Peter Pettigrew Is Ever So Brave (was House assumptions)

Sun Oct 13 23:29:38 UTC 2002

No: HPFGUIDX 45291

Ani wrote:

> Likewise, if Peter were the token Slytherin or Hufflepuff, well 
> *grumble* 

Grumble indeed!

I quite agree, Ani.  Even leaving aside for the moment the fact that 
people are sorted at the tender age of eleven, and that life does 
have a way of wearing us down (especially in times of war), I think 
Peter's a pretty good Gryffindor, myself. The only one of the Sorting 
Hat's stated criteria that he does not fulfill is chivalry.

Let's look at what the Sorting Hat has told us about those criteria, 
shall we?

What are the characteristics of House Gryffindor?

>From PS/SS:

"brave at heart"
"daring"
"nerve"
"chivalry"

>From GoF:

"bravest"

Hmmm.  Funny, isn't it?  I don't see "integrity" anywhere on the 
list.  Nor do I see a single mention of "pride," "stoicism," 
or "courage."  I don't see "wisdom" either -- although I did see that 
mentioned as a Ravenclaw characteristic.  I don't see "loyalty" -- 
that's Hufflepuff.  Nor do I see any clause about "those who do not 
betray their friends to the enemy."  Ironically enough, the closest 
thing to *that* criterion that the Hat has ever cited has been 
attributed to House Slytherin.

So why all this dismay over the Sorting of Peter Pettigrew?

Becky wrote:

> Remember, *moral* bravery is not the same thing as *bravery.* 

No.  It isn't.  In fact, we don't generally call it "moral bravery" 
at all, do we?  That phrase sounds quite strange and awkward to a 
native English speaker.  It sounds all wrong.

It sounds wrong because in idiomatic English, when we speak of moral 
bravery, we do not generally refer to it as "bravery" at all.  
Instead, we tend to refer to that quality as "moral *courage.*"

There's a subtle but important connotative difference between the two 
words.  "Bravery" implies *physical* courage.  It is not often used 
to refer to moral or spiritual integrity.  When we willingly risk 
physical harm, injury or death, for example, we call that "braving 
danger."  But when we stand up for what is right, when we act on our 
sense of moral integrity, then we call it "having the *courage* of 
our convictions."

Naturally, the two concepts are very strongy aligned.  Still, I do 
find it interesting that the Hat should consistently choose to use 
the word "bravery" in its songs, while never once employing the 
term "courage."  The Hat also stresses "daring" and "nerve," both of 
which similarly refer to a very specific -- and very physical -- form 
of courage.  

The conclusion that I reach from all this is that the particular type 
of courage that the Hat (and therefore, one assumes, Godric 
Gryffindor himself) most strongly values is the ability to face 
danger and to withstand pain.  It is a conception of courage that 
seems perfectly in keeping with an eleventh century sword-wielding 
warrior mage.  It is a warrior culture's conception of courage, and 
not necessarily one that coincides all that well with that of our own 
20th century culture.

Now we do, I think, tend to assume that moral courage is also quite 
important to House Gryffindor.  There are indications that it is.  
The Gryffindor characters we see in canon themselves place a very 
high value on that sort of courage, and there are also a few 
characters (Hermione and Neville) whose allocation to House 
Gryffindor only seems explicable if we assume either that the Hat 
prioritizes values over proclivities, or that it is looking not only 
for physical bravery, but also for moral courage, the "courage of 
ones convictions," the willingness to stand up for what is right.  It 
is the sort of courage that Dumbledore himself prioritizes.  It is 
what he rewards Neville for, and it also lies at the heart of his 
"what is right vs. what is easy" speech.

But is it a *primary* consideration of House Gryffindor, that sort of 
courage?  Is it what the Hat itself prioritizes?

It doesn't look to me as if it is.  It looks to me as if moral 
integrity ranks somewhere down below "bravery," "daring," "nerve" 
and "chivalry."

Peter's doing okay by those standards, I'd say.  He's a middling good 
Gryff.  He's not very chivalrous, true, but bravery?  Daring?  
Nerve?  He's got quite a bit of those, even if it is often masked by 
the fact that he has absolutely no *pride.*

But then, "pride" has never been cited as a Gryffindor criterion 
either. 

-----------------

Ani wrote:

> Courage comes in all forms, and while I well not try and argue that 
> Peter's been overly brave, I will point out (again) that he argued 
> (kind of ) with Voldemort's plan twice, and he was scared, but he 
> did it anyway, so he does have courage. 

Oh, I'll happily argue that Peter is brave!  A moral coward, but 
physically brave.  And with Nerve and Daring to spare, too.  

Brave?  You want to know if Peter Pettigrew is brave?

Well, okay.  Let's just look at what he's *done,* shall we?

--Animagus Adventures--

Barb already cited Peter's animagus adventures as proof of his 
bravery:

> I also believe it took some bravery to learn to become an Animagus 
> in secret in order to accompany a werewolf. 

I agree.  Even leaving the werewolf issue aside for the moment, it 
took a hell of a lot of nerve just to risk *trying* the animagus 
transformation, I'd say.  In PoA, Lupin says:

"'Your father and Sirius here were the cleverest students in the 
school, and lucky they were, because the Animagus transformation can 
go horribly wrong -- one reason the Ministry keeps a close watch on 
those attempting to do it. Peter needed all the help he could get 
from James and Sirius.'"

I don't even what to *think* about what a "horribly gone wrong" 
animagus transformation might do to you, do you?  Ugh.  Scary.  And 
while Sirius and James may have been brilliant students, they weren't 
actually *professors,* were they?  They were teenaged boys who often 
did foolish things that thoughtlessly endangered the lives of others: 
the Prank, taking Werewolf!Lupin out for his midnight strolls.  Peter 
himself was not a brilliant student.  He was following their lead, 
even though he found the work difficult, and even though he knew that 
if they led him wrong, the results would likely be absolutely 
disastrous for him.  

Bravery?  Daring?  Nerve?  Oh, yeah.

Barb wrote:

> If he failed and reverted to human form, he could have been killed 
> by Remus.

Even if he knew that he wouldn't fail (it's possible that once you 
successfully become an animagus, it becomes so intrinsic to your very 
essence that you would never actually flub the transformation), it 
still took some guts, I'd say, to run around a forest in the middle 
of the night with a giant black dog, a werewolf who needs to 
be "controlled" by his larger animal friends, and a *stag,* sharp 
hooves and all, when you're stuck in the body of a little rat.  

I mean, forget about being eaten.  I would have worried about getting 
*trampled!*

I also would have worried about owls.  

Not to mention snakes. 

::slightly twisted smile::

--Spying for Voldemort--

So then what does Brave Peter do?  

He spies on his friends for over a year, passing information from the 
inside on to Voldemort.  Not very nice, no, but I'd say it certainly 
took *daring.*  It certainly took *nerve.*  Especially once it became 
clear that Sirius and James suspected someone.  They knew that there 
was a traitor in their midst.  That must have been pretty nerve-
wracking, I'd imagine.  What would have happened to him had he been 
caught out?  I wouldn't have the nerve for that sort of work.  
Severus Snape did.  So did Peter Pettigrew.

--Snookering Sirius--

Let's see, what then?  Well, he was left in a pretty tricky position 
after Voldemort's fall at Godric's Hollow, to be sure.  He knew that 
Sirius was going to be coming after him; as far as he knew, the 
entire *Ministry* would be on his tail; and if Sirius is to be 
believed, then the other Death Eaters were likely to be gunning for 
him as well.  So did he run and hide?  Did he throw himself on 
Dumbledore's mercy?  Did he go crawling to the Ministry to cut a 
deal, perhaps?  Maybe hand over a few DE names in exchange for 
clemency, or for a reduced sentence?

No.  He didn't do any of those things.  Instead, he quite ruthlessly 
and efficiently framed Sirius for his crimes and then faked his own 
death.  That took nerve too.  And daring.  And a good deal of 
bravery, as well, because he chose a plan that necessitated him 
facing down Sirius in *person.*  As it happened, he did succeed in 
pulling the timing off just right, but so many things could have gone 
wrong with that plan, most of them lethal.  Pettigrew could have 
thought up a different plan, perhaps, one that didn't require him to 
stand there in the street face to face with an enraged Sirius Black.  
But he didn't bother to.  That is because Peter Pettigrew is a 
*Gryffindor.*  He is BRAVE!  He LAUGHS in the face of danger!  Ha HA!

Oh, yeah, and he also severed his own finger.  But that doesn't 
impress me all that much, honestly.  After all, for all we know, he 
could have anaesthetized himself quite thoroughly beforehand.  Unlike 
the *hand,* which I will get to later.

--Biting Goyle--

Now we come to Pettigrew in the canon.  By the time of canon, he does 
seem to have been a bit degraded, I'd say, by all of those years 
spent in rat form.  As Scabbers, he primarily strikes me as 
profoundly depressed.  (He does little but eat and sleep, and 
exhibits a fondness for chocolate).  

Still, he does bite Goyle on the hand on the train in PS/SS, which 
may not seem like much, but when you consider their relative sizes 
does show a certain amount of spunk, I'd say, especially since 
adolescent bully boys are really not known for their tenderness 
towards their enemies' pets.  I wouldn't have wanted to mess with 
Goyle if I'd been Scabbers.  Just think of how much bigger Goyle 
was!  And how high off the ground (from a rat's perspective) he must 
have been, once Goyle started whipping him around, trying to get him 
to let go.  Indeed, he ends up getting slammed into a window for all 
his pains, which even given JKR's tendency towards exaggeration when 
it comes to physical comedy involving battered animals (bouncing 
ferret, anyone?), still had to hurt.  

Brave?  Well, yeah.

--Waiting Game in PoA--

>From the very start of the third book, Pettigrew knows that Sirius 
has escaped from Azkaban.  He knows that Sirius is probably coming 
after him.  He *knows* this.

So, does his nerve fail him?  Does he flee Hogwarts?  Does he scarper 
off to Albania to seek Voldemort's protection right away?  

No.  He doesn't.  He's scared to death, yes.  He's literally sick 
with fear.  And he has that darned *cat* to worry about as well, not 
to mention Remus Lupin, who would presumably recognize his rat form 
just as Sirius had, and who therefore cannot be permitted to spot 
him.  Quite an unnerving situation for poor Peter to find himself in, 
don't you think?  Why, it's enough to make any self-respecting coward 
head for the hills.

Except that Pettigrew doesn't.  He doesn't actually break and run 
until halfway through the school year, and then only when Sirius 
finally gets close enough to him that he feels that he has no other 
alternative.  Up until then, he's playing a waiting game, hoping that 
Sirius will be caught.  Did that waiting game take nerve?  Did it 
take daring?  I wouldn't have had the stomach for it myself.

--Escape From Sirius and Lupin--

And then there's Shrieking Shack.  

<long pause>

<sigh>

Well...okay.  Actually, Pettigrew really doesn't put up a very good 
showing at all in the Shack, does he?  He couldn't even manage to 
stand up to Lupin's interrogation.  He couldn't even hold to
his story.  He couldn't even lie *convincingly.*  Instead he sweats, 
stammers, changes his story at least three times, and then collapses 
and sobs out a confession.  It's just pathetic.  No, there's no 
question that Pettigrew's nerve really failed him there in the 
Shack.  It failed him badly.  But hey.  What can you do?  These 
things do happen sometimes, you know, even to ordinarily Daring 
Gryffindors like Peter Pettigrew.

But hey, what a comeback right afterwards though, eh?  You want 
Bravery?  You want Nerve?  You want Daring?

I've said this before, but it's still true.  If I'd just had as close 
a squeak as Peter had there in the Shack, and then I was informed 
quite gravely that if I tried to transform, I *would* be killed, I 
would never have had the nerve to seize my opportunity like Pettigrew 
did the instant Lupin started to transform.  I would have been far 
too cowed.  No rational weighing of the options (Do you really *want* 
to go to Azkaban, Elkins?  You know you won't last six months in 
there.  So wouldn't it be better to take the gamble on the main 
chance *now?*) would have enabled me to act that swiftly or that 
decisively in a similar situation.  That is because, sadly, I am 
*not* daring, nor am I brave; and I have very little in the way of 
nerve.

Pettigrew is different.  He is not only capable of taking gambles 
with his life; he can do so on the spur of the moment, instinctively, 
without hesitation.  Bravery.  Nerve.  Daring.

--Relations with Voldemort--

Ani wrote:

> I will point out (again) that he argued (kind of ) with Voldemort's 
> plan twice, and he was scared, but he did it anyway, so he does 
> have courage. 

Just seeking out Voldemort in Albania took some nerve, I'd say.  It 
was an act of desperation, true, but at the same time, Peter really 
had no idea how he'd be received, did he?  The last time he dealt 
with Voldemort was, well, Godric's Hollow, probably.  Sirius claims 
that the Death Eaters in Azkaban believe that Pettigrew lured 
Voldemort to his doom.  For all Peter knows, Voldemort might believe 
precisely the same thing.  As Scabbers, he likely heard enough of 
what happened in Ron's first year to know that if Voldemort ever 
balked from discarding his followers, he doesn't have that scruple 
anymore.

Indeed, Peter seems fairly well-convinced throughout GoF that 
Voldemort is constantly on the verge of killing him.  He seeks 
reassurance in the first chapter -- and fails to get it.  He seems 
fully convinced after Crouch's escape that Voldemort really does plan 
to feed him to Nagini (although surely a moment's thought should have 
informed him that this must have been an idle threat!).  Eileen has 
argued -- and I agree with her -- that in the moments right after 
Voldemort's re-birthing, Pettigrew believes that he has outlived his 
usefulness and is about to be killed.

Yet even trapped in this dubious position, he is capable of asserting 
himself.  He objects to Voldemort's plan to use Harry in the ritual 
at least twice, and from Voldemort's almost exasperated response in 
the first chapter of GoF, I got the impression that Peter had raised 
the subject even more often than that.  He objects to the plan, he 
quibbles over its details, he questions its timing.  Although he 
couches his objections in the careful phrasing of the sycophant, 
taking care to pepper them with all of the requisite "my Lord"s 
and "I must speak"s, he's really quite an argumentative little 
fellow in that first chapter.  He may be a sycophant, but he's hardly 
a yes-man (which is precisely the reason, I believe, that Voldemort 
will later go to such pains in the graveyard to drive the inequitable 
nature of their relationship home to him; by delaying rewarding 
Pettigrew until Pettigrew has first publicly and formally stated that 
he deserves and is owed absolutely *nothing,* Voldemort hopes to 
eradicate Pettigrew's uppity notion that there might actually some 
quid pro quo involved in their relationship).

Bravery?  Nerve?  Daring?

Well, I guess that all depends on just how mad, irrational, or 
Cruciatus-happy you think that Voldemort really is in GoF.  Pettigrew 
might be taking a considerable risk every time he argues yet another 
point, or he might not be.  It's hard to say, really.  I myself tend 
to think that he's not really taking all that great a risk by voicing 
his objections -- Voldemort needs him -- but all the same, Pettigrew 
himself seems to feel that he is.  So I'm willing to give him a few 
Nerve and Daring points for that, I suppose.

I would also hand him a couple of Nerve points for his almost 
indignant response to being slammed around right after Voldemort's 
rebirthing.  Although he is in considerable pain, and likely believes
that he is about to be killed, he still manages the self-assertion of 
that reproachful "you promised," which really does show a certain 
degree of chutzpah, I'd say.  

--The Hand--

Barb:

> He may seem like a craven coward so far, but I think we've already 
> seen one instance of rather gruesome bravery that contradicts the 
> idea of cowardly Peter: his cutting off his own hand to give 
> Voldemort his body back. How many people would have the nerve to do 
> that? We might not agree with his motivations (helping the evilest 
> dark wizard there is) but it took a great deal of bravery 
> nonetheless.  No, I do not believe Peter is lacking in bravery. 
> Scruples he certainly seems to lack (and whether he's redeemable in 
> that regard may yet be seen); bravery, hardly.

Absolutely agreed!  The man cuts off his own hand.  Not only does he 
cut off his own hand, but he also does it *unsupervised.*  He isn't 
being bullied into doing it in any immediate sense.  There's no 
Voldemort standing over him, threatening to punish him if he doesn't 
go through with the ritual as arranged.  No one is there to brow-beat 
him, or to urge him on, or to buck him up, or to give him any form of 
external encouragement whatsoever; he is completely on his own, and 
he is in no immediate danger should he change his mind and refuse to 
go through with it.  In fact, the question of why he *didn't* just 
let Baby!Voldemort drown has come up before on this list.

Yes.  That took bravery.  Physical courage.  

As well as one hell of a sharp blade...

Melody:

> Who as a side note when rereading the graveyard scene, wonders how 
> small Pettigrew had enough strength to cut through his forearm with 
> one swish of his dagger. Either that is a VERY sharp dagger or a 
> VERY fast, strong swish.

Well, the dagger was being used as an important tool in an elaborate 
work of old Dark ritual magic, so while I'd ordinarily call this 
explanation a cop-out, in this case I think that it's eminently 
fair.  

It was a *magic* dagger.

--------------------

Sherry wrote:

> IMO, he does these things out of loyalty (to Voldemort), not 
> bravery. 

He's not loyal to Voldemort.  If he'd been loyal to Voldemort, then 
he would have sought him out years before.  When he finally does go 
looking for Voldemort, it only takes him a couple of *months* to 
locate him.  He could have done so with equal facility any time
after learning that Albania was the best place to start his search, 
which I'm guessing he's probably known for years.  At the very 
latest, he learned it during Ron's second year.

No, he's not loyal to Voldemort.  He's not even loyal to himself in 
any deeper sense.  Loyalty really isn't one of his virtues, IMO.

> Voldemort accuses him of wavering, which causes him a great deal of 
> consternation precisely *because* his dominant trait is loyalty, 
> and he is now very willing to do anything necessary to redeem 
> himself in Voldemort's eyes. 

I think that it upsets him precisely because he knows that he is 
*not* loyal.  He's a betrayer.  He betrays his friends, he betrays 
his better judgement, he betrays his benefactors, he betrays his 
principles.  He betrays himself.  By the time the series is ended, 
he'll almost certainly have betrayed Voldemort as well.  The 
accusation is true, and that, IMO, is precisely why it stings.

Contrast his consternation at being accused of disloyalty, however, 
with his willingness in the Shrieking Shack to tell Sirius that he 
has never been *brave.*

He shows so little consternation over that particular admission 
because he knows full well that it isn't completely accurate.  He 
doesn't mind it much when Voldemort calls him a coward either.  
Accusations of cowardice just don't seem to bother him very much.  
They have no power to wound him.  Accusations of disloyalty, on the 
other hand, really do seem to genuinely hurt him.  I think that's 
because he knows that disloyalty truly is one of his moral failings.  

Ani wrote:

> I just see the urge to put Peter in another house as plain 
> silliness.

So do I.  I think that he quite plainly belonged in House Gryffindor.

Elkins