[HPforGrownups] Re: Spies, Lies and Self fullfilling prophecies

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 146634

 Reviving a dead thread, I emerge from the shadows to make one of my
periodic challenges to ESE!Lupin.  Pippin, are you still there?  FWIW, I
agree with most of the points already made in his defense, and only have a
few to add this time around.

Pippin:
I also tried  to show was that it's canon that Snape and Sirius
both thought that Lupin was capable of cooperating  with a murderer,
and however they came to that conclusion *they're  not wrong*.
We saw Lupin about to help Sirius murder Pettigrew.

Debbie:
But what Sirius believed was that Lupin was a spy, i.e., a traitor.  Lupin's
willingness to help Sirius murder Pettigrew is the antithesis of betrayal;
it is a demonstration of loyalty to a friend who he has just discovered was
not disloyal at all.  And Snape's belief that Lupin was assisting a traitor
reflects an assumption of continued loyalty within the MWPP group, not
betrayal.  I just don't see how this fact leads to the conclusion that Lupin
would be willing to betray his closest friends.

Pippin:
You seem to agree with me that Lupin must have become
estranged from his old friends. But what would he do then,
this man who wants so much for people to like him? Where
else would he turn? He wasn't naive about Voldemort. But
he was, he admits, naive about other werewolves. It was
a dangerous time to go looking for new friends, or so
Hagrid told us in PS/SS.

Debbie:
While I'll admit that it's odd that Lupin is not with the other Marauders in
the old Order photograph (though given the fact that the members rearrange
themselves so those at the back move to the front, I think it's possible
that Lupin was directly in front of the Potters, then moved behind).
Moreover, if there was any estrangement, I think it did not extend beyond
Lupin and Sirius (each thought the other was the spy).  I don't see how he
would be susceptible to an invitation to spy on Dumbledore and James, to
whom he owes so much.  (Sorry, Pippin, this last point is one I've made many
times before.)

> Carol:
> I'm not so sure. Peter shows himself capable of some pretty
> complicated potion making combined with spell-casting in GoF, not to
> mention capable of completing the potion after he's cut off his own
> hand. We see him capable of ruthlessness in his treatment of Harry and
> his murder of Cedric as well. And he found Voldemort and even
> kidnapped Bertha Jorkins.

Pippin:
When dealing with a magician like JKR, you have to be suspicious of
anything Harry deduces or Voldemort reports. We know that Harry
jumps to conclusions, and Voldemort lies  even  in his villain tells
all speeches.

Peter "does" all of this offstage, except for dropping the last three
ingredients
and Voldemort's body into the brew. Even Neville could do that much.
We've seen that potion-making can be done by  inexpert wizards
*if*  there's someone else around to make sure they follow instructions
exactly.

Debbie:
 Pettigrew's defining characteristic, I think, is not his supposed lack of
magical skill, but his laziness.  Of course, laziness often masquerades as
ineptitude, so it should not be surprising that Pettigrew is regarded as
"talentless" and "not in their league."  However, a lazy wizard like
Pettigrew is capable of quality work if someone stands at his elbow to make
sure he doesn't lose focus and screw up.  In the making of the resurrection
potion, Voldemort was there to serve this function.  And he was well
incentivized to do a good job, as he had Voldemort to answer to as well as
Voldemort's faithful servant.  (See POA ch. 19, in which Sirius tells
Pettigrew that "you never did anything for anyone unless you could see what
was in it for you." )

For a contrasting example, Crouch Jr. states (under Veritaserum) that
"Wormtail neglected his duty.  He was not watchful enough.  My father
escaped."  Wormtail was not incapable of guarding Crouch Sr. adequately, but
he didn't put in the work to do a really good job.  This doesn't mean he is
incompetent; he's just too inattentive to do a proper job.

Pippin:
The murder of Cedric is ambiguous. Harry thinks Voldemort did it.
JKR said that "Wormtail" killed Cedric.

But Wormtail is an *alias*.  Like Discworld's Commander Vimes, I want to
throw my hands in the air at this point, and shout, "You recognized
him by his MASK?" The whole point of a mask is that *anyone* can
hide behind it. The whole point of an *alias* is that you don't know
who it is.  I don't think we can be too sure she meant Peter. Especially
since, as loyal DDM!Snape supporters, we must believe that JKR is
highly, er, selective, about what she tells us.

Debbie:
This argument might have more weight if Wormtail was a code name given to
him by Voldemort.  As it is, lots of people know who Wormtail is.  Lupin
knows, of course.  "Sirius is Padfoot.  Peter is Wormtail." Lupin tells us
in PoA.  And so does Voldemort, who is on the other side.  And Snape, too,
who has a foot in both camps.  Given the generality of use of Wormtail, for
Wormtail to be someone else would be more than misdirection; it would be a
lie.  Since Lupin was certainly right about the other three nicknames, and
Wormtail is used by so many people to describe Pettigrew (and to his
face), I think we are meant to understand that there is no other.

Carol:
I think he feigned friendship for a whole year without a qualm, all the
while passing information on Order members (starting, maybe, with
those he cared least about but working steadily toward the Potters.

Pippin:
This is a very different Peter, then, from the one we see in the
graveyard, who can't look Harry in the eye, or the one in the
Shrieking Shack whose stammering and haunted looks betray him
long before his confession does. If Peter had been able to
look Harry in the eye and answer Sirius's accusations in complete
sentences, his story would have held up. "Everyone
knows Sirius was the secret-keeper. It's absurd to think that I was
the spy. I adored James, I never would have betrayed him. I went into
hiding because I was afraid that the Death Eaters would want
revenge -- because I'd put the *real* spy in Azkaban!"


Debbie:
But no one would have asked Peter these questions before Godric's Hollow.
As Sirius says, no one would believe that Voldemort would use a "weak,
talentless thing" like Pettigrew.  Had they asked, Pettigrew might have
spilled the beans.  But a more likely response would be something on the
order of "N-n-no," which given the assumption that he's not in their league,
everyone would write off as the natural cowardice of the weak.  He was a
perfect spy because he didn't seem capable of it.

 Pippin:
Peter's clever enough to think of it, but he can't bring it off, because
unlike whoever the spy really is, he's a lousy liar and obviously
not an occlumens. When have we actually *seen* him lie successfully?
He didn't even do a very good job of pretending to be a an
ordinary rat...biting Goyle and then falling asleep again? Didn't you
think that was rather odd? Hanging around with the Weasleys for
far longer than an ordinary rat's life span? Wouldn't he have been
wiser to find another wizarding family every few years?

Wormtail should not have spent 12 years with the Weasleys before changing
families, but moving to a new family would require actual work and he had no
reason to believe the Weasleys would suspect something.  So why bother with
caution?  When he was really in danger, in POA, Pettigrew was quite ready
with a solution (faking his own death).  That would have worked quite well
except that he was too lazy to leave Hogwarts.

He *was* the secret keeper and he was forced to betray the Potters.
He's too racked with guilt to successfully pretend that he didn't.

But how could he be the spy? Good Heavens, he can't manage to spy on
Snape and co for five minutes, he can't be questioned without
breaking into a sweat, and you think he was spying on the
Order of the Phoenix for a year while everyone around him
was hunting for the spy? "Peter, you haven't seen anything suspicious,
have you? "And Peter answers,"Well, I saw Sirius listening at a keyhole
the other day"  and neither Lupin, who seems to be a legilimens, nor
Albus Dumbledore, who definitely is one, notices anything wrong?
Good Grief!

Debbie:
Peter is a dreadful sneak, but in the old days, he didn't have to sneak
around to glean information.  And he could do his traveling in rat form,
making him undetectable.  I read Pettigrew's appearance in Spinner's End
largely as petulance at Snape's subtle put-downs, not as a bumbling attempt
to spy (I read the scene as Snape *assuming* that Peter was spying; I didn't
think Snape had detected his presence on the stairs).  As for Dumbledore, I
imagine that Pettigrew would have steered clear of him generally, and since
Dumbledore is the type to let others think things out for themselves, would
not have forced his presence on him.

Debbie
who first defended Lupin against ESE! accusations way back in 2002, but
finds Pettigrew's laziness indefensible


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