The Greek tragedy of the Weasley family

[alshainofthenorth]

No: HPFGUIDX 80024

Hello all,

I'm getting rather fed up with the interpretation of Percy as nothing
more than a power-hungry bootlicker. It just makes him a trivial,
despicable and out-of-character toady, there has to be more to him and
the split in the family than that. The Sorting Hat made him a
Gryffindor, after all, and he's not IMO a bad person. So, I'm adding
another twist to the Weasley story to save him a bit of dignity...

One of the classic tragedies about civil disobedience is the story of
Antigone of Thebe. Her brother Polyneikes has tried to seize power in
the city of Thebe by starting a war and is killed. Their uncle Kreon
is made king and issues a decree that no one is to bury the fallen
attackers. Antigone, not wanting to leave her brother's corpse to the
vultures, disobeys the decree and is buried alive as punishment.

Percy's views of right and wrong has something of legal positivism in
them (IMO), the law must be obeyed because it is the law. You can't
disobey it just because you think it's wrong. You can't go against the
Ministry of Magic and undermine its authority just because you think
Voldemort is back. His position would be the one of Kreon, while the
rest of the Weasleys would side with Antigone and the right to rebel
against unjust laws and rulers.

And the tragedy is that both parties' values are right. Breaking the
law creates chaos, blind obedience to it is the stuff that
totalitarian regimes are made of. Right or Wrong is easier to resolve
than Right or Right. 

Or is Percy nothing more than a pompous toady? Am I reading too much
into the conflict when I want to put him inside a Greek tragedy?

Thoughts, comments? 

Alshain the Curious