Why it took Percy so long to be with the goodguys.

[Geoff]

No: HPFGUIDX 192078

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Eric Oppen <technomad at ...> wrote:

Corey:
> >> Hey, is it me or has anyone else wondered why it took so long for
> >> Percy to side with his family against Voldemort? <snip>

Eric:
> >> It's like asking why a lot more people didn't split from East to
> >> West Germany before the Wall came down. Once Voldemort's coup
> >> d'etat was in place, it would be very dangerous, at best, to leave.

Corey:
> > Oh okay I don't understand the wall thing but I kind of see what
> > you're getting at. But I'm glad he helped in the end. I wish there
> > had been more survivors vs the death eaters.

Eric:
> You never heard of the Berlin Wall?
> 
> Ye GODS, I feel old!
> 
>   --Eric, 51 years old on this day

Geoff:
This may seem a bit OT but I can see what Eric is getting at. The Berlin
Wall was put up across the city in 1960 to stop hundreds of people 
escaping to the West. It was gradually strengthened until its eventual 
fall in 1989. In that time, many people made escape attempts, in some 
cases successful, in others attempts failed and often escapees were 
shot as they crossed and there were instances of them being left to 
die in the no-mans-land between. It is not therefore surprising that 
many folk who wanted out had to lie low and say nothing because 
they feared being killed if they made an escape attempt plus the fact 
that there was a network of informers prepared to report them to the 
authorities. 

It is easy to draw parallels here with Voldemort's influence in the 
Wizarding World and the Communist-like control of life as portrayed 
in DH. I suspect that Percy stayed with the Ministry nursing his grievances 
and imagined slights by the family against until even he began to see which 
way the wind was blowing and perhaps more bravely than I would have 
imagined decided that something needed to be done.

Eric, I also feel old. My school used to have exchanges with a school in 
Frankfurt a M in the mid-1960s and we always had to make a visit to 
the Iron Curtain which had a similar reputation to the Wall in Berlin. I can 
assure you that it was incredibly creepy and unsettling even for visitors 
when you looked across to the DDR side and found a guard watching you 
through binoculars, when you saw houses lying across the line where the 
East side was falling apart and motorways that went nowhere. Even now, 
45 years or so later, I can hardly repress a shudder if I visit those memories. 
It is easy to visualise the tension in the Order of the Phoenix during the 
First Voldemort War when they found their members being picked off one by 
one = either killed or disabled. There are times when JKR's writing is almost 
too close to reality.