[HPforGrownups] Re: Percy...was Ron's "poor me" syndrome.

[Shannon]

No: HPFGUIDX 106781

  Del says:
>Don't start me on Percy again :-) !

Shannon replies:

Ruh roh! :-)


>Del replies :
>He turned against them when they withdrew that support and praise.
>It's just as childish as Harry stopping to like Cedric just because he
>invited Cho to the Yule Ball. Many people remain childish way into
>their adulthood where their pride is concerned, it's really not unusual.


Shannon replies:

Well, I certainly won't argue that Harry isn't childish.  I was ready to 
throttle him throughout most of OotP. Moody teenage boys drive me 
bananas.  But I don't really see it as the same kind of situation.  Harry 
liked Cho, Cho liked Cedric. Harry barely knew Cedric. It's not as though 
he suddenly disliked a lifelong friend just over Cho Chang.  Harry's 
reaction in that situation seemed a lot more natural than Percy's reaction 
to the situation with his father.   Well, not more natural, because I do 
see and understand why Percy would be very hurt and angry about it.  But 
Percy, in one fell swoop, rejected an entire lifetime's worth of support, 
praise, and love on the basis of one incident in which his father 
questioned, not Percy's abilities, but the Fudge's motives.  His reaction 
seems all out of proportion to the crime, and it also speaks of a 
long-simmering resentment of his family's situation, the blame for which he 
places squarely on his father's shoulders (along with whatever difficulties 
he's had at work).  Granted, it was Ron relaying the argument to Harry, so 
we don't really know both sides of it.  Even so, I doubt very much that 
Ron's version wasn't accurate, for as much as he told.

>Del says :
>Percy never actually knew Harry. Harry couldn't be less concerned
>about knowing the first-years personally in OoP, and that's the same
>age gap between he and Percy.


True, but it's hardly the same as Harry and the first years he was expected 
to be looking after in OotP. I mean, Harry is his little brother's best 
friend.  He spends significant portions of time living with the Weasleys 
every summer. He is practically a member of the family himself.  No, Percy 
doesn't know Harry the way Ron does, or even the way Fred, George and Ginny 
do, but it's not as though he was some random first year that Percy had to 
keep in line.

>Del says :
>And we just don't *know* what Percy knows about Harry. How much was he
>told about the CoS, we simply don't know. Molly and Arthur might have
>kept it all secret.


Ok, I'll concede that point. :)  Percy might not know anything. Even so, 
having lived with Harry, you'd think he at least knows him enough to be 
able to make an independent personal assessment of whether he is unbalanced 
as the Ministry accuses.

>Del says :
>Only one year, yes, but a year in which he invested himself *very*
>heavily in his work. The Ministry became his second family so to speak.

A family that can't remember that his name is Weasley, not Weatherby! :)  I 
think that Percy's reaction is due mostly to the fact that deep down he 
knows his father was right. He knows, even if he blusters and makes himself 
look important to his family, that Crouch never depended on him like he 
pretended.   Percy isn't stupid enough to think that after an inquiry, 
being in all kinds of trouble at work, and being an assistant to a man who 
barely knew he was there, he'd be promoted to assistant to the Minister. 
It's just not logical, and Percy's too smart not to have figured that out, 
even if he doesn't want to admit it.  Weasley Pride, that's what that 
is.  He's being willfully blind.

>Del says :
>Well yes, he almost died. But by the time Percy learned that, he also
>learned that his father was *not* going to die after all. He did *not*
>go through the anxiety that the younger Weasleys experienced, not
>knowing whether their father was going to live or die. Percy knew
>right away that Arthur would live. It makes a big difference.

Do we actually know how quickly Percy was alerted?  Obviously he wouldn't 
have known as quickly as the other Weasley children but Arthur's fate was 
uncertain for several hours, through an entire night. Molly didn't come to 
Grimmauld Place and tell the others he'd be ok until 5 in the morning.  I 
reread that part of the book and couldn't find any indication of when Percy 
was told.  And even if he didn't find out until later, George later says 
that he's never so much as asked after him.  Regardless of how angry Percy 
is, I can't understand that.

The thing about all this is, I see no way for Percy to get out of it 
gracefully.  Now that the Ministry has acknowledged Voldemort's return, he 
has two choices.  He can either admit that Harry & Co were right all along 
and he was wrong (in which case my opinion of him will raise considerably), 
or he can continue to insist that they couldn't have known at the time, and 
he had been right to cast his lot with Fudge and the Ministry and be 
disbelieving.   In the first case even if Arthur lets it go (we know Molly 
will as she's tried to make peace and been cruelly rejected more than once 
already), I doubt very much Ron and Fred and George, even Ginny perhaps, 
will do so as easily.  Not to mention Harry.   I don't even know that 
Arthur will.  Weasley Pride, again.  In the second, things will probably 
only get worse.  Either way, it's not going to be pretty, and the rift will 
not be healed easily.

I do, however, think Percy will redeem himself in some way.  I have a 
suspicion that it will be some grand gesture, possibly costing him his 
life.  There are simply too many Weasleys for them all to make it through 
this alive, I can't help but think one or two of them will die before it's 
over. (I refuse to entertain the notion that Ron will be one of the unlucky 
ones. Refuse! :) )

Shannon

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