Spying, espionage & betrayal

[carolynwhite2]

--- In HPFGU-Catalogue at yahoogroups.com, Barry Arrowsmith 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> Spying, espionage and betrayal.
> 
> Sounds like a nice straight-forward group to review.
> Just the opposite.
> 
> Think  of the number of times posters have used any of those three 
> words, sometimes in the vaguest of contexts with no canon backing 
at all. Ron/Ginny/Percy/Obediah Polkinghorn *might* betray Harry; 
*if* Snape is a spy it might explain this; James was not a spy; were 
these the actions of a spy? and so on.
> 
> The specific word has appeared, so categorise the post accordingly.
> Fair  enough.
> But although I'm only part way through, I'm beginning to suspect 
that the category itself needs to be more closely defined. There are 
too many casual, non-specific references to dirty deeds in the files, 
most of which could be stuffed under this heading. Unless it gets 
tightened up the category will end up as a rag-bag of nothing very 
much and not be of much use to anyone.
> 
> Advise please.
> 
> Barry


Carolyn:
I started to read this section this afternoon, and can only agree 
with this assessment. It is indeed a right mess.

One approach would be to create sub-categories for different people - 
many discussions are about Snape and Pettigrew, for instance. This 
would be a solution similar to that I suggested for the Weasley 
family. Or should the posts discussing a particular character go back 
to that character, and perhaps form a sub-head there. Eg Snape/is he 
a spy?

Relatively few posts are about the nature of betrayal, but there are 
some, and things like Peg Kerr's essay on Secrets. You could argue 
that a section containing just these type of posts should be a sub-
category in meta- themes alongside 1.1.3 Friendship, love & 
loyalty/1.1.3.1 trust/mistrust.

A third issue is the fate of the section 1.2 War & military strategy. 
I have already suggested that Dumbledore's agenda and Voldemort's 
agenda be reviewed in conjuncture with the character codes. The 
Hogwart's defences section could also be moved to 3.16.1 as part of 
Hogwart's layouts.

If we do this, it leaves the strategy and spying sections on their 
own. They could be added to the plot development section in that case.

Any thoughts?

Carolyn