Percy

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 166059

Ronin: 
> At any rate, I don't think that Percy is working secretly for the 
Order. I
> think he's just a smarmy little prat who takes whichever side he 
thinks will
> advance him. In spite of what is right or wrong, he will do 
whatever it
> takes for gaining power. I think he will end up as a DE, if 
they'll even
> have him. From what I remember about Percy from the beginning, all 
he's ever
> cared about was being in a position of authority. He's like the 
hall monitor
> who wants to be a Principal or the security guard who wants to be a
> detective.

Magpie:
That's interesting, because to me that seems totally unlike Percy. 
He seems completely *unable* to do whatever it takes to earn power 
no matter whether it's right or wrong. He's a stickler for rules and 
regulations, including safety precautions. One problem he seems to 
have is that once an authority figure earns his respect he gives it 
too much respect.

He is ambitious and seemingly very sensitive, and he's got a lot of 
ego bound up with his job. He seemed to want his job to give him 
respect, but instead it made him even more of a joke and got his 
brothers sending him dragon dung at work. When Crouch stopped coming 
into the office and communicated through notes he was, it seems, 
pleased to have the running of the department to himself, and he 
didn't do a bad job. If I worked at the Ministry I would suspect 
nothing out of order if Percy got promoted--he's very hard working, 
takes his job seriously, genuinely looks up to his superiors and is 
interested in doing a lot of jobs well that other people find 
boring. 

Yet when he is promoted his father acts like it's transparently to 
spy on him, as if Percy is the slacker, and years of anger from 
Percy at Arthur come out. (Ironically, Harry himself thinks that 
Percy could hardly have been said to do a good job during GoF 
because he failed to notice Crouch was possessed by Voldemort, but 
doesn't seem to think less of Dumbledore for not noticing Moody 
actually *was* DE!Crouch, when there's no reason Percy should have 
noticed. He's not a friend of Crouch's, and why would he question 
his boss' working from home, especially since as far as we know, 
Percy wasn't being asked to do anything out of line?)

Anyway, Percy seems to have become a true Company Man, happy to 
believe that the Ministry is always doing the right thing. That 
includes being *against* Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Even when 
they were against Harry it was because he was supposedly a 
troublemaker--it wasn't a plot to help Voldemort, it was a short-
sighted attempt to protect their own denial. So Percy, who iirc went 
off to fight the DEs at the QWC who were causing trouble, has never 
been pro-Voldemort. If someone has the same loyalty to the Ministry 
as he does and works hard, he takes them for being a good person 
with good intentions. I think he probably was convinced that his 
letter to Ron was a good, smart thing (though I think he does resent 
Harry a bit underneath and wants one of his siblings on his side, 
even if he might not admit it--of all the Weasleys it's Ron who 
always seems worried about being thought of as "like Percy" and it's 
usually not for bad reasons).

I would question eggplant's original idea that this is a civil war. 
It's not, that I can see. If it were Percy hasn't sided against his 
family in it, since they are both against Voldemort. That seems like 
saying that if you've got a family that have opposing views on the 
current administration they are in a Civil War and should kill each 
other. Percy's type of attitude and loyalty to the Ministry may be 
helpful to Voldemort at times, but not intentionally so, and 
probably not always so. After all, Arthur works for the Ministry 
just as much as Percy does. Presumably at this point they're both 
spending their days in work that is trying to help protect people 
against Voldemort and DEs and ultimately bring him down. We know 
that the better way to do that seems to be personal loyalty to 
Dumbledore the man (which is a bit dodgy, after all) but people can 
have really wrong ideas about things like this.

-m