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This has been a great discussion weekend on lj--which makes it very hard for me to concentrate on what I should be doing. ::sigh:: But I did get some things done and WILL finish the assignment I gave myself today. I WILL. I hope.
Anyway, these discussions got me thinking, for some reason, about Percy and Sirius again, and their leaving of their families.
It occurs to me that it's very difficult to look at the actions of characters in HP from a moral perspective a lot of the time. I'm not saying you never can, just that I don't think these characters are primarily driven by concerns of right and wrong--which is what makes the book so slippery to discuss as a "battle of good vs. evil." Tolkien's characters, for instance, are very much figures representing moral ideas. In HP thre are a few moments when characters do bring up questions of right and wrong, but I usually end up having more questions about those moments than answers. (Iow, I usually end up going, "But...but...but...")
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pharnabazus wrote this great essay about how the Wizarding World works that I feel offers the most consistent theory of the world, one that makes things make sense in ways they might not otherwise. It's long, but to give the basics here, the idea is that the WW lives in a constant state of emergency, so there's really no laws protecting anyone. (This is obvious in the way Sirius can languish in jail without a trial, for instance.) So what people do instead is just cluster around different powerful wizards or "patrons" who jostle with each other over power and form networks underneath them. Dumbledore is the most obvious of these patrons, Lucius Malfoy is one, Voldemort used to be one, and he took Lucius' network along with some others underneath him. (Dumbledore has groomed Harry into a subpatron for himself, and Harry has now begun to form his own network, probably as Dumbledore had hoped, both through strength in the DA and money by financing the joke shop.) What makes this important is it points out that whatever ethical questions do come up, self-preservation and protection is always a driving force in anyone's decision. Wizards simply don't make the kinds of decisions about their life that regular people do, because they live in a society dominated by alliances. (This is why it's ridiculous, for instance, for people to look down on first-year Draco's offer of alliance instead of friendship to Harry as a sign of his bad character--every wizard offers alliance. Those from the muggle world, like Harry and Hermione, soon learn this if they don't know it already.)
This is where we get to Percy and Sirius. I was just thinking about how it's so tempting to view their actions in moral terms: Percy is bad for hurting his family by leaving, Sirius is good for leaving the Blacks and their focus on purity behind. But I just don't see these issues as being the main concern here. In fact, of the two of them I think Percy is the one more likely to be thinking along those terms.pharnabazus points out the Weasleys as being incredibly important to Dumbledore becuase they, unlike most of the other people in the Order, are not dependent on him through manipulation. They seem to be true believers who genuinely agree with his ideas and revere him personally. Percy, however, is at odds with his family. Ironically, one of the things that puts him at odds with them is that he doesn't approve of the twins' "jokes," of which he is often the butt. As Head Boy he wants to enforce rules even if that means taking points from his siblings (which is, you know, fair). As a Prefect Ron seems very wary of enforcing his power against his siblings. Hermione is able to best the twins at their own game at times, and therefore able to be occasionally bossy (since we know she ultimately has the same personal devotion to Dumbledore as the rest of the Weasleys).
Because of his precarious position in his family, it makes sense for Percy to seek outside it for a protector, one who sees some value in him. I think part of what people distrust in Percy's leaving his family is that he doesn't do so in a fit of anger. He sees much colder, sending back his sweater, not losing his temper. What's more, though, is he seems to me to still care about his family. I didn't take his letter to Ron as an attempt to draw him over the dark side as much as a genuine desire to be seen as being a good guy who cared about his family but had ideological differences with them--though of course he also wanted to have Ron, as a Weasley who didn't seem to stand against him like the others--well-disposed towards him. Plus, as the essay points out, by separating from his family completely Percy destroys any chances of working against them as a spy. So while I'm saying Percy probably does, in his mind, think he's making the right choice, and does seem to be a character who wants to be in the right, I think we should also see Percy as someone who was in a precarious position family-wise and chose to find a place where he could be more secure. Percy also has good reason to want to undermine Harry's influence in the family, as it is Harry who has sort of taken his place as the leading brother in the house.
That's where Sirius gets more interesting. It would be nice to think of him having moral problems with his family's ideas and sadly choosing to cut himself off, but this doesn't fit Sirius' personality at all and it definitely doesn't seem to be what happened. I can't remember at the moment, but it seems like Regulus was younger than Sirius. Regardless, Regulus was the favorite. Sirius, it seems to me, should have been considered the heir apparent of the Black dynasty, but he wasn't because of his personality (just as Percy seems like he should be the heir apparent of the Weasleys being the eldest son at home we meet, but he isn't because of his personality--Harry could be said to have taken his place in some ways on that score). So imagine the family as some medieval dynasty here--you've got two princes, only one of which is going to inherit the crown. Sirius makes a break similar to Percy's--though perhaps he's even less thoughtful about why he's doing it. Rather than be the son in disfavor he attaches himself to a different family where he can be the favored son...although of course his status as an outsider is never really forgotten, leaving him with nobody to go to bat for him when he's falsely accused of working for Voldemort. Switching one's tribal affiliation seems to almost always carry disgrace with it: Peter, Snape, Percy and Sirius all seem to be treated less well than the people they worked with. That makes it sort of interesting, btw, that Snape and Sirius hate each other so much. The two of them are kind of squabbling over scraps in OotP, arguing over who is the lowest of the low in the Order.
Ironically, of the two Black brothers it seems that Regulus was the one who made the starker moral choice, one that was not based on self-preservation since it resulted in his death. Unfortunately, I suppose I may just be supposed to see Regulus' choice as a sign of cowardice--he was too weak to torture Muggles or whatever, but personally I think that kind of "cowardice" is a healthy thing. Would there were more Regulus Blacks in the Taliban. (*waves Regulus flag*) This is not to say I think Regulus is better than Sirius or that he's the big hero here, though. Sirius does reject the whole Pureblood superiority thing. I'm just saying his story is not, imo, one of someone making primarily a moral choice. There's lots of other issues involved.
This, to me, is I guess why the idea of Gryffindor "triumphing" over Slytherin or whatever seems to pointless. "Conversion" from one side to another in this universe is rarely if ever rewarded or respected by either side. Over and over, it seems to me, sticking with one's birthright seems the only source of strength--or, if one is a Muggleborn, sticking with ones House which is similar to a family. (If Millicent Bulstrode is a halfblood she still seems a valued part of Slytherin--in fact, I love her character in general and I think she's probably part of what I like about Slytherin in general, but that's a different topic.) Alliances can certainly be formed with others, but trying to choose a path in life separate to one's family seems to always lead to misery. I mean, Grawp might have been the runt of the giant world but at Hogwarts he's a pet on a leash! I guess that's why it really does just seem to me that the only way this world could be strong is through alliance amongst all the houses that had compromises on all sides. Iirc,pharnabazus's essay also suggests that Slytherin's leaving the school was a sacrifice to avoid everything falling apart, and that sacrifice has made the house isolated ever since. I'd like to think it's the undoing of that sacrifice that would provide the answer. Because I just can't see a possibility for the more modern idea that some Slytherins would realize the Malfoy/Black attitude was morally wrong and so would join with Gryffindor. The kids in this world just literally don't seem to have the power to do that the way kids do now--it's like when people try to modernize Romeo and Juliet. It just doesn't work as a story in modern times, where two kids could run off on their own and live just fine. In fact, this idea already led to problems in OotP with the DA when Marietta sided with--surprise!--the Ministry because that's where her family alliance lay. Ultimately it came down to the same alliances as always and the family, unsurprisingly, took precedence.
Anyway, these discussions got me thinking, for some reason, about Percy and Sirius again, and their leaving of their families.
It occurs to me that it's very difficult to look at the actions of characters in HP from a moral perspective a lot of the time. I'm not saying you never can, just that I don't think these characters are primarily driven by concerns of right and wrong--which is what makes the book so slippery to discuss as a "battle of good vs. evil." Tolkien's characters, for instance, are very much figures representing moral ideas. In HP thre are a few moments when characters do bring up questions of right and wrong, but I usually end up having more questions about those moments than answers. (Iow, I usually end up going, "But...but...but...")
pharnabazus wrote this great essay about how the Wizarding World works that I feel offers the most consistent theory of the world, one that makes things make sense in ways they might not otherwise. It's long, but to give the basics here, the idea is that the WW lives in a constant state of emergency, so there's really no laws protecting anyone. (This is obvious in the way Sirius can languish in jail without a trial, for instance.) So what people do instead is just cluster around different powerful wizards or "patrons" who jostle with each other over power and form networks underneath them. Dumbledore is the most obvious of these patrons, Lucius Malfoy is one, Voldemort used to be one, and he took Lucius' network along with some others underneath him. (Dumbledore has groomed Harry into a subpatron for himself, and Harry has now begun to form his own network, probably as Dumbledore had hoped, both through strength in the DA and money by financing the joke shop.) What makes this important is it points out that whatever ethical questions do come up, self-preservation and protection is always a driving force in anyone's decision. Wizards simply don't make the kinds of decisions about their life that regular people do, because they live in a society dominated by alliances. (This is why it's ridiculous, for instance, for people to look down on first-year Draco's offer of alliance instead of friendship to Harry as a sign of his bad character--every wizard offers alliance. Those from the muggle world, like Harry and Hermione, soon learn this if they don't know it already.)This is where we get to Percy and Sirius. I was just thinking about how it's so tempting to view their actions in moral terms: Percy is bad for hurting his family by leaving, Sirius is good for leaving the Blacks and their focus on purity behind. But I just don't see these issues as being the main concern here. In fact, of the two of them I think Percy is the one more likely to be thinking along those terms.
pharnabazus points out the Weasleys as being incredibly important to Dumbledore becuase they, unlike most of the other people in the Order, are not dependent on him through manipulation. They seem to be true believers who genuinely agree with his ideas and revere him personally. Percy, however, is at odds with his family. Ironically, one of the things that puts him at odds with them is that he doesn't approve of the twins' "jokes," of which he is often the butt. As Head Boy he wants to enforce rules even if that means taking points from his siblings (which is, you know, fair). As a Prefect Ron seems very wary of enforcing his power against his siblings. Hermione is able to best the twins at their own game at times, and therefore able to be occasionally bossy (since we know she ultimately has the same personal devotion to Dumbledore as the rest of the Weasleys). Because of his precarious position in his family, it makes sense for Percy to seek outside it for a protector, one who sees some value in him. I think part of what people distrust in Percy's leaving his family is that he doesn't do so in a fit of anger. He sees much colder, sending back his sweater, not losing his temper. What's more, though, is he seems to me to still care about his family. I didn't take his letter to Ron as an attempt to draw him over the dark side as much as a genuine desire to be seen as being a good guy who cared about his family but had ideological differences with them--though of course he also wanted to have Ron, as a Weasley who didn't seem to stand against him like the others--well-disposed towards him. Plus, as the essay points out, by separating from his family completely Percy destroys any chances of working against them as a spy. So while I'm saying Percy probably does, in his mind, think he's making the right choice, and does seem to be a character who wants to be in the right, I think we should also see Percy as someone who was in a precarious position family-wise and chose to find a place where he could be more secure. Percy also has good reason to want to undermine Harry's influence in the family, as it is Harry who has sort of taken his place as the leading brother in the house.
That's where Sirius gets more interesting. It would be nice to think of him having moral problems with his family's ideas and sadly choosing to cut himself off, but this doesn't fit Sirius' personality at all and it definitely doesn't seem to be what happened. I can't remember at the moment, but it seems like Regulus was younger than Sirius. Regardless, Regulus was the favorite. Sirius, it seems to me, should have been considered the heir apparent of the Black dynasty, but he wasn't because of his personality (just as Percy seems like he should be the heir apparent of the Weasleys being the eldest son at home we meet, but he isn't because of his personality--Harry could be said to have taken his place in some ways on that score). So imagine the family as some medieval dynasty here--you've got two princes, only one of which is going to inherit the crown. Sirius makes a break similar to Percy's--though perhaps he's even less thoughtful about why he's doing it. Rather than be the son in disfavor he attaches himself to a different family where he can be the favored son...although of course his status as an outsider is never really forgotten, leaving him with nobody to go to bat for him when he's falsely accused of working for Voldemort. Switching one's tribal affiliation seems to almost always carry disgrace with it: Peter, Snape, Percy and Sirius all seem to be treated less well than the people they worked with. That makes it sort of interesting, btw, that Snape and Sirius hate each other so much. The two of them are kind of squabbling over scraps in OotP, arguing over who is the lowest of the low in the Order.
Ironically, of the two Black brothers it seems that Regulus was the one who made the starker moral choice, one that was not based on self-preservation since it resulted in his death. Unfortunately, I suppose I may just be supposed to see Regulus' choice as a sign of cowardice--he was too weak to torture Muggles or whatever, but personally I think that kind of "cowardice" is a healthy thing. Would there were more Regulus Blacks in the Taliban. (*waves Regulus flag*) This is not to say I think Regulus is better than Sirius or that he's the big hero here, though. Sirius does reject the whole Pureblood superiority thing. I'm just saying his story is not, imo, one of someone making primarily a moral choice. There's lots of other issues involved.
This, to me, is I guess why the idea of Gryffindor "triumphing" over Slytherin or whatever seems to pointless. "Conversion" from one side to another in this universe is rarely if ever rewarded or respected by either side. Over and over, it seems to me, sticking with one's birthright seems the only source of strength--or, if one is a Muggleborn, sticking with ones House which is similar to a family. (If Millicent Bulstrode is a halfblood she still seems a valued part of Slytherin--in fact, I love her character in general and I think she's probably part of what I like about Slytherin in general, but that's a different topic.) Alliances can certainly be formed with others, but trying to choose a path in life separate to one's family seems to always lead to misery. I mean, Grawp might have been the runt of the giant world but at Hogwarts he's a pet on a leash! I guess that's why it really does just seem to me that the only way this world could be strong is through alliance amongst all the houses that had compromises on all sides. Iirc,
pharnabazus's essay also suggests that Slytherin's leaving the school was a sacrifice to avoid everything falling apart, and that sacrifice has made the house isolated ever since. I'd like to think it's the undoing of that sacrifice that would provide the answer. Because I just can't see a possibility for the more modern idea that some Slytherins would realize the Malfoy/Black attitude was morally wrong and so would join with Gryffindor. The kids in this world just literally don't seem to have the power to do that the way kids do now--it's like when people try to modernize Romeo and Juliet. It just doesn't work as a story in modern times, where two kids could run off on their own and live just fine. In fact, this idea already led to problems in OotP with the DA when Marietta sided with--surprise!--the Ministry because that's where her family alliance lay. Ultimately it came down to the same alliances as always and the family, unsurprisingly, took precedence. 
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Iirc, pharnabazus's essay also suggests that Slytherin's leaving the school was a sacrifice to avoid everything falling apart, and that sacrifice has made the house isolated ever since. I'd like to think it's the undoing of that sacrifice that would provide the answer. Because I just can't see a possibility for the more modern idea that some Slytherins would realize the Malfoy/Black attitude was morally wrong and so would join with Gryffindor.
We're back at this, again. ;-) I agree with you. It would be unreasonable to expect the Slytherins to join the Gryffindors, especially as the pure-blood attitude the Slytherins represent is partly very valid (Muggles being threat and all). Besides, at this point joining with the Gryffindors would essentially mean joining Dumbledore and entering his patronage, which is completely unquestionable for the pureblood families, as he is seen as a Muggle-lover.
Alliance between Dumbledore's patronage network and some of the pureblood families' networks would probably be the best solution. The beauty of such an idea is that it would deprive Voldemort of part of his network, and an evil overlord with no supporters isn't much of an overlord. Unfortunately it seems, imo, that it's quite unlikely that such an alliance would be reached, at least not when Dumbledore is leading. As someone said in that previous post of yours about Snape's worst memory, Dumbledore seems to surround himself with people who are dependent on him. Or like in the Weasleys' case, who are completely loyal to him personally.
Which is why I think that if the rift inside the Wizarding World is to be healed, some kind of mediator would be needed. The pureblood families won't follow Dumbledore, no matter what, and the people who believe in Dumbledore won't follow someone from the 'other side', even if they had one strong leader. People like the Weasleys, who are so Gryffindor that it hurts, would probably rather live as Muggles than follow 'some filthy Slytherin'.
And the question is, as he is the leader of Voldemort's opposition, would Dumbledore enter into an equal alliance with some Voldemort's former/potential followers? Would he concede to losing some of his power, which, imo, such an alliance would lead to? Or would the alliance start in the midst of the students of Hogwarts, so not actually being an alliance between the Order of the Phoenix and Voldemort's former/potential followers, but an alliance between students, who would then perhaps lead their families into the alliance. Basically, it would mean an alliance between Harry and the Slytherins, or possibly a patronage network that is lead by Harry, not Dumbledore.
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The trouble with having Harry lead an alliance is that by now surely he's firmly associated with Dumbledore. Even Lucius comments on this. I can't believe there are too many students who don't link them together. But that makes you wonder exactly what the Slytherin parents think they're doing in sending their kids to the school where Dumbledore is headmaster. Surely there must be something beyond personal loyalty to this guy.
I wonder, though, if it's possible for the books to show Harry making an alliance...I mean, it would be great if he could make a deal with the Slytherins so that they would go along with the plan without everybody having to join Harry's army, exactly. It seems like there's plenty of groundwork laid for this with all the talk about different races making treaties etc.
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Maybe it's just loyatly to Hogwarts as 'the Traditional School'? Even if they don't like Dumbledore, they wouldn't want to just drop all that tradition to avoid thier kids coming into contact with him? And they have (or Lucius has, at the least) tried to get Dumbledore out of there...
And it just occured to me... why didn't Slytherin start his own school, after? If he really thought they were wrong...
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Plus, I mean Lucius and Narcissa presumably both went to Hogwarts themselves, and sending the kid to Germany is kind of a stretch!
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Dumbledore's motives
The trouble with having Harry lead an alliance is that by now surely he's firmly associated with Dumbledore.
I wonder if it's intentional or unintentional in Dumbledore's part to tie Harry to him so tightly. I can understand why Dumbledore would want to do it, since obviously it's important that Harry and Dumbledore can work together, what with Harry being the One to defeat Voldemort and Dumbledore being the one Voldemort fears. On the other hand, such a tight tie is bound to cause problems if Dumbledore wants all the Houses to work together.
So, either Dumbledore hasn't really thought about it and isn't aware of his own reputation as a Muggle-lover (which is hard to believe) or he doesn't think the concerns of the pureblood are valid at all, and if they don't think like he does, then they are not worth as alliances. The third and most unpleasant conclusion is that Dumbledore doesn't wish the rift to be healed at all for his own reason, whatever they were (like keeping his power and influence intact and so on). Unfortunately, that option isn't completely out of question. He hasn't really promoted inter-House co-operation. He only made a pretty speech at the end of GoF, but speech is just a speech.
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In light of