Percy

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 166038

Eggplant: 

> Would you say that if he had another last name? Just as good people
> can come from bad families (Serious Black), bad people can come from
> good families. 

Hickengruendler:

I certainly agree that Percy being a Weasley is no prove of him 
belonging to the good side, but this:

> Percy happily took part in a proceeding that attempted
> to destroy a boy and send him to Azkaban, (Eggplant)

is simply not true. There is nothing in the text that suggests, that 
Harry ahould have been sent to Azkaban, except Harry's admittingly 
understandable fear when the OWL arrived. but this fear was just that 
and was proven wrong. Azkaban wasn't mentioned during the hearing! 
You would think, that if the plan was to throw him into prison, they 
would have mentioned it during the Hearing. Nonetheless, there are 
still some doubtful decisions by the ministry (to put it mildly), but 
we don't how much Percy was involved in this, or was he involved at 
all. At the very least, he doesn't seem to have the capability to 
question authority, and if some redemption is in store (which I think 
it is), he somehow needs to gain this.
 
Eggplant:

>  Percy tried to destroy
> the friendship between Ron and Harry. 

Hickengruendler:

This can be seen as a misguided attempt to protect Ron. The letter 
cetrainly wasn't nice, but is no proof of any evilness.

Eggplant:

Percy refused his mother's
> Christmas present and didn't visit his father in the hospital when 
he
> was near death or even ask about him, then he called 
Umbrage "delightful".

Hickengruendler:

His behaviour towards Molly is certainly nasty. But we don't know 
that he didn't ask for Arthur. His family was probably not the only 
source he had, he could as well have asked someone from the ministry 
about his father's conditions, or, for that matter, asked a healer 
from St. Mungo's. By the way, I don't think this was what happened, I 
just wanted to mention othe rpossibilities, I think he simply was too 
pride/stubborn/hurt to ask for Arthut. A friend of my parents, who I 
always knew as one of the persons with the biggest heart I knew (I 
have yet to see this woman putting herself above others and not 
helping, when necessary), told me, that she was that stubborn as a 
youth/ young adult, that she refused to speak with her father for 
months. The father slapped her for something she didn't do (and later 
it turned out, that she really didn't do it) and she simply ignored 
him and didn't even visited him, after he became seriously ill and 
was in hospital for quite some time. She was not proud of her 
behaviour and said she later lost this stubborness, but that at this 
time she simply couldn't bear to talk with her father, because she 
felt wronged by him. Of course this reminded me of Percy (for obvious 
reasons). So Percy not visiting Arthur is certainly not a nice act, 
but by no means proves anything about his "evilness", nor does it 
mean, that he can't change.

And we don't know how Umbridge acted in the ministry. Fudge was still 
her superior and I'm sure she treated him differently, than she 
treated Harry, Hagrid or, say, Trelawney. Therefore Percy very likely 
saw a completely different side of Umbridge then the inhabitants of 
Hogwarts. A side Umbridge only pretended to have, probably, but 
nonetheless a different side.

Also, JKR knows how to write completely evil characters. Think 
Voldemort, Umbridge or Lucius Malfoy. If she wants characters to make 
irredeemably bad, she can make them so. Yet she has given Percy 
several sympathetic moments within the series, most notably his grief 
for Ginny and Penelope in CoS, him fighting the Death Eaters in GoF 
and Percy running in the lake for Ron after the Second Task. 
 
On another level, the rift in the Weasley family is symbolical for 
the rift within the Wizarding World after Voldemort's return. 
According to DUmbledore (who in this scene certainly was JKR's 
mouthpiece) at the end of GoF, "We are as strong as we are united, as 
weak as we are divided". And if even JKR's "perfect family" can 
overcome their differences, it looks indeed very bad for the 
Wizarding World.