Percy question

[sienna291973]

No: HPFGUIDX 79416

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "mochajava13" 
<mochajava13 at y...> wrote:
> Percy is gone for good, in my opinion.  JKR's been foreshadowing 
> Percy's split from the family since the first book.> 

Sienna:

I also agree that JKR has been foreshadowing Percy's split with his 
family from the very beginning, but I'm not sure that I agree that he 
won't be coming back.  In fact, I think it would make for a very 
interesting development in Percy's character if he did swallow his 
pride and try and make his way back into the fold.

I personally don't see Percy as evil but more as someone whose 
insecurity and need to stand out from his brothers led him to be 
corrupted by the promise of power and prestige.  We often talk of 
Ron's self-image problems and how growing up in a big family has 
impacted him.  I think much the same can be said for Percy although 
he obviously deals with it very differently.

This is not to say that his return to the family will be an easy one 
and nor should it be IMO, but it would be very interesting indeed to 
see how humility and repentence force Percy to reexamine the things 
that have thus far been most important to him.

Remember too, that the one time prior to OoTP that Percy was actually 
faced with the fear of losing someone in his family (in GOF in the 
second task when Harry returns last from the lake), he reacted very 
much the way someone who cares deeply about his family would, losing 
all pretence of maturity and suddenly seeming `much younger' (to 
paraphrase).

Of course, one could argue that at face value his response to his 
father's attack demonstrated the exact opposite and I can't disagree 
there.  However, I'm wondering whether that was a case of his pride 
not allowing him to acknowledge to himself that his father was ever 
in any real danger once it was clear that he would survive (I have no 
evidence for this of course).  We don't really know how Percy reacted 
to his father's attack other than that he didn't at any point visit 
him at the hospital.  This doesn't mean that he might not at some 
point have enquired after his father's wellbeing from the Healers at 
St. Mungo's.

Just some thoughts but I think a redemptive arc for Percy could lead 
to some good story possibilities.

Sienna (who come to think of it doesn't really like Percy very much 
at all and wouldn't be too upset if she turned out to be wrong and 
the twins spent all of Book 6 throwing Dungbombs at him)