[HPforGrownups] Re: The Twins / Ron / Weasleys

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 145090

> Alla:
>
> I again would like to ask you for canon - no, not Molly's praising
> Percy, but ANY sign, hint even that twins were jealous of it. I am
> afraid I don't remember it at all, but of course my memory is far
> from perfect.

Magpie:

To see that I think we'd need the twins to announce they were jealous. 
Instead we're stuck just watching their dynamics which I think is far more 
complicated (as it is with most families) than just the bad guy and the good 
guy.  In CoS Percy and the twins have a playfully antagonistic relationship, 
but it sours over the years and I don't think it's just a case of Percy 
being horrid and the twins trying to put him back in line.  There's a lot 
of...stuff...going on there, imo.  Molly sometimes praises Percy-like 
acheivement to the point of comically dissing the twins ("Who are me and 
George, next door neighbors?") but she also pays more attention to them than 
she does to the others because they're in trouble.  I don't think it's a 
leap to see these things as related--siblings often grow up defining 
themselves against each other.  I can easily see the twins and Percy as 
mirrors of each other: the twins know they drive Molly crazy but underneath 
they know they're loved for who they are.  Percy knows he pleases Molly but 
underneath he doubts he's loved for who he is.

The Twins do keep Ron in line by warning that he's like Percy and to me 
there seems to be some real bite to it.  In GoF, when Ron begins to speak up 
against their doing anything like blackmail they tell him he's sounding like 
Percy and will be getting a Prefect badge soon.  Ron quickly retreats and 
insists that he isn't Percy (who he himself seems to sort of fear as a 
role-model, comparing him to Barty Crouch Sr. throwing his son in jail for 
no good reason).  When he gets a Prefect badge he's got all sorts of issues 
with it and I do think the twins' attitude in the past and then has 
something to do with it.

> Alla:
>
> Oh, doing what many older brothers do, IMO.

Kchuplis:
Percy can't stand any teasing apparently. What were the particularly *mean* 
things
they did to Percy other than to tease him about wearing his Prefect's badge 
even
during the summer. I mean, sorry but he begs for teasing with such 
behaviour.

Magpie:

See but...how are those two povs helpful to understanding what's going on 
between them?  I mean, there's a lot of stuff that's "normal" in that lots 
of siblings do it, but all sibling relationships are different and different 
people react differently to things. And that seems implied by "Percy can't 
stand teasing, apparently," followed by, "sorry, but he begs for teasing 
with such behavior."

Doesn't that obviously set up a vicious cycle for Percy?  Isn't that sort of 
the standard bullying pov?  "Begs for it" really means "makes people want to 
do it," doesn't it?  But that doesn't mean it's right to do it.

When I read the Percy stuff especially starting in Book IV it's painful to 
me.  It just seems like such a sad situation with Percy trying harder and 
harder and being more and more pompous and getting back more and more 
ridicule and dismissal.  It's not that I don't understand the impulse there. 
When someone is begging for respect and attention (which is what Percy 
really wants) I understand the impulse to give him the opposite.  But I 
still really see a vicious cycle--Percy's dramatic isolation from his family 
reads to me like Percy wanting something from his family.  And I can't help 
but feel how he must have felt when he came home with an actual promotion, 
the one kind of thing he seems to be able to count on, and get told by his 
father (whom I think Percy had already begun to have problematic feelings 
about regarding work) that he's just a fool promoted as a pawn to spy on 
Arthur.  I think Percy and Barty Crouch, Jr. are some bizarro 
twins/parallels with their father issues.

None of this is "abnormal" in terms of the types of things that can happen 
in family or with siblings, but "normal" sibling relationships are often 
powderkegs.

> Alla:
>
> It is interesting to me that NONE of those administrations seems to
> be the kind of administration which really cares about people and
> takes care of people and is trying to do the right thing. IMO of
> course.

Magpie:

But here too I just feel like this is like arguing from the inside.  It's 
part of the Weasley Family Story that Arthur is always trying to do the 
right thing and any time he gets passed over it's because of that.  Percy is 
a good worker.  This does, imo, get in the way of his doing the right thing, 
absolutely--he overidentifies with his workplace (rather than his family) 
and so sees whatever it does as correct.

But just the same, he is a good worker and that would make him valuable to 
anyone--this is something that's not respected at all by anyone at home. 
He's just a joke, he's boring, they tell him to shut up, no one pays 
attention to him as he tries harder and harder to impress or talk about the 
things he finds interesting.  He throws himself into a report on cauldron 
bottoms and keeping Crouch's schedule straight, etc.  I don't think that 
this reflects all that well on Percy as a human being any more than the 
Twins creating great Love Potions is the proof of their being ethical 
people.  But all the same he works hard (at stuff other people probably 
don't want to do) and follows the rules of his office.  A promotion isn't 
surprising given that.  Arthur got a promotion in HBP under the same 
Minister that keeps Percy in his job.  Plenty of good bosses would have 
fired Arthur before Percy for his writing laws around his hobbies, his house 
full of contraband and his box seats to the World Cup earned by smoothing 
things over for Bagman.

-m