work.  People have 
told me that I have an underdeveloped sense of justice, and perhaps 
that's true -- perhaps I do have some sort of moral blind spot where 
that's concerned -- because I can't say that I've really ever 
understood the concept at all.

In Shrieking Shack, for example, what precisely *are* the just 
desserts that one might feel "content, though sad" to witness?  A 
grown man grovelling on the floor, sobbing in helpless terror as he 
waits for the ex-friends he has betrayed to avenge themselves on him 
by committing an act of murder?

I'm really not trying to be argumentative here, but I honestly just 
don't get it.  No matter how hard I look, I can't seem to find 
anything the slightest bit contentment-inspiring about that.  Not 
only is it unspeakably ugly, it also...well, it just doesn't do any 
*good.*  It doesn't right any wrongs; it doesn't cause anyone to 
behave any better; it doesn't ensure anyone's safety; it brings no 
one any closer to redemption or virtue or even simple happiness.  It 
doesn't make the world a better place in any way, shape or form.  
There's just nothing there *to* make me feel content.

I mean, I'm not a saint, by any means.  I understand anger, and I 
understand vengeance.  I understand the phenomenon of taking 
vindictive pleasure in someone else's suffering, especially if 
they've wronged you terribly.  But for me, that type of pleasure has 
nothing to do with justice, and everything to do with anger.  And it 
isn't anything like "contentment" either.  Gratification, perhaps, 
or satisfaction, but not contentment.  And it can't exist side by 
side with sadness, either -- at least, not for me.  Vindictiveness 
isn't a sad emotion.  It can be gleeful, it can be grim, but it can't 
really be sad.

I can even understand why one might feel "content, though sad" to 
witness the suffering of a certain type of smug, complacent, self-
satisfied evil-doer.  There's often that sense (completely incorrect, 
IMO, but nonetheless common) that perhaps people like that only 
behave so badly because they just don't *understand* suffering -- 
they don't know what it is, they don't know what it's like -- and 
that therefore a bit of personal suffering might somehow enoble them, 
or at least encourage them to think twice before inflicting it on 
others.  Personally, I think that's utter nonsense  -- suffering 
generally makes people worse, not better -- but I can at least 
understand the emotional logic behind it.

But a miserable wretch like Pettigrew?  Why would witnessing his 
suffering make me feel sad-but-content?  It's not as if he's been 
*happy* for the thirteen years prior to PoA.  He's been in hiding, 
and from his behavior as a rat, I get the impression that he's been 
pretty depressed and miserable as well.  So there's not even that 
sense of "There.  Now you see what it's like?" to provide any sense 
of emotional satisfaction.

Nor does being unhappy cause Peter to behave any better.  His fear 
and his misery are part and parcel of his wickedness: they don't make 
him better; they make him much much *worse.*  So there's no 
contentment to be found there, either.

No, from my perspective, Peter's terror in the Shack was just yet 
another big load o' misery heaped on top of the already-stuffed-to-
bursting baggage of human suffering that was that entire situation.  
It's just more pain.  I think that in order to think of it as "just 
desserts," you must have to view there as being some sort of 
equilibrium effect: there's some central fulcrum somewhere, and pain 
on one side balances out pain on the other, making it all come out 
even in some strange way.  But I don't tend to view things that way.  
If there's a fulcrum, then I tend to view Pettigrew's misery as 
sitting on exactly the same side of it as the Potters' deaths, and 
Cedric's murder, and the Crouch family tragedy, and the Longbottoms' 
madness, and Karkaroff's predicament, and Sirius' wrongful 
imprisonment, and the fate of all of the DEs in the graveyard, and 
all of the other horrors of the entire conflict.

If there's anything on the other side of that fulcrum, then it's 
certainly not more suffering.  Not IMO, anyway.

One of my favorite parts of GoF is the scene in which Harry, 
contemplating what he has just learned about the Longbottoms, finds 
himself identifying strongly with that jeering mob at Crouch's trial, 
and then pulls himself out of it by remembering Crouch's terror as he 
was led away by the dementors, as well as the fact that he was dead 
one year later.  He then comes to the realization that all of that 
misery -- the Longbottoms', Crouch's -- really derives from exactly 
the same source.  

It's highly ironic, of course, because what Harry doesn't know is 
that not only did Crouch Jr. not really die, but that he is also 
acting as Harry's hidden adversary. 

But for me, that irony in no way weakens the power of the passage.  
It strengthens it tremendously.


All that said, though, I did find Pettigrew's utter breakdown at the 
end of Shrieking Shack emotionally satisfying on one level.  I found 
it satisfying because it came across as (finally!) his 
acknowledgement of having actually done something *wrong,* which was 
a particular relief after all of those pages of pathetic denials and 
lies and excuses.  I don't really understand the "just desserts" 
thing, but I suppose that I do at least have enough of an innate 
sense of justice to find gratification -- a feeling of satisfactory 
resolution -- in admissions of culpability.  So yes, on that level 
I did feel some satisfaction at the man's collapse into tears.

Um...so does that answer your question at all?


About reader sympathy, Cindy wrote:

> Where I have trouble, though, is the idea that there is plenty of 
> sympathy, empathy and pity to go around. Take the Shack, for 
> instance. When it is the Trio versus Sirius, we're all routing for 
> the Trio and no one feels sympathy or empathy with Sirius. (Right?) 
> Even when Harry is standing over him threatening to blast Sirius. 
> (Right?)

Rooting for Harry?  Are you kidding?  When Harry was standing over 
Sirius considering blasting him, I wanted to grab the dumb kid from 
behind and pin his arms.

But then, that wasn't so much sympathy for Sirius as it was 
comprehension that the situation wasn't at all what Harry thought it 
was.  And also...

Well, how to say this without it coming across as either droolingly 
self-evident or insufferably self-righteous?

I hate murder.  I really do: I just *hate* it.  I'm not crazy about 
killing at all, to tell you the truth, but murder is something that I 
simply and purely and absolutely detest.  And to my mind, once 
someone is lying on his back staring at you while you're holding a 
weapon on him, it's no longer self-defense if you kill him.  It's 
murder.

So there was that.  But there was also some sympathy for Sirius there 
as well: I didn't know quite what was up with him yet, true, but at 
that point, I was willing to extend my sympathy to *anyone* fresh 
from thirteen years in Azkaban.  And like I've said, the person in 
the scene who's staring death in the face always gets first dibs on 
my sympathies.


> Then it becomes Lupin, Sirius and the Trio versus Pettigrew. 
> Although Elkins makes a mighty fine case for Pettigrew needing some 
> sympathy and all, the problem I have is that I have a limited 
> reservoir of sympathy and empathy. It's a zero sum game for me.

Hmmmm.  Well, in real life, things can sometimes seem this way to me, 
because real life so often demands that you take some form of 
*action* when a conflict arises, and taking action in a time of 
conflict usually necessitates choosing sides.  Extending ones 
sympathies equally to all sides of a conflict would make it extremely 
difficult, psychologically speaking, to take any form of action at 
*all* -- although of course, if you go too far in the other 
direction, then you fall into the trap of demonizing your enemies, 
which I really do think is a dangerous habit.  And of course, pouring 
out ones sympathy and empathy to all and sundry in the real world 
leads directly to burn-out, if not to exploitation or nervous 
collapse.  So I can sort of see what Cindy means here.

But as a reader, I just don't have that problem.  Since as a reader I 
can't actually *do* anything to affect the course of events, I don't 
find myself at all tempted to withdraw my sympathies from one side or 
the other of any given conflict.  I feel for each and every character 
in Shrieking Shack.  It doesn't feel particularly strange or 
confusing to me; it feels perfectly natural.

Perhaps this is part of the reason that I usually fail to
appreciate "just desserts" humor?  Or think it kind of weird that so 
many people consider it "impossible" to feel equal affection for 
characters who hate each other within canon?


> Now the graveyard is completely different. Cedric has just been 
> killed. Harry is tied to a gravestone with a filthy rag in his 
> mouth, but compared to what happened to Cedric, that isn't so bad. 
> Pettigrew, though. Pettigrew is cutting off his *hand*. And we know 
> how difficult this must be for him. . . . So there's some sympathy 
> to be had for little Peter there.

<blink>

Are you really claiming that your heart was bleeding for poor widdle
Peter in the graveyard, Cindy?  I mean, you weren't *really* feeling
great sympathy for him there, were you?  Really?  'Cause I gotta say, 
that seems kind of...um, out of character.

Then, I guess the hand-lopping did show some Toughness, didn't it.


I wrote: 

> ...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.

Cindy said:

> Interesting. Then does this mean that Crouch Jr. had your sympathy 
> when the dementor sucked out his soul? 

<shudder>

Oh, Cindy, did you *have* to?

You know, I try really hard to avoid envisioning that scene at all?  
It makes me sick just to contemplate it.  I've a lot of feeling for 
young Crouch, you know, and dementors really do freak me out.

But since you've forced me to go there, oh yeah.  You bet he had my 
sympathy.  In fact, I tried desperately to convince myself that he 
was unconscious at the time.  But I didn't really manage to believe 
it for a moment.

(Interesting note: just last night, my housemate brought up -- 
independently, I swear it! -- that very scene.  And you know what he 
said?  He said, "I keep trying to convince myself that Crouch was 
unconscious by the time the dementor got to him, because otherwise I 
can't stand to think about it."  And then he was utterly bewildered --
 and until I explained it to him, a little bit hurt as well -- when I 
burst into laughter.)

I also felt a tremendous degree of sympathy for Crouch during his 
veritaserum confession.  Sympathy, pity, empathy, identification...
the whole package.


> How about Buckbeak, and by extension, Hagrid?

Hagrid, certainly.  I felt for Hagrid.  I never felt too much 
sympathy for Buckbeak, though, because in spite of being an 
apparently intelligent creature -- he could understand when he was 
being insulted, for example -- he showed no signs of having any 
comprehension of what was going on during that whole plotline.  He 
doesn't even respond with any signs of sympathetic distress to 
Hagrid's grief -- unlike, say, Fang in CoS.  If I'd believed for a 
moment that Buckbeak had the slightest understanding of what was 
about to happen to him, I probably would have felt some sympathy for 
him, too, but as it was, I didn't.


<On Sirius' "die to protect your friends" comment>

> True, Sirius risks his life repeatedly for his friends. But then 
> again, we haven't seen Sirius knowingly walk into a situation where 
> he is facing a substantial risk of death.

Haven't we?  Or at least, if not seen it, then heard about it?

I always figured that by insisting upon the Secret Keeper bluff, 
Sirius was actually volunteering to risk a fate possibly even *worse* 
than death.  I mean, just look at what happened to the Longbottoms!

No, I'm with Dicentra on this one.  I've got no doubt that Sirius 
would die to protect his friends.  But that line still makes me 
uncomfortabld, mainly because I'm not altogether certain that *I* 
would -- although of course I would like to believe that I would.  
And also because...well, he's just been ranting on and on about what 
a coward Peter is, right?  What a coward he's *always* been, and what 
a weakling, and what a fundamentally opportunistic personality, and 
how the entire point of the bluff in the first place was that no one 
would ever suspect that they'd choose such a person to serve as 
their Secret Keeper, and...

And, well, it just annoys me a bit, is all.  I always find myself 
thinking: "Well, really now, Sirius!  If you always knew that he was 
like that, then what the hell *else* did you expect?"

Of course, I don't really believe for a moment that Sirius always 
believed Peter to be all of those things.  He has, after all, had 
thirteen years with little else to do but to revise his opinion of 
Peter's character, and most of what he says in the Shack is not only 
spoken in anger, but also designed to wound.  But even knowing that, 
there's always some strange Hermionesque part of my brain that wants 
to step in at that moment and say: "Er, excuse me.  Mr. Black?  
Sirius?"


-- Elkins