Wormtail (was: Chapter Discussion: Prisoner of Azkaban Ch 19)
huntergreen3 at aol.com
huntergreen3 at aol.com
Sat Jul 2 01:04:52 UTC 2011
No: HPFGUIDX 190732
Potioncat:
>>I think a true Gryffindor or Hufflepuff would have died before betraying a friend. I've never understood how Peter got into Gryffindor. Has anyone figured that out?<<
Rebecca:
I don't think Peter every really was a friend of Lupin/James/Sirius, he was just a follower. I remember seeing people like that when I was in high school, they want to be part of an "in crowd" and go leech off of them and follow them around, not necessarily even having anything in common, just wanting to be a member of the group. Since Peter was in their (presumably) room and wouldn't leave them alone, they had no choice but to include him, but he appears to me to be more of a fan club than an actual friend. (I don't think that means James/Sirius treated him badly either, Peter could have found other friends, Neville doesn't force himself on Harry/Ron nor do Dean or Seamus.)
Peter strikes me as being cut from the same cloth as Umbridge, sort of towing the line of whomever is in power and easily stepping aside and switching to a new person without a look back. I wonder how quickly she started distancing herself from Fudge when his favor became to plumment (notice how he is ousted, but not her), or how the death eaters were imperiousing people to get close to Scrimgeor and eventually killed him and she appears to have no problem with that (despite him defending her to Harry), she just shifts her loyalties. Peter is the same way, Sirius and James were the popular ones, so he follows them, even out of Hogwarts and into the order, but when order members start dying and it looks like they're going to lose, he shifts over to Voldemort.
As for whether or not this fits in with the philosophy of Gryffindor, I don't know. Certainly bravery is very important, and I don't think of Peter as a coward. I think that he *chose* to switch to Voldemort, and only said otherwise to try and save his life. If he was passing information for a *year* he had plenty of opportunities to fess up and ask for protection. And he willingly became the secret-keeper, he could have refused Voldemort would have never expected him to be the secret-keeper (yes, its not easy to lie to Voldemort, but that could have been one of those "time to run away and go into hiding" moments, or admit to James and Lily what is going on). It takes a certain kind of courage to lie to people for a year, especially when news of the spy started leaking out, and yet no one suspected him, he must be good at lying. Also, when Voldemort was blasted into vapor, he could have just disappeared as a rat, but rather took the time to set up Sirius (by cutting off his own finger no less) which wasn't necessary. Yes, they would have been searching for him otherwise, but he can hide as a *rat*, he'd be impossible to find. I think confronting Sirius and setting him up for murder was very brave, an evil sort of bravery, but bravery nonetheless.
The person in the marauders who I think least belongs in Gryffindor is Lupin, actually. He's so desparately insecure, and when pressed, he backs away. First in Snape's worst memory, we see him *not* intervening even though he clearly disagrees with what James and Sirius are doing AND he's a prefect, even first-year Neville was braver than that (and what Harry/Ron/Hermione were doing was less bad, in my opinion). In PoA, he is the ONLY person that could tell Dumbledore (or the aurors or ANYONE) that Sirius can turn into a dog, but he's too afraid to admit that he was deceptive to Dumbledore as a teenager. If Sirius actually was trying to kill Harry he would have suceeded because of this. Lupin would have let Harry die since he was too scared to admit wrong-doing from fifteen years before. In the rest of the series, he's constantly whining about how no one likes "his kind", rather than try and do anything about it. Then when his wife is pregnant, he's so terrified that the baby will be a werewolf that he tries to run away rather than deal with it. I don't think that he chooses to be cowardly, its just his nature, he's clearly trying to fight it, he is working with the order and does manage to march into dangerous situations, its just that he's only brave sometimes, other times, when its not about life or death, he turns into a coward. He seems like a better fit for Ravenclaw.
-Rebecca (who has been lurking, but hasn't posted since before DH)
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