Sunday, January 22, 2006

In Defence of Percy Weasley

Fandom condemnation of Percy Weasley generally comes down to two reasons: he did not believe Harry when he said that Voldemort had returned, and he left his family.

If you think about it from Percy's perspective, both of these actions were eminently reasonable and perfectly justified.

The main thing to keep in mind here is that Percy does not know that he's in a Harry Potter book. The fact that Harry is, functionally, the messiah is not known to Percy until a year after he leaves the family, and even then it's still a rumour. Percy thinks he's in a Percy Weasley book, just as we all tend to envision ourselves as the protagonist in the story of our lives, and sees Harry as only a tertiary background character - his little brother's friend. Also, we must remember that Voldemort lay low after his return. There was no noticeable threat at the time when Percy left the family, and the question of whether Voldemort had returned was, at best, a matter of one's political convictions, and, at work, an unsubstantiated rumour. At the time, Percy was 18 and Harry was 14 going on 15. Picture yourself at age 18. Have a younger sibling? Picture them at age 14/15. Would your 18-year-old self change their politcal convictions just because your 14/15-year-old sibling's friend says they're wrong? While Harry has done nothing to make Percy think he's a bad person or anything, Percy still sees him as a child with a difficult upbringing, and assigns him credibility on adult matters accordingly. He happens to be factually incorrect, but the method by which he arrived at his conclusion is not unreasonable.

As for leaving his family, that was an entirely reasonable thing for Percy to do. In fact, it was inevitable, even if they didn't have the rift over the return of Voldemort. Fans don't like the fact that Percy left because he was breaking up this big, fun, wonderful family. But the very things that make the Weasley family so much fun to read as fans make in unbearable for Percy to live in.

Most of the Weasleys are popular, athletic extroverts. Percy is more of an intellectual introvert, and less popular both at Hogwarts and in the family (as well as to the readers, but he doesn't know he's being read so that doesn't count.) Because of this, he doesn't identify with the majority of his family members, and they don't identify with him. With so many people in the house and most, if not all, of them being extroverts, Percy never gets a moment to himself. When an introvert is not alone (with the possible exception of when they're with someone they love enough to marry, and with the possible exception of when they're with their own child), the can't completely let their guard down - they feel they have to be "on". This is imply the nature of introversion. With Percy not even getting a room to himself (at the beginning of GOF, Mrs. Weasley says that Percy has his own room for the time being as though that's something exceptional), he is never 100% comfortable en famille.

Now add to this the fact that Percy is the favourite target of Fred & George's jokes. This means he has to have his guard up all the time, 24/7, even in his own home. That is no way to live. He must also feel some resentment towards his parents (and perhaps his older brothers too?) for not putting a stop to Fred & George's constant tormenting. Yes, we see Mrs. Weasley scolding the twins for their various jokes, but she is not able to stop them pre-emptively, and Percy still has to suffer through the jokes. It's fun for us to read, but it must be hell for Percy. Then he goes to Hogwarts and gets a taste of life without being a constant target. This just makes him realize how bad it actually is when he comes home. Then in his third year, Fred & George go to Hogwarts with him. His sanctuary is no longer safe; the comfortable little niche he has carved out for himself has been invaded by his very tormentors. He is once again the butt of jokes. The twins, being funny and outgoing, quickly become popular, and soon have everyone laughing at their jokes. Percy becomes the object of ridicule by his housemates and classmates, people whose treatment of him previously ranged from indifference to friendship. Again, he must be on guard 24/7.

In his fifth year, Percy becomes a Prefect. However, his brothers constantly undermine his authority. This explains the constant pomposity we see in him - it's an adolescent attempt at a defence mechanism. Percy has to have a certain authority in the school so he can carry out his Prefect duties and, later, his Head Boy duties, but he never knows when his brothers will make a fool of him. So he tries to deliberately exude authority at all times, hoping this might cancel out the mockery that will arise from his brothers' inevitable pranks. Even when he finishes Hogwarts and goes out to work at a real office job, his brothers continue to undermine his professionalism by sending him dragon dung. During all this, his family gives him practically no support, does nothing to stop the twins from tormenting him, does nothing to make his life easier. Despite the fact that he has done everything right - gotten a bunch of NEWTs and went straight into a job with a prestigious department at the Ministry - his family does nothing to make the twins treat Percy with at least basic human respect.

Then Percy gets the promotion of his dreams. Finally, someone is recognizing his worth! Percy proudly announces his news to his family . . . only to be told that he didn't get the promotion on merit, he just got it to spy on them, and he therefore shouldn't accept the promotion. This is the last straw! All his life, Percy was mocked and tormented while is parent stood idly by, and now they're trying to sabotage his career - the one place where he is treated with respect! So, like any 19-year-old in that position would do, Percy moves out.

Yes, it happened that Voldemort was back, but Percy didn't know. He had seen no evidence, so he chooses to trust empirical observation and the information he can access in his capacity as a Ministery worker rather than the word of a 14-year-old boy whose upbringing would probably make him more susceptible to attention-seeking behaviour and even mental health problems than the average 14-year-old. Yes, as it happens the Weasleys were of potential interest to spies, but they wouldn't have let Percy know this since he's not in the Order and is in the Ministry. Who would assume, apropos of nothing, that their frumpy, middle-aged parents were spies? What Percy sees is a family who has never made the effort to see that he's given basic human respect and always mocked him instead of applauding his accomplishments suddenly try to undermine and belittle his greatest achievement to date. They were more right than he knew, but he had no way of knowing that. Percy is far too old to just blindly trust and obey his parents, especially considering his history in the family, and we should not condemn him for acting in a way that was age- and circumstance-appropriate in the face of no credible mitigating information.

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