Peter the Rat

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 167965

(and yes, I admit, this is yet another time I'm using a nickname because I can't be bothered to look up how to spell Pettigrew or however it's spelled).

The question has come up of Peter as coward vs. the Sorting Hat's choice to place him with the lions. I don't know if JKR will ever answer that one, and, in another group, I might consider writing a fanfic about it, but here, I'm just going to give a hypothesis, working backwards from what we know and going into conjecture of how it COULD have happened (which may or may not be how it did). 

One of the themes of the HP novels is determinism vs. free choice, with the apparent moral of, "If you don't exercise your ability to choose, someone else will do the choosing for you." The Sorting Hat wanted to put Harry with the snakeys, but he chose the lions, and the Hat honored his choice. But at age 11 (or was it 10? I'm beginning to feel like Alec Baldwin), many children have not yet fully formed their personalities. Just as the child who tortures little animals can, if given the right kind of attention, can develop empathy, a child, given the wrong kind of attention, can lose positive characteristics. 

Peter Pettigrew might have started out as well-suited for Gryffindor. For all we know, when James, Sirius, Peter and Remus first became friends, they considered each other to be equals. But, Peter fell behind, and the other three were not noted for their own empathy. Yes, they were good, and they were brave, but there is virtually no evidence in the canon that, with the exception of the adult Lupin, they were NICE (in the sense of acting in empathy for the feelings of others). So, rather than having patience with Peter, or accepting his shortcomings, they took the attitude, "We'll help you out, but you're damned lucky to have us as friends." After a time, Peter believed it; although he was quite competent as a wizard (becoming an animagus is, supposedly, not an easy feat, especially for inexperienced wizards), he was made to feel inferior by his fellows (look at how, by contrast, the support of Neville by his peers, Minnie the Cat, Sprout, Flitty, etc. manages to counterbalance to a great degree the continual putdowns by Snape and his own family). Therefore, Peter had it drummed into him continually that he was nothing, and would get nowhere if it weren't for his talented and powerful friends. 

If my reading is accurate, is it any wonder that he formed one hell of an inferiority complex? That, by the time he became an animagus, he ended up as a rat? That this one-time Gryffindor is now a snivelling coward?

Bart