The Greek tragedy of the Weasley family - Remember the letter...

[alshainofthenorth]

No: HPFGUIDX 80287


Holly,
good points. I'm beginning to get a feeling that Percy is being set up
to become either one of the most complicated figures in the future
books or the Prat of Prats. Loads of JKR's leading characters work
like kaleidoscopes -- twist them and a new pattern emerges (which is
why we like wrangling over them so much, I suppose). Unfortunately it
makes it difficult to put them inside little boxes and expect for them
to stay there (I *loved* what she was doing to Sirius and Snape in OOP
*evil grin*)      

> Me, holly :
>  Remember the letter Percy sent ot Ron? Although it was depicted as a 
> letter full of concern of a big brother towards the younger brother, 
> I find it hard to imagine that a person who grew up with those 
> people, Arthur and Molly, considers it right to tell them off to Ron, 
> simply because he is all grown up now and has an opinion. He does not 
> try to convince Ron that their parents are wrong or that the MOM is 
> right because it represents the law, he just tries to convince him 
> that he should set aside family and friends, because they do not have 
> the power they used to do. His concern is that Ron should not be 
> associated with people that lose their powers (DD) or with people 
> that will not help him to a quest of more power (Harry and Arthur). 
> He does not even try to show the slightest respect to the people that 
> brought him up, as he talks about his parents in what I feel is an 
> air of contempt for the "mess" they are involved in. He is trying to 
> persuade Ron by showing contempt for his parents and for a person 
> that he himself respected, when he thought he held a great deal of 
> power.
> 
<Al> The tragedies about Percy (IMO) are how he always manages to get
hold of the wrong end of the stick while convinced that he's acting
for the best, and how he manages to combine opportunism and moralism
so easily. He's a bit like Barty Crouch sr. in that aspect, if your
right hand offends you, cut it off, let the dead bury their dead etc.
If his family won't listen to him, on their own heads be it. 

He's actually being the perfect bureaucrat here, not letting his
personal emotions or family ties influence him, showing loyalty to
institutions not to people (who, after all, are interchangeable). 
The only thing I can't get to fit into my theory is his sucking up to
Fudge (unlike Perce's former hero Crouch sr., there's no backbone
anywhere in Fudge's body) 

> Me, holly :
> Judging from my own experience of this ancient drama (I am greek and 
> was taught this drama at school), Kreon's point of view is 
> characterised through the ages as the ultimate suppression to the 
> natural law. Not to want to bury someone in ancient Greece was at 
> least characterised as heresy, no matter what he/she did in life. 
> Kreon was not at all right, and Antigone's effort can be translated 
> as the struggle to obey laws (even if they are moral) while under the 
> threat of death. Kreon was the dictator above the laws, and Antigone 
> was the voice of right and lawful to the eyes of the gods, whose laws 
> were aboce all others.

<Al> We seem to be going into legal philosophy here, and I totally
agree with you about the point of Sophocles' play (must have been
great to be able to read the classical dramas in school). To me,
without the cultural background, it's interesting because it describes
the moral dilemmas we humans get into when two sets of guidelines
conflict with each other, whether we believe in higher powers or no.
One of the largest themes in HP are that rules must sometimes be
broken, but that some rules are higher than others. Percy doesn't
recognise which ones are important.

holly: <I think?>
But Percy's 
> attitude during the whole book is that of a man thirsty for power, 
> who despises the people deprived from it. Why send back the sweater, 
> knitted by the hands of your mother? Even if she is wrong, she is 
> still your mother.
 
<Al> I'm not saying he's making the right decisions nor that he
doesn't want power (nor that he isn't a git). I'd just like him to be
a little bit more interesting (read: tragic) than that, even if it's
just to become the next Barty Crouch sr. :-)

Alshain the apologetic