CHAPDISC: DH36, THE FLAW IN THE PLAN.

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185300

Eggplant wrote:
> The other big mistake of the series was not making Percy evil.
Imagine how much more powerful it would have been if the trio got
carted off to Malfoy Manner not because of a slip of the tongue but
because Percy betrayed them! As it is I don't understand why JKR
invented Percy.
<snip>

Carol responds:

It's a matter of taste. I think we had enough treachery as it was.
YMMV, For me, the irony of Fred's death so soon after his
reconciliation with Percy and Percy's reaction to his death was
profoundly moving. I had known since he waded out into the water
during the Second Task in GoF that he was loyal to his family. He was
just a stubborn young man at odds with his family and unable to
confess that he was wrong. (It didn't help to have the Twins and Ginny
flinging parsnips at him on the one occasion when he came home, or
that the brief homecoming was all too clearly a way of giving
Scrimgeour a chance to talk with Harry.)

Family and misunderstanding, together or separately, are important
motifs throughout the series.

Carol, who rather likes Percy and is glad that he learned his lesson