OOP: Who can blame Peter Pettigrew?

[kiricat2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 65779

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "medeia_no" <medeia_no at y...> 
wrote:
> After reading about how Peter was treated by his supposed friends 
> James and Sirius, not to mention how they, and Lupin treated Snape, 
I 
> fully understand why Peter joined the dark side. 

> No excuse for what he did, but when you witness that sort of 
> treatment from your friends, you learn to be ruthless and never to 
> show mercy.
 
> Lupin comes across as the worst of the lot. That he is only 15 is 
no 
> excuse. He was a prefect, and if you are old enough to have that 
sort 
> of responsability, you are old enough to know right from wrong, and 
> to stop your friends from treating others in such a horrible way.
> 
> I'd say James was the one who drove Peter to join what Peter must 
> have seen as the stronger side, the side that could offer better 
> protection. Becase James showed Peter how supposedly good people 
> treat the weaker.

I think what drove Peter was that he thought the side he was on was 
going to lose.  He was in the origninal version of the Order. You'd 
think that if he had been so upset with J/S/R and their oh, so 
wretched treatment he got from them that he would have washed his 
hands of them once they got out of school.  But, evidently, he 
didn't.  

And, in OoP someone (Moody or Remus, I forget who) mentions that the 
members of the Order were not as well prepared the first time 
around.  They were being picked off one by one.  Well, that was 
Peter's cue to jump to the other side to save his skin.  No, I don't 
think he was driven to this - he chose to do what he did.  And if it 
meant betraying people, if it meant bringing death to Lily and Harry 
(maybe Lily was mean to him too, maybe Harry always threw up on him) 
that was just fine with Peter.

Killing Frank and Cedric in GoF posed no problems, either. Is that 
because he's still mad at James?  Sorry, but I don't think that's a 
good enough excuse.

Marianne