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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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I think the Slytherins would accept authorities and leaders more easily than the Gryffindors because of the hierarchy they are used to and they are not loyal to individual as much as they are loyal to their networks (families being the closest network they belong to), whereas Gryffindors would follow someone who is a charismatic leader. I think Harry has the potential to become such a leader if he just took the position.
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I wonder if Slytherin would accept Muggle-born witches and wizards. Obviously you don't have to be a pureblood to become a Slytherin (see Tom Riddle), but how pure would you blood have to be before you'd be qualified to become a Slytherin? And would other Slytherin-ish qualitites compensate the 'un-purity' of blood?
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(Hat: Pssst! There's this prophecy thing! You're going to get scragged! Go with Slyth-- mphphphh...!)