Tabouli on Karkaroff and Justin

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

Hey, Tabouli!

I read your speculation on Karkaroff's feelings toward Viktor when
you first posted it (and I am too lazy to look it up now, or find the 
quotes in GoF myself). Yes, Igor fusses coddlingly over Viktor. Yes, 
at the Yule Ball, Igor gazes hostilely at Viktor dancing with 
Hermione, and the narrator describes him in the same words as Ron 
gazing hostilely at Hermione dancing with Viktor. Your argument was: 
since we know that Ron's hostility is based on romantic jealousy, why 
not Igor's hostility described in the same words be based on the same 
thing? I couldn't find anything in canon that makes it impossible or 
even extremely unlikely, but I still don't like it, so there wasn't 
much for me to reply.

Only an exposE of my bad reasons for not liking it, of which the 
first is what bad PR it would be for the ONLY person depicted by the 
author as attracted to a person of the same sex to be an evil, weak, 
smarmy person who forces unwanted advances on his subordinate. Yuck. 
Canon makes it clear that the advances were unwanted.

And my second is that my dislike of Karkaroff is such that I would 
rather ascribe foul motives to him, such as trying to make money from 
Viktor's fame. Maybe the coddling, such as the offer of hot wine, 
really was to take care of Viktor's health so he can be healthy to 
win the contests that Igor has bet on him to win, and the hostility 
toward him dancing with Hermione was simply fear that she would keep 
him up too late and he wouldn't get enough sleep. 

Altho' my own equally unprovable theory is that Igor coddles Viktor
in an attempt to get Viktor to like him so that he can become 
Viktor's financial manager, sell endorsements and so on, and skim 
money off the top, and the objection to Hermione is that she's smart 
and might audit Igor's financial reports to Viktor.

It doesn't seem to me that there is anything about Viktor which would 
be particularly romantically/erotically attractive to Igor. Viktor 
isn't pretty and, if he has a noble character, Igor is not the type 
to be attracted by nobility. The school girls chased Viktor because 
he's a celebrity, but it seems to me that celebrities lose their 
special allure to people who actually know them in real life.

As for Justin Finch-Fletchley being the only male to be favorably 
impressed by Lockhart:

"That Lockhart's something, isn't he?" said Justin happily as they
began filling their plant pots with dragon dung compost. "Awfully
brave chap. Have you read his books? I'd have died of fear if Id been
cornered in a telephone booth by a werewolf, but he stayed cool and -
zap - just fantastic.

"My name was down for Eton, you know. I can't tell you how glad
I am I came here instead. Of course, Mother was slightly 
disappointed, but since I made her read Lockhart's books I think 
she's begun to see how useful it'll be to have a fully trained wizard 
in the family . . . ."

I'd love for there to be canon backing the fanon cliche of Justin 
as gay, but it doesn't seem that Justin was charmed by Lockhart's 
looks or Most Charming Smile, but rather deceived by his brags. I 
still read this as Justin being mildly stupid (another piece of 
classist stereotyping, incidentally) rather than as Justin being 
proto-gay.

And the reason I quoted the whole speech was because I just noticed 
that it contains 'telephone booth'! (Is it 'telephone box' in the 
original?) Lockhart should At Least be teaching his students that 
it isn't pronounced fellytone!