OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

Ani wrote:

Likewise, if Peter were the token Slytherin or Hufflepuff, well *grumble*

Grumble indeed!

I quite agree, Ani. Even leaving aside for the moment the fact that people are sorted at the tender age of eleven, and that life does have a way of wearing us down (especially in times of war), I think Peter's a pretty good Gryffindor, myself. The only one of the Sorting Hat's stated criteria that he does not fulfill is chivalry.

Let's look at what the Sorting Hat has told us about those criteria, shall we?

What are the characteristics of House Gryffindor?

From PS/SS:

"brave at heart"
"daring"
"nerve"
"chivalry"

From GoF:

"bravest"

Hmmm. Funny, isn't it? I don't see "integrity" anywhere on the list. Nor do I see a single mention of "pride," "stoicism," or "courage." I don't see "wisdom" either—although I did see that mentioned as a Ravenclaw characteristic. I don't see "loyalty"—that's Hufflepuff. Nor do I see any clause about "those who do not betray their friends to the enemy." Ironically enough, the closest thing to that criterion that the Hat has ever cited has been attributed to House Slytherin.

So why all this dismay over the Sorting of Peter Pettigrew?

Becky wrote:

Remember, moral bravery is not the same thing as bravery.

No. It isn't. In fact, we don't generally call it "moral bravery" at all, do we? That phrase sounds quite strange and awkward to a native English speaker. It sounds all wrong.

It sounds wrong because in idiomatic English, when we speak of moral bravery, we do not generally refer to it as "bravery" at all. Instead, we tend to refer to that quality as "moral courage."

There's a subtle but important connotative difference between the two words. "Bravery" implies physical courage. It is not often used to refer to moral or spiritual integrity. When we willingly risk physical harm, injury or death, for example, we call that "braving danger." But when we stand up for what is right, when we act on our sense of moral integrity, then we call it "having the courage of our convictions."

Naturally, the two concepts are very strongy aligned. Still, I do find it interesting that the Hat should consistently choose to use the word "bravery" in its songs, while never once employing the term "courage." The Hat also stresses "daring" and "nerve," both of which similarly refer to a very specific—and very physical—form of courage.

The conclusion that I reach from all this is that the particular type of courage that the Hat (and therefore, one assumes, Godric Gryffindor himself) most strongly values is the ability to face danger and to withstand pain. It is a conception of courage that seems perfectly in keeping with an eleventh century sword-wielding warrior mage. It is a warrior culture's conception of courage, and not necessarily one that coincides all that well with that of our own 20th century culture.

Now we do, I think, tend to assume that moral courage is also quite important to House Gryffindor. There are indications that it is. The Gryffindor characters we see in canon themselves place a very high value on that sort of courage, and there are also a few characters (Hermione and Neville) whose allocation to House Gryffindor only seems explicable if we assume either that the Hat prioritizes values over proclivities, or that it is looking not only for physical bravery, but also for moral courage, the "courage of ones convictions," the willingness to stand up for what is right. It is the sort of courage that Dumbledore himself prioritizes. It is what he rewards Neville for, and it also lies at the heart of his "what is right vs. what is easy" speech.

But is it a primary consideration of House Gryffindor, that sort of courage? Is it what the Hat itself prioritizes?

It doesn't look to me as if it is. It looks to me as if moral integrity ranks somewhere down below "bravery," "daring," "nerve" and "chivalry."

Peter's doing okay by those standards, I'd say. He's a middling good Gryff. He's not very chivalrous, true, but bravery? Daring? Nerve? He's got quite a bit of those, even if it is often masked by the fact that he has absolutely no pride.

But then, "pride" has never been cited as a Gryffindor criterion either.

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Ani wrote:

Courage comes in all forms, and while I well not try and argue that Peter's been overly brave, I will point out (again) that he argued (kind of ) with Voldemort's plan twice, and he was scared, but he did it anyway, so he does have courage.

Oh, I'll happily argue that Peter is brave! A moral coward, but physically brave. And with Nerve and Daring to spare, too.

<Elkins pins her S.Y.C.O.P.H.A.N.T.S. badge proudly onto her chest. Having thus donned her mantle as the spokesman for the Society for Yes-Men, Cowards, Ostriches, Passive-Aggressives, Abject Neurotics and Toadying SYCOPHANTS, she mounts her soap box and begins to speak>

Brave? You want to know if Peter Pettigrew is brave?

Well, okay. Let's just look at what he's done, shall we?

Animagus Adventures

Barb already cited Peter's animagus adventures as proof of his bravery:

I also believe it took some bravery to learn to become an animagus in secret in order to accompany a werewolf.

I agree. Even leaving the werewolf issue aside for the moment, it took a hell of a lot of nerve just to risk trying the animagus transformation, I'd say. In PoA, Lupin says:

'Your father and Sirius here were the cleverest students in the school, and lucky they were, because the Animagus transformation can go horribly wrong -- one reason the Ministry keeps a close watch on those attempting to do it. Peter needed all the help he could get from James and Sirius.'

I don't even what to think about what a "horribly gone wrong" animagus transformation might do to you, do you? Ugh. Scary. And while Sirius and James may have been brilliant students, they weren't actually professors, were they? They were teenaged boys who often did foolish things that thoughtlessly endangered the lives of others: the Prank, taking Werewolf!Lupin out for his midnight strolls. Peter himself was not a brilliant student. He was following their lead, even though he found the work difficult, and even though he knew that if they led him wrong, the results would likely be absolutely disastrous for him.

Bravery? Daring? Nerve? Oh, yeah.

Barb wrote:

If he failed and reverted to human form, he could have been killed by Remus.

Even if he knew that he wouldn't fail (it's possible that once you successfully become an animagus, it becomes so intrinsic to your very essence that you would never actually flub the transformation), it still took some guts, I'd say, to run around a forest in the middle of the night with a giant black dog, a werewolf who needs to be "controlled" by his larger animal friends, and a stag, sharp hooves and all, when you're stuck in the body of a little rat.

I mean, forget about being eaten. I would have worried about getting trampled!

I also would have worried about owls.

Not to mention snakes.

::slightly twisted smile::

Spying for Voldemort

So then what does Brave Peter do?

He spies on his friends for over a year, passing information from the inside on to Voldemort. Not very nice, no, but I'd say it certainly took daring. It certainly took nerve. Especially once it became clear that Sirius and James suspected someone. They knew that there was a traitor in their midst. That must have been pretty nerve-wracking, I'd imagine. What would have happened to him had he been caught out? I wouldn't have the nerve for that sort of work. Severus Snape did. So did Peter Pettigrew.

Snookering Sirius

Let's see, what then? Well, he was left in a pretty tricky position after Voldemort's fall at Godric's Hollow, to be sure. He knew that Sirius was going to be coming after him; as far as he knew, the entire Ministry would be on his tail; and if Sirius is to be believed, then the other Death Eaters were likely to be gunning for him as well. So did he run and hide? Did he throw himself on Dumbledore's mercy? Did he go crawling to the Ministry to cut a deal, perhaps? Maybe hand over a few DE names in exchange for clemency, or for a reduced sentence?

No. He didn't do any of those things. Instead, he quite ruthlessly and efficiently framed Sirius for his crimes and then faked his own death. That took nerve too. And daring. And a good deal of bravery, as well, because he chose a plan that necessitated him facing down Sirius in person. As it happened, he did succeed in pulling the timing off just right, but so many things could have gone wrong with that plan, most of them lethal. Pettigrew could have thought up a different plan, perhaps, one that didn't require him to stand there in the street face to face with an enraged Sirius Black. But he didn't bother to. That is because Peter Pettigrew is a Gryffindor. He is BRAVE! He LAUGHS in the face of danger! Ha HA!

Oh, yeah, and he also severed his own finger. But that doesn't impress me all that much, honestly. After all, for all we know, he could have anaesthetized himself quite thoroughly beforehand. Unlike the hand, which I will get to later.

Biting Goyle

Now we come to Pettigrew in the canon. By the time of canon, he does seem to have been a bit degraded, I'd say, by all of those years spent in rat form. As Scabbers, he primarily strikes me as profoundly depressed. (He does little but eat and sleep, and exhibits a fondness for chocolate).

Still, he does bite Goyle on the hand on the train in PS/SS, which may not seem like much, but when you consider their relative sizes does show a certain amount of spunk, I'd say, especially since adolescent bully boys are really not known for their tenderness towards their enemies' pets. I wouldn't have wanted to mess with Goyle if I'd been Scabbers. Just think of how much bigger Goyle was! And how high off the ground (from a rat's perspective) he must have been, once Goyle started whipping him around, trying to get him to let go. Indeed, he ends up getting slammed into a window for all his pains, which even given JKR's tendency towards exaggeration when it comes to physical comedy involving battered animals (bouncing ferret, anyone?), still had to hurt.

Brave? Well, yeah.

Waiting Game in PoA

From the very start of the third book, Pettigrew knows that Sirius has escaped from Azkaban. He knows that Sirius is probably coming after him. He knows this.

So, does his nerve fail him? Does he flee Hogwarts? Does he scarper off to Albania to seek Voldemort's protection right away?

No. He doesn't. He's scared to death, yes. He's literally sick with fear. And he has that darned cat to worry about as well, not to mention Remus Lupin, who would presumably recognize his rat form just as Sirius had, and who therefore cannot be permitted to spot him. Quite an unnerving situation for poor Peter to find himself in, don't you think? Why, it's enough to make any self-respecting coward head for the hills.

Except that Pettigrew doesn't. He doesn't actually break and run until halfway through the school year, and then only when Sirius finally gets close enough to him that he feels that he has no other alternative. Up until then, he's playing a waiting game, hoping that Sirius will be caught. Did that waiting game take nerve? Did it take daring? I wouldn't have had the stomach for it myself.

Escape From Sirius and Lupin

And then there's Shrieking Shack.

::long pause::

::sigh::

Well...okay. Actually, Pettigrew really doesn't put up a very good showing at all in the Shack, does he? He couldn't even manage to stand up to Lupin's interrogation. He couldn't even hold to his story. He couldn't even lie convincingly. Instead he sweats, stammers, changes his story at least three times, and then collapses and sobs out a confession. It's just pathetic. No, there's no question that Pettigrew's nerve really failed him there in the Shack. It failed him badly. But hey. What can you do? These things do happen sometimes, you know, even to ordinarily Daring Gryffindors like Peter Pettigrew.

But hey, what a comeback right afterwards though, eh? You want Bravery? You want Nerve? You want Daring?

I've said this before, but it's still true. If I'd just had as close a squeak as Peter had there in the Shack, and then I was informed quite gravely that if I tried to transform, I would be killed, I would never have had the nerve to seize my opportunity like Pettigrew did the instant Lupin started to transform. I would have been far too cowed. No rational weighing of the options (Do you really want to go to Azkaban, Elkins? You know you won't last six months in there. So wouldn't it be better to take the gamble on the main chance now?) would have enabled me to act that swiftly or that decisively in a similar situation. That is because, sadly, I am not daring, nor am I brave; and I have very little in the way of nerve.

Pettigrew is different. He is not only capable of taking gambles with his life; he can do so on the spur of the moment, instinctively, without hesitation.

Bravery. Nerve. Daring.

Relations with Voldemort

Ani wrote:

I will point out (again) that he argued (kind of ) with Voldemort's plan twice, and he was scared, but he did it anyway, so he does have courage.

Just seeking out Voldemort in Albania took some nerve, I'd say. It was an act of desperation, true, but at the same time, Peter really had no idea how he'd be received, did he? The last time he dealt with Voldemort was, well, Godric's Hollow, probably. Sirius claims that the Death Eaters in Azkaban believe that Pettigrew lured Voldemort to his doom. For all Peter knows, Voldemort might believe precisely the same thing. As Scabbers, he likely heard enough of what happened in Ron's first year to know that if Voldemort ever balked from discarding his followers, he doesn't have that scruple anymore.

Indeed, Peter seems fairly well-convinced throughout GoF that Voldemort is constantly on the verge of killing him. He seeks reassurance in the first chapter -- and fails to get it. He seems fully convinced after Crouch's escape that Voldemort really does plan to feed him to Nagini (although surely a moment's thought should have informed him that this must have been an idle threat!). Eileen has argued—and I agree with her—that in the moments right after Voldemort's re-birthing, Pettigrew believes that he has outlived his usefulness and is about to be killed.

Yet even trapped in this dubious position, he is capable of asserting himself. He objects to Voldemort's plan to use Harry in the ritual at least twice, and from Voldemort's almost exasperated response in the first chapter of GoF, I got the impression that Peter had raised the subject even more often than that. He objects to the plan, he quibbles over its details, he questions its timing. Although he couches his objections in the careful phrasing of the sycophant, taking care to pepper them with all of the requisite "my Lord"s and "I must speak"s, he's really quite an argumentative little fellow in that first chapter. He may be a sycophant, but he's hardly a yes-man (which is precisely the reason, I believe, that Voldemort will later go to such pains in the graveyard to drive the inequitable nature of their relationship home to him; by delaying rewarding Pettigrew until Pettigrew has first publicly and formally stated that he deserves and is owed absolutely nothing, Voldemort hopes to eradicate Pettigrew's uppity notion that there might actually some quid pro quo involved in their relationship).

Bravery? Nerve? Daring?

Well, I guess that all depends on just how mad, irrational, or Cruciatus-happy you think that Voldemort really is in GoF. Pettigrew might be taking a considerable risk every time he argues yet another point, or he might not be. It's hard to say, really. I myself tend to think that he's not really taking all that great a risk by voicing his objections—Voldemort needs him—but all the same, Pettigrew himself seems to feel that he is. So I'm willing to give him a few Nerve and Daring points for that, I suppose.

I would also hand him a couple of Nerve points for his almost indignant response to being slammed around right after Voldemort's rebirthing. Although he is in considerable pain, and likely believes that he is about to be killed, he still manages the self-assertion of that reproachful "you promised," which really does show a certain degree of chutzpah, I'd say.

The Hand

Barb:

He may seem like a craven coward so far, but I think we've already seen one instance of rather gruesome bravery that contradicts the idea of cowardly Peter: his cutting off his own hand to give Voldemort his body back. How many people would have the nerve to do that? We might not agree with his motivations (helping the evilest dark wizard there is) but it took a great deal of bravery nonetheless. No, I do not believe Peter is lacking in bravery. Scruples he certainly seems to lack (and whether he's redeemable in that regard may yet be seen); bravery, hardly.

Absolutely agreed! The man cuts off his own hand. Not only does he cut off his own hand, but he also does it unsupervised. He isn't being bullied into doing it in any immediate sense. There's no Voldemort standing over him, threatening to punish him if he doesn't go through with the ritual as arranged. No one is there to brow-beat him, or to urge him on, or to buck him up, or to give him any form of external encouragement whatsoever; he is completely on his own, and he is in no immediate danger should he change his mind and refuse to go through with it. In fact, the question of why he didn't just let Baby!Voldemort drown has come up before on this list.

Yes. That took bravery. Physical courage.

As well as one hell of a sharp blade...

Melody:

Who as a side note when rereading the graveyard scene, wonders how small Pettigrew had enough strength to cut through his forearm with one swish of his dagger. Either that is a VERY sharp dagger or a VERY fast, strong swish.

Well, the dagger was being used as an important tool in an elaborate work of old Dark ritual magic, so while I'd ordinarily call this explanation a cop-out, in this case I think that it's eminently fair.

It was a magic dagger.

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Sherry wrote:

IMO, he does these things out of loyalty (to Voldemort), not bravery.

He's not loyal to Voldemort. If he'd been loyal to Voldemort, then he would have sought him out years before. When he finally does go looking for Voldemort, it only takes him a couple of months to locate him. He could have done so with equal facility any time after learning that Albania was the best place to start his search, which I'm guessing he's probably known for years. At the very latest, he learned it during Ron's second year.

No, he's not loyal to Voldemort. He's not even loyal to himself in any deeper sense. Loyalty really isn't one of his virtues, IMO.

Voldemort accuses him of wavering, which causes him a great deal of consternation precisely because his dominant trait is loyalty, and he is now very willing to do anything necessary to redeem himself in Voldemort's eyes.

I think that it upsets him precisely because he knows that he is not loyal. He's a betrayer. He betrays his friends, he betrays his better judgement, he betrays his benefactors, he betrays his principles. He betrays himself. By the time the series is ended, he'll almost certainly have betrayed Voldemort as well. The accusation is true, and that, IMO, is precisely why it stings.

Contrast his consternation at being accused of disloyalty, however, with his willingness in the Shrieking Shack to tell Sirius that he has never been brave.

He shows so little consternation over that particular admission because he knows full well that it isn't completely accurate. He doesn't mind it much when Voldemort calls him a coward either. Accusations of cowardice just don't seem to bother him very much. They have no power to wound him. Accusations of disloyalty, on the other hand, really do seem to genuinely hurt him. I think that's because he knows that disloyalty truly is one of his moral failings.

Ani wrote:

I just see the urge to put Peter in another house as plain silliness.

So do I. I think that he quite plainly belonged in House Gryffindor.

—Elkins