[HPforGrownups] Re: Percy...

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 107036

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Magda Grantwich wrote:
>> Do people really see Percy as ambitious?  I don't.  He doesn't
>> crave power - he craves recognition.  

> I have to disagree, slightly.  Not about Percy being a prat, but
> that he is not ambitious.  I used to have all the sections marked 
> throughout the books to show all the foreshadowing of Percy having 
> the issues he had in OOtP, but I have since removed them. However, 
> some references I remember:.....
> ...All of these cases show, in my mind, that Percy is definitely 
> ambitous.  He is probably ALSO looking for attention and 
> recognition that he gets from no one other than his Mother.  

None of those examples proves that Percy is ambitious for POWER - the
force that would give him some degree of control or influence over
society or the lives of people or organizations.  He's ambitious to
prove himself so that people in positions of authority will clap him
on the shoulder and tell him what a fine young man he is.  

I repeat, Percy doesn't know what real power is, wouldn't recognize
it if it landed on him from the clear blue sky and isn't striving to
attain it or use it.  It's his desire for approbation and praise that
makes him vulnerable to manipulation by others, as we saw in OOTP
when he was completely taken in by Umbridge.  There's no guile to
Percy, no deep secret plotting or scheming.  He's all on the surface,
and what you see is what you get.  That Ron thinks he'd throw the
family to the Dementors to get ahead shows us that Ron doesn't really
understand what power's all about either.




		
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