Percy - The Good Boy

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 66159

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "manawydan" <manawydan at n...> wrote:
>
> ...edited...
> 
> I see Percy as being a huge bundle of pride, resentment, guilt, and 
> dignity at the moment, and it's going to be a long time before he
> can mend fences with the family again, even though the Ministry now
> accept Voldemort's return.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Ffred

bboy_mn:

The more you post here, the more I like you. You always seem to have
very intelligent well thought out posts, and you even occassionally
agree with me, which is alway a bonus from my point of view.

Let me say unequivocally that... PERCY IS NOT EVIL.

In the distant past, I described Percy in terms of his underlying
pschological family role. 

Examples in general-
The Martyr - always denying himself what he needs, always sacrificing
for the rest of the family, always suffering in silents. Eats less,
demands less, achieves less.

The Outlaw or the Bad Boy - the rebel in the family. If dad is a
Republican, then he will be a Democrate, or Socialist, or Communist;
anything to drive the old man nuts. Break all the rules, defies all
authority.

The Good Boy - the perfect little boy who always make Mum and Dad
proud, but drives his brothers and sisters nut by being such a 'goody
two shoes' that they would like to strangle him in his sleep.

...and many others.

These are typically not very healthy role to play in a family. In
fact, in most cases they all, even the Good Boy, end up being very
distructive to the person and to his family. The martyr mades his own
life a living hell. The Bad Boy is frequently acting out to distract
attention from other family problems, like Mom and Dad constantly
fighting and/or getting drunk. When he acts out, it unites Mom and Dad
as they focus on the Bad Boy. The Good Boy is frequently acting for
the same reason, but using different methods. In all cases, these are
roles played within disfunctional family (which include every family
on the face of the earth).

So guess which one Percy is... could it be "The Good Boy"? He has two
overachieving, handsome, successful, popular, and generally cool older
brothers, that I am sure he looked up to and admire when he was young,
and hear his parent praising them, and he has two outlaw very popular,
very cool, very well liked younger brothers who appear to be on the
road to success; that would be Fred and George, who, I should note,
get a great deal of Molly attention, even if it's not good attention.

Percy has decided that it is his role in the family to 'do the right
thing' because according to the rules that's what your suppose to do.
He is determeine, subconsciously, to prove that he is as good as his
older brothers, and equally determine to show his younger brother how
a proper Weasley should act. He is determine, not to give his parents
any grief or make any excess demands on them (somewhat of a martyr),
and to make them proud of him. And the more it doesn't work, the
harder he tried to be perfect which in turn makes it work even less
which in turn makes him more determine to do everything absolutely
right until like all disfunctional family roles, it starts to become
distructive. 

Another aspect is that since these are deep seated subconscious
actions, he is unaware of what he is doing, and they become reflexes.
So dispite his action in OoP being against his family, it still
represents him fulfilling his 'do it right' family role which is now a
form of his own personal private quicksand.

Full circle to the beginning.... PERCY IS NOT EVIL, he's just
misguided, and I have no doubt that Percy will see the error of his
ways, and the Weasley family will understand that Percy was just
trying to do his best to play the role of Percy, and that they will
reconcile, and that Percy will become a valuable asset to the fight
against Voldemort.

In fact, the conflict between them is already resolved. Percy did what
he thought was right and stood by the Ministry, and it has been proven
that the Ministry was wrong; case closed. So the Percy/Weasley family
war is over, now all they have to do is heal the wounds and sign a
peace treaty. Don't get me wrong, the full return of Percy to the
family will be a rough and rocky road, but the core reason for the
battle has been resolved, so Percy has absolutely no reason to go over
to the Dark Side.

One last time... PERCY IS NOT EVIL.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

bboy_mn