The Screwtape Twins

[sistermagpie]

I was just reading narcissam's thread on When Character Hate Goes Bad and this side topic came up that seems like an interesting thing to get other people's opinions on.

It comes out of the common conversation about the twins' antics, beginning with:

Might they be people who go too far on the other side, a la Crouch, Sr.? Maybe, but they really aren't that serious about anything. Nor will they ever be consciously evil--they're careless and thoughtless, and have an occasionally cruel streak, but they aren't out trying to destroy things and hurt people.

And is followed up by another poster with:

I've seen the argument about F&G being as or more evil than Voldemort before, and I just turned away shaking my head. Thanks for spelling it out; and word on the rest of what you said too.

Now, frankly I'm not so sure the twins aren't that serious about anything--I think at times they are. I don't think they'd ever be consciously evil, but then...not many people are motivated by the urge to be consciously evil. I also in general always think it's silly to compare one character to another in general in this way--like by saying Fred and George are "more evil" than Voldemort, as if evil is something we can really measure that way, and being more or less evil than another person has any bearing on who you are. People can do damage all sorts of ways besides setting out to cause damage. But I'm not really thinking here on how Fred and George will ultimately be used in the series, though. I'm not sure how they will be. When Harry is revolted by his father and Sirius' treatment of Snape he says he had thought they were like Fred and George, indicated *he* sees a big difference between them, but that line could just as easily be signaling to us that they are alike in a negative way (perhaps Fred and George won't get the wake-up call James did, for instance).

The question I thought was interesting, though, was how much one's motivation would matter in this kind of situation, especially to the victim? In general I do think motivation is important--very much so. But you get into a sticky area with motivation when it comes to things like jokes, because what's the motivation, exactly? It's not really accurate to say the twins aren't intentionally hurting people because often they are intentionally hurting people, they're just dong it out of something other than personal malice. In the series, for instance, Fred and George have intentionally caused people to break out in boils, given somebody something to choke them, thrown hexes at them (in fact, twice from behind, I think), and caused one person long-term brain damage. They've also just made people feel silly, stuck a firecracker in a salamander, whacked a puffskein with a bat (iirc), and given somebody arachnophobia.

What I said on the other thread was this:

What does it mean to say they're not out to destroy things and hurt people? I mean, sometimes they are out to do hurt or destroy and even when they're not, if you were hurt by someone would you really feel better about it if they were just kidding around rather than intentionally trying to hurt you? Because I'm not sure I would. That might just add a layer of humiliation to it as well. It's a really awful feeling to have someone do something that hurts or humiliates you, or destroys something you care about, and then feel pressured to laugh at it because otherwise you don't have a sense of humor. At least with a mean bully you might get some sympathy. With the joker bully you have to hear how he's a great guy!

Like I said, I'm thinking of this more in real world terms, but Fred and George maybe make a good jumping off point, because it seems like sometimes people are dismissive of readers who have a truly negative reaction to them, thinking those readers just don't "get it" when in fact they maybe do get it and just can't help but identify with the person who's the butt of their pranks.

This subject probably wouldn't be complete without C.S.Lewis' thoughts on the subject, from The Screwtape Letters. Happily, pharnabazus was nice enough to quote the exact passage today in another thread, so I can just cut and paste it:

"The real use of Jokes or Humour is in quite a different direction, and it is specially promising among the English who take their "sense of humour" so seriously that a deficiency in this sense is almost the only deficiency at which they feel shame. Humour is for them the all-consoling and (mark this) the all-excusing, grace of life. Hence it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame. If a man simply lets others pay for him, he is "mean"; if he boasts of it in a jocular manner and twits his fellows with having been scored off, he is no longer "mean" but a comical fellow. Mere cowardice is shameful; cowardice boasted of with humorous exaggerations and grotesque gestures can be passed off as funny. Cruelty is shameful-unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke. A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man's damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke. And this temptation can be almost entirely hidden from your patient by that English seriousness about Humour. Any suggestion that there might be too much of it can be represented to him as "Puritanical" or as betraying a "lack of humour"."

Pranks are often very important in stories where characters were at school together in just this way. Pranksters often wind up getting stalked and terrorized by victims of their funny jokes. Nero Wolfe dealt with the aftermath in "The League of Frightened Gentlemen." HP has already dealt with it with Sirius' Prank on Sirius. HP appears to have given us a prank with an even more serious result with Montague, but it's not really addressed.

Comments

[ackonrad.livejournal.com]

When Harry is revolted by his father and Sirius' treatment of Snape he says he had thought they were like Fred and George, indicated *he* sees a big difference between them, but that line could just as easily be signaling to us that they are alike in a negative way (perhaps Fred and George won't get the wake-up call James did, for instance).

Let me quote this.

OotP, page 575:

... but she had described them as forerunners of the Weasley twins, and Harry could not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside-down for the fun of it ... not unless they really loathed them ... perhaps Malfoy, or somebody who really deserved it ...

'Unless they really loathed them' and 'somebody who really deserved it' are the key lines here. Let's look at them - have you noticed that the twins do loathe more people than they should? The Slytherins because of their house, Zacharias Smith because he dares not to trust Harry, Dudley because he bullied Harry, Umbridge because she managed to remove Dumbledore from Hogwarts (well, with the DA's help, but let's not go into this). Whether or not everyone else hates Umbridge as well is not relevant, because the twins are the only ones who dare to openly laugh at her authority over them.

According to the twins, Percy certainly belongs to the second category of the people who deserve to be tortured, because... um, because Percy dares to be proud of being made a Prefect and Head Boy, and because he dares to dream of an academic career, I suppose. There was a horrifying line in Book 3 (I hope this is the right one), when Fred and George told Harry they tried to close Percy in a pyramid while the family was in Egypt, but failed because their mother caught them. A harmless joke? Just having a little fun with the pompous annoying elder brother? I'm sorry if I lack enough humor sense, but I don't see anything funny in that.

Ron and Ginny (pre-OotP Ginny, of course *rolls eyes*) belong to that second category as well. Ron 'deserves' to be laughed at because he's an insecure, highly underestimating himself boy who'd never dream to object to his brothers. Did you notice how he didn't want to do anything against them even as a Prefect? I thought that he was afraid of what they would do to him to pay him back - maybe put a tarantula in his bed or something. From what I've seen until now, I totally can see them doing it.

Ginny's case in CoS was similar - Percy had to threaten them he was going to write their mother about her having nightmares to make Fred and George stop teasing her.

I don't know why JKR likes them - I fail to see what's so funny about them. Maybe it's just my humor sense - I've never been a humorous person, and take such things more seriously than some people seem to do. However, I will never be able to see the Dudley and Montague incidents as harmless jokes, and the way the Twins and everyone else reacted to them will always make me think that not me, but JKR has a warped sense of humor.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, how far does the apple fall from the tree? Molly is a classic domestic bully, and the twins inherited their bullying natures from her. The certainly didn't get that from their father. The whole Weasley menange for the first five books traces a steadily escalating battle between the twins and their mother. There is a limit to how openly the twins could attack Molly. That's probably one of the reasons for their having adopted aggressive "humor" as their weapon of choice in the first place.

Percy (who also likes to throw his weight around) sided with Molly. Consequently there was no limit to what they felt they could throw at *him*. It's also pretty clear that Molly had staked out a claim on her only daughter, and while the twins hadn't quite the guts to do much about it at home, as soon as Molly wasn't around they intended to take Molly's preference out of Ginny's hide. The whole business of the Riddle diary seems to have spooked them enough that they more or less backed off after that.

Ron, otoh, blindly sided with the twins, and he did NOT inherit a bullying nature. Consequently, he gets rolled over from both sides. The twins let him tag along when they feel like it or take swipes at him when it occurs to him. Molly, by contrast has been *consistently* passive agressive in her relationship and treatment of this particular child. Always *maroon* jumpers, always the sandwiches he *doesn't* like, the gawd-awfull dress robes. If he hadn't managed to immediately strike up a friendship with Harry Potter the aggressiveness might have been less passive. As it is, until he was made a Prefect I cannot off the top of my head remember any statement Molly has ever addressed to Ron that wasn't either an order or a rebuke. Now that her "golden boy" Percy has rejected her, she may well decide that Ron, now a Prefect, is a fitting replacement. We may see some very different dynamics between the two of them in the last two books. Particularly if the twins have moved out and are living over the shop.

But I really do think that a great deal of hunger for recognition that is such a basic part of Ron's character is due to the fact that he has been deliberately denied that recognition from his mother.

Arthur, Bill and Charlie seem to have managed to keep their heads down and stay out of it. Ginny would have as well, but wasn't given the option. She has developed the art of flying under the radar in self-protection.

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

But I really do think that a great deal of hunger for recognition that is such a basic part of Ron's character is due to the fact that he has been deliberately denied that recognition from his mother.

You know, I never thought about it that way, but aww, you have a point.
*Hugs Ron*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's really interesting the way these things can kind of get covered over and fudged when they're supposed to be jokes. For instance, while this post is still up I wound up going off on this tangent in a thread about Draco here. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/reddiej/95705.html?thread=1033177#t1033177)

I think you know I find the whole line of reasoning in that thread disturbing, but it comes back to what threeoranges is saying as well, that perhaps the idea is that the twins are good because we should see them as having been giving an "evil detector" by the author, so that everyone they hit turns out to somehow deserve it or at least to have done something not so nice themselves. That, of course, brings me back to a lot of the way compassion is dealt with in the series--there really does seem to be this idea that compassion is something you *earn,* often by being an orphan and a hero and picked on before you get it. But I think looking at the twins the way they are in that thread is important, because they are sort of sadists with a noble edge. Like, you see there how they're always picking on someone who "deserves it" and when they can't be said to be doing that then the hurt they cause is played down.

I guess I just often feel like the books do sometimes seem to lend a noble cast to perfectly selfish impulses. If you wish you could grind the popular kids in school into the dirt we'll make them evil so you're doing something noble by doing it.