(no subject)

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

One thing that bothers me about the twins is that no matter what they do, they get away with it. There are never any consequences. When they sneak Harry out of his house, flying a magic car into a Muggle area, there are no legal consequences and Molly blusters but doesn't do anything. When they more or less ignore how badly Ginny's getting on (as do Percy and Ron), and don't notice she's being bewitched, there's no real guilt.

They give Harry the Marauders' Map - what if he disappeared some day - would they have told the authorities that they gave him a method of sneaking out of school? Or just stayed quiet and hoped things worked out?

They slip Dudley Ton-Tongue Toffees - he could have died, but again no consequences. They win their bet with Bagman (it was never explained how they knew it - maybe they used magical means in an early draft) but never face consequences (given that the Ministry is notoriously corrupt, it's surprising that Ludo is always on the defensive, and never tries to e.g. get Arthur fired or have the twins prosecuted for their illegal testing). And then Harry hands them a pile of cash, because there are no more worthy causes.

In OOTP, they spy on Order meetings (how bad is the security?) but no DEs seem to exploit this. They also drop out of school without qualifications - unlike in real life, where this would lead to months of them sitting about in the Burrow doing nothing, they instead become master businessmen.

In HBP, their shop sells stuff that is obviously dangerous if exploited, but even when the DEs use their powder, no-one blames them for selling it, or questions a society that allows such weapons to be owned.

In DH, Fred is killed, but a heroic death in battle. It would be much more likely for him to be killed in one of the twins' experiments gone wrong - this would actually force George to undergo some sort of reflection or growth as a character - but as it is, it confirms that Fred was great and everything the twins did was great.

Comments

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

The twins are out of control. They have no fear of authority. They revel in showing how little they care for it. They turn their brother's teddy bear into a spider. They bully their siblings. They get lousy grades.

And the world loves them. Adores them. Finds them so hilarious.

It didn't occur to me until I read this, but there was a girl on Dr. Phil just today who acted exactly like the twins, or any HP protagonist. She was extremely obnoxious and self-centered; literally believed the world revolved around her; everyone existed to accommodate her needs; and if anyone did not immediately give her whatever she wanted, she had the right to retaliate in any way she saw fit. Here is a partial list of the things she's done: duct-taped a handicapped boy's mouth shut; bullied people so badly they left school to get away from her; punched her mother, a principal, and a police officer in the mouth; bitten a principal and a police officer; threatened to cut her mother's throat, cut out her tongue, and burn the house down with her family in it; destroyed the front yard, including attempting to throw a bird bath through the car window, because her parents painted her room the wrong color; gotten drunk and stoned on illegal drugs many times; slept around; gotten raped while she was blacked out.

I want to make it clear that she DID NOT have ANYTHING wrong with her as far as being mentally deficient, developmentally delayed, brain-disordered, or anything like that. She was just a complete spoiled, entitled brat. She showed no empathy and no remorse whatever for anything bad she'd ever done.

Although the audience on that show is required to behave politely, it was obvious they hated her, and were thrilled when the show ended and she was hauled off to a reform school ranch against her will. This is yet another example of how sick these books are: When a real person acts like the twins, she's regarded as a hated and feared monster, not a cuddly, adorable prankster.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

I googled that episode and while the twins aren't that bad, they have some horrible tendancies.

And I just realized something. That girl's victims were helpless.

Percy, the twin's favorite target is not helpless. You don't get 12 OWLs for showing up. I have no doubt that Percy can hex back if he chose to, but besides acting pompously. He could have nailed them to the wall and he never did.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Percy, pompous or not, ran into the lake in what were likely official robes (he was acting as Triwizard referee in Crouch's place after all) to help Ron out. Percy always prioritized his ungrateful family over everything else.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

For a pompous brother, does anyone ever doubt he'd help them in a pinch? Besides being pompous and stuffy, what else can anyone accuse him of?

He's ceaselessly loyal, as you mentioned above to a brother who barely tolerates him.

He cares for his younger sibling.

He tries to impress his dad.

He is good to his mother.

He's a nice boyfriend, who is worth sneaking into classrooms.

He's a loyal, fair and diligent prefect, headboy and worker.

He's never betrayed anyone, despite the accusations.

In fact, had he wanted, he could have denounced his family to the ministry, and he never did.

His only crime is being a stuffy older brother to the best friend of a main character, who has no use for him.

[sunnyskywalker]

Making a bet he couldn't cover? (Over a Hogwarts Quidditch match, with his girlfriend, for an amount which could fairly easily be covered if he asked a couple of friends for a tiny loan he'd pay back soon, so is not exactly srs bzns.) That's not such a terrible crime...

He also charged in to oppose the mob at the World Cup with his brothers, so he also tries to protect people from mayhem and has physical courage despite not being a Beater, dragon-wrangler, or curse breaker.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Heh. Percy: secret badass. I like that. ;) Percy is one of those characters I adore who always gets a bad rap.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I imagine he's a fair dueler, he had no qualms about running in after Death Eaters in book 4 and I doubt he planned on going in there to lecture on potion regulations. Twelve OWLS, and Head Boy, I imagine he knows what to do. He could have run downstairs after they bewitched his badge, hexed them, magically glued them to the wall to think about what they did and had some peace.

He never ever struck back. Anyone else pushed to that would have resorted to homicide. Fratricide, preferably. He took it, even though he didn't have to. That's self control.

And me too. He was my favorite character, because he was so much like me. I'm from a family of seven cousins and I line up as the Percy figure.

Two much older brothers who are perfect and did it all.

A more popular and rule breaking cousin who considered me an embaressment. Cut class, and demanded I cover for her. Tried to get me to cheat for her. Bullied me. No one cared. I was a good student, a good rule abiding young lady, an example to Younger cousins who needed to be guided right.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Well said. I always liked Percy, but this really makes me admire him more. I don't know how he could have put up with the twins, let alone the rest of the family.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

And I just realized something. That girl's victims were helpless.

The police, a school principal, and her parents, one of whom is a police officer, are helpless? I can see where her parents wouldn't want to fight their own daughter, but her other adult victims could certainly fight back.

As for the twins, they also tested their products on little kids who had no idea what they were ingesting, not to mention giving that toffee to Dudley. So I think the parallels between that girl and them is closer than you may realize.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Apologies, I meant mortal, human. Percy is a wizard, who can curse and hex people if he chose.

But true. Testing products on people is just evil. I wonder how no one got seriously injured.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Er- what's our evidence no one did?

I mean, it's not like Harry would notice if a couple of the Gryff firsties diaappeared for a few weeks. Or forever.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Ah, but see, that shows Percy is just totally deserving of disrespect.

He could have hexed the Twins to pieces for attacking him. But he didn't. You know, like Snape held his fire to keep from hurting Harry in "The Flight of the Prince" chapter in HBP, and to keep from killing Minerva in "The Sacking of Severus Snape" chapter of DH.

You deliberately hold back from hurting someone's who's attacked you?

COWARD! COWARD!

In fact, we see that the rot goes so far that Percy won't even beat up on SLYTHERINS when he has a free shot.

Sigh. The Twins hide their faces in shame and despair. That anyone pretending to be related to them should sink so low....

But it's true, alas for Gred and Forge's sensibilities.

Look at Percy's behavior in CoS ("POlyjuice Potion"): Draco sneers,
"And what are you doing down here [sneaking around the dungeons], Weasley?"

And all Percy does is to say, "You want to show more respect to a school prefect! I don't like your attitude!"

Now our Best Role Model, the Head Boy of "you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?" fame, would have (at least given that there were no witnesses who had authority to report him to staff or sweet Lily) hexed a stinking Slytherin second year into the hospital wing for a WEEK for questioning his right to sneak around Slytherin territory.

That's the behavior we like to see!

Not that COWARDLY refusal to attack someone weaker.

*

And now for a totally off the wall observation.

Why the hell was a romance between Pureblood-but-blood-traitor Gryffindor swot Percy and Muggle-born Ravenclaw (therefore automatically-swot) Penelope so much of a doomed Romeo-and-Juliet affair that the only place they dared meet was down in the Slytherin dungeons, well away from either of their houses? We know that Ginny, later, wasn't ashamed of dating Ravenclaws... at least, non-Mudblood ones like Michael Corner.

Of course the twins would make unpleasant jests about whomever Percy dated. So what?

Surely... I mean, the Weasleys are a family of blood traitors, right? Surely that must mean they've courted Muggle-borns before? Even though, by sheer random chance and through no choices ever of their own, the current crop of offspring still ranks among the small (1 out of 4) part of the Wizarding population that can be classified as "Purebloods"?

Oh.

There's no canon evidence for any previous Weasley/Prewett marital alliances with non-Purebloods. And in fact, conclusive (crashing) evidence that no previous such courtships (if any tentative outreaches ever occurred) ever resulted in either a marriage or children.

Ron has no Muggle relatives.

None.

None whatsoever.

Or at least, none that he's ever been allowed to meet or know of.

Not a one of his older relatives has EVER married into a family with ANY embarassing Muggle in-laws. Embarassing relatives, yes, he owns the usual plethora, when the family closets are disgorged of people like Aunt Muriel and Uncle Bil. But three-quarters or more of the WW have Muggles in their households somewhere--where were Ron's, when Bill's wedding shakes loose all the family disgraces to haunt the respectables?

Nowhere. They don't exist. Ron has no embarrassingly-Muggle relatives.

The closest he comes is Molly's Squib second cousin who became an accountant. That disgrace to the Prewett (or whatever) name probably did marry a Muggle (what else could he have done?--to what better could a Squib accountant have aspired?), but the Weasley family never talks about (or to) Molly's family shame. They certainly don't recognize the accountant's spawn as FAMILY. Just as, y'know, Draco's family probably didn;t recognize Andromeda's spawn as such.


So Percy is probably the first in his family, ever, to date a Muggle-born, insisting on her merits. And he hides this from his family as the trangression that it is.

How does he justify his overwhelming need of secrecy to Penelope? "No, I'm not ashamed of you, really I'm NOT, but--"

What could possibly follow that "but"?

[oryx_leucoryx]

'-but I need to protect you from my psychopathic brothers'?

'-it will be better when I'm on my own, making my own living, promise!'

Whatever he said, she was still on friendly terms with him in POA. But in GOF he was still living at home while keeping a job, and no sign of Penelope.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----Why the hell was a romance between Pureblood-but-blood-traitor Gryffindor swot Percy and Muggle-born Ravenclaw (therefore automatically-swot) Penelope so much of a doomed Romeo-and-Juliet affair that the only place they dared meet was down in the Slytherin dungeons, well away from either of their houses?

It could simply be that they wanted to ensure privacy and there were some good secluded spots in the dungeons for making out.

Also, I do actually think it's quite likely that Percy would have kept hidden from his family the fact that he had any girlfriend, regardless of her blood status, in order to avoid being teased mercilessly about it by his brothers.

Ron wound up marrying Muggle-born. Did his family have a problem with that?

----Even though, by sheer random chance and through no choices ever of their own, the current crop of offspring still ranks among the small (1 out of 4) part of the Wizarding population that can be classified as "Purebloods"?

Despite what Rowling said in her interviews, I personally believe that what she shows us in her books is a world in which the percentage of purebloods is quite a bit higher. I have a post from a while back about this http://deathtocapslock.livejournal.com/134189.html


----There's no canon evidence for any previous Weasley/Prewett marital alliances with non-Purebloods

I think that we don't have proof either way. All it takes to be classified as a pureblood is to have four magical grandparents. Harry's children are purebloods even though their great-grandmother was a Muggle-born. So the Weasleys could have Muggle-borns on their family tree and still be considered purebloods.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Okay, yeah, if I'd been related to the twins (who make me wildly appreciative of my own disfunctional family) I'd have hidden my first romance, no matter who s/he was.

Still, sneaking around Slytherin--when both of them apparently dislike the house, and would probably expect that house to blackmail them if caught--it seems an extreme reaction.

Regarding Ron's courtship of Hermione, Percy would have broken the ice. Being the second child openly to break a taboo is very different from being the first. (And then there's the fact that Hermione is demonstrably superior in nearly every particular to what Won-Won could have snagged on his own merits without a Muggleborn's succumbing to Pureblood mystique. Find a ten-"O" Owl Pureblood who's also healthy, sane, brave, and not physically disfigured, who'd consider Ron a prize worth snatching!)

Thanks so much for the link to your post about percentage of Purebloods--I just went and read it, and all of the comments, and my head spins. Yes, if we throw out that interview neat 25-50-25, what JO SHOWS isn't much near that, is it? And I usually do go on what Jo SHOWS rather than what she mouths off about.

However. Regarding the Weasleys and Bill's wedding....

There are multitudes of people there, including, apparently, rather remote family connections. (Molly and Arthur, if not Bill and Fleur, had invited Bill's [rich] great-great aunt and enough second and third cousins on the Weasley side that Molly's great-aunt Muriel doesn't find it suspicious that some random redhead is presented to her as yet another of Ron Weasly's "cousins.")

Let's imagine Pureblood (if we've correctly identified WW class structure) James Sirius Potter's marriage, or half-blood Rose Weasley's. If all great-aunts (much less great-great-aunts) and second cousins were invited to James's nuptials, Petunia & Vernon, Dudley, and Dudley's family would all be attending. And one only needs invite grandparents to have Muggles prominent at Rose's.

Unless, of course, the connection had been cut.

But Bill's wedding is, so far as Harry observes, Muggle-free. No one is dressed normally and looking around in astonished appreciation at the floating champagne bottles.

So not a one of the guests present has ever married a Muggle. And if anyone present is Muggleborn, they've cut the connection with "that side." And Molly...

Well, we know for a fact that Molly has relatively close Muggle relatives. That Squib second cousin, who became an accountant and married a Muggle woman. If remote Pureblood connections are being invited to this family celebration, why not remote Squib/Muggle ones?

Ron in CoS claimed that there was no such thing, really, as a "pureblood" nowadays, that most wizards are really half-bloods, that if they hadn't married Muggles (somewhere along the line) they'd have died out.

But being able to NAME a Muggle ancestor or relative? ASSOCIATING with them? Obviously, flat out wrong.

[sunnyskywalker]

Well, they're still dating in PoA, aren't they? And now that Ginny's spilled the beans, they seem to be more open about it - Percy telling them about the bet, then dashing off after Penny calling her name. That doesn't really say "secret romance" or awkward breakup to me. So maybe they were both just relatively private people who didn't want to go advertizing the minute they got together, and Penelope probably didn't have a very high opinion of the twins as a Ravenclaw, and it's not like they would want to make out in either of their common rooms even if they're allowed to hang out in each other's common rooms. Also, given how oblivious Harry is and how little the Houses seem to talk (so Fred and George might not hear either - do we ever seem them just chatting with Ravenclaws?), it's possible all of Ravenclaw knew about them the whole time. And maybe the Hufflepuff prefects.

As for GoF onward... again, how would Harry know? And with Percy being out of Hogwarts and out of the house during the day, he'd have plenty of opportunity to contact Penny on his own, without his brothers bugging him about it. They could have lunch, she could send letters to his office so they didn't have to worry about Molly or the Twins intercepting the mail and being nosy, etc. Or it's possible they also just drifted apart after graduation, as first romances often do, and parted on friendly terms and moved on. Like normal mature people.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

As much as I would have loved him to hex the twins into the next district, I do appreciate that he is older and more powerful than them, and that it’s not right to respond with violence or misuse magic. I wonder if the twins knew it subconsciously and relished in the fact that they could do what they liked, knowing that their brother would always be there for them if they needed, but they could abuse him as they liked till then.
And that goes double for when he refuses to do much more than warn Draco. He could have happily hexed a second year (I doubt he could have taken points or I imagine he would have) and no one would have done much. I do think prefects are of little use in Hogwarts if they can’t discipline other houses and taking points from your own house hurts everyone, but Percy does his best given Dumbledore’s edicts, the essay which you proved definitively that if you aren’t caught red handed, you are home free.
James would have likely cursed the stuffing out of Draco and left him there to suffer until someone found him. He would have had no problem having his attack dog Sirius team up with him on a single defenseless student.
Why are so many HP characters bullies, when push comes to shove?

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Ouch. The twins are mini psychopaths. I never particularly liked them, but Elkins' discussions of them really made me pay attention.

But this girl is...wow. Entitled doesn't begin to cover it.

[Um, one thing though: how is being raped while unconscious AT ALL equivalent to any of those other things? I know it's common to assign responsibility to people who are raped when drunk, but it is not right. It's victim-blaming - no matter who the victim is. I won't turn this into a discussion about why, but I will gladly provide links to posts elsewhere if anyone is interested. I simply want to point out that the only one responsible for a rape is the rapist.

This isn't to point a finger at you; I genuinely don't want to attack you. This line of thinking is a standard trope in contemporary culture and I've been guilty of thinking that way too. So I just try to point it out as BS when and where I see it. Because it is BS - it tells rape victims that getting raped is their fault. Which, no. I think we can all agree on that?]

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

You beat me to it. Thanks for pointing that out. I suppose the general idea is a girl goes out to unsavoury places and "gets herself dirty" like she didn't pay attention to her new dress when rolling aroung the meadow or something. With this conception, taking drugs and being raped are practically the same - you sully yourself and thus are to blame.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

[Um, one thing though: how is being raped while unconscious AT ALL equivalent to any of those other things? I know it's common to assign responsibility to people who are raped when drunk, but it is not right. It's victim-blaming - no matter who the victim is. I won't turn this into a discussion about why, but I will gladly provide links to posts elsewhere if anyone is interested. I simply want to point out that the only one responsible for a rape is the rapist.

Believe it or not, I agree with you. However, by the time they got to that point in the show, it was past the halfway mark, and I was so disgusted and enraged at that girl, I found it impossible to have much sympathy for her even when she was the victim. Reading a brief account of her vileness doesn't compare to watching 25 minutes (at that point) of her obnoxious, hateful, condescending, completely unapologetic behavior. When she said she'd been raped, part of me thought, "Even she doesn't deserve that." Another part thought, "Good, you little shit! Somebody finally treated you as badly as you treat everybody else! Now you know how it feels!" Some people, even when they're victims, are just too unsympathetic for me to feel sorry for them., and that came out in my comment.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----I want to make it clear that she DID NOT have ANYTHING wrong with her as far as being mentally deficient, developmentally delayed, brain-disordered, or anything like that.

Many of the commenters on Dr. Phil's site suggested that she might have a mental illness, or a hormone imbalance, or a history of sexual abuse, or some combination of the above.

IMO, such extreme behavior in a child indicates that she might need psychiatric care.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Those commenters must not have paid attention. For every show, Dr. Phil gets a notebook of background information on his guests that's three inches thick. He's had many hateful, unsympathetic people on his show over the years, including child abusers and wife beaters, and every time somebody has the kind of problem you're talking about, that gets brought up as a factor to help explain their behavior. That was not the case here.

At the beginning of the show, I also thought it inconceivable that anybody could be that horrible without having something seriously wrong with them, such as a mental illness, history of abuse, heavy metal poisoning, or my favorite, narcissistic psychopathy. Nothing like that was mentioned. On the contrary, it was made clear that she was just a total spoiled brat with spineless parents who caved in to her demands every time she threw a tantrum.

Murray Strauss and Richard Gelles are sociologists who've spent their careers studying family violence. The first chapter of their book, Intimate Violence, is called, "Because They Can." The gist of that chapter is this: When a person abuses others, particularly their family members, people want to believe there's something that makes the abuser act that way: mental illness, a history of abuse, drug or alcohol addiction, etc. The truth is, that is rarely the case. Nearly every time people abuse others, it is only because they figure they can get away with it. In similar situations where they would suffer consequences for their violence, they don't act out. (They give as one example the business executive who beats his wife for not cleaning the house well enough, but who'd never dream of beating the janitor at work if his office weren't cleaned properly.)

The second chapter, "People Other Than Us," examines the stereotypes of family violence vs. the reality as shown in studies. These quotations are from the book:

page 39: ...By and large, we tend to think of abusers as people other than us. We believe that they are different, almost alien beings; victims are helpless, defenseless innocents....

page 42: The enduring stereotype of family violence is that the abuser is mentally disturbed or truly psychotic, and that the victim is a defenseless innocent. The typical reaction to a description of a case of domestic violence or a photo of an abused woman or child is that "only a sick person" would do such a thing. The stereotype is so strong that unless the offender fits the profile of the mentally disturbed psychotic alien and the victim is portrayed as innocent and defenseless there is a tendency not to view the event as abusive....

IOW, categorizing people who treat others atrociously is a way to make the observer feel better by "othering" the abuser. But the evidence clearly contradicts that belief.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

My desire is not to classify this girl as Other but to give her the benefit of the doubt before deeming her to be a terrible human being. She may have experienced abuse that she has yet to reveal to anyone, never mind Dr. Phil with his 3 inches thick notebook. She may have a personality disorder that has yet to be diagnosed because DSM guidelines state that a patient shouldn't be diagnosed with one before the age of 18.

Moreover, a talk show is a less than ideal setting in which to gauge what a person is truly thinking and feeling because there is a lack of confidentiality and because s/he may be putting on an act for the live audience and television cameras.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Wow... that does sound a lot like the twins in some respects. I used to love them too. Maybe I just liked the idea of rebellion without negative consequences?

[sunnyskywalker]

They were a lot milder in the first couple of books, too (they helped Harry with his trunk not knowing who he was and actually wanted Percy to spend Christmas with them, among other things), so it was easier to imagine they really were light-hearted fellows who just wanted to entertain people, and dismiss their more troublesome tendencies and assume they'd grow up soon enough and realize they should be more considerate.

(And even after they started getting scary, it still seemed possible that there was a point to that - that it would be a demonstration of What Not To Do and how the world isn't divided between good people and Death Eaters and even being your best friend's brothers and charming etc. doesn't mean you can't be awful people. Alas...)