Cornelius Fudge - Character Study

[Kelley]

No: HPFGUIDX 3503

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, stevekimmel at y... wrote:
> For me, Moody was obvious for the very first. Looking back I 
> attribute it to chapter 13 and 14. In thirteen we see Moody abusing 
> Draco Malfoy by turning him into a ferret and bouncing him up to 
the > ceiling and slamming him down against the floor. Like everyone 
else I > was pleased to see Draco get his just reward for being such 
a jerk. > However I was suspicious. We had no reason to suspect Moody 
had any > idea who Draco was so it was simply a teacher seriously 
abusing a > student. Then in chapter 14 we have Moody breaking the 
rules again by > torturing and finally killing innocent creatures. I 
may be wrong but > other than the Boggart in the closet, I think this 
is the first time > we actually saw anybody kill anything. To make it 
an innocent > spider...

Those are very good points.  Did we know from the start that Moody 
was a friend of Dumble's?  I'm thinking we did, plus that he was an 
auror, and that he didn't let Draco get away with his usual garbage, 
like Snape always does.  So, for these reasons, I fell into JKR's 
trap (as usual).  Now, as the Unforgivable curses are concerned, it 
made sense to me that the kids ~should~ see them, and in a controlled 
environment.  Spiders seem a fitting choice for this, opposed to say, 
puppies.  Cockroaches would have been better for me...
 
> I had Moody labelled as a bad guy from the start. Fudge, on the 
other > hand, gave me no reason to believe he was anything but an 
officious > beaureaucrat. Given he was constantly asking Dumbledore's 
advice in > Philosopher's Stone and then obtusely refusing it in 
Goblet of > Fire... I found it a jarring mismatch.  

I suppose so, and chances are very good that he has gone over to 
Vold's side; but, the biggest prob he could have as MoM would be Vold 
coming back, so he could be in serious denial, or just be incredibly 
dense.  I won't be surprised to learn that he ~is~ on Vold's side, 
all the same.
 
> Given Rowling's apparent love of characters who pretend to be one 
> thing and then turn out to be something else, Snape who is really 
> trying to protect Harry, Ron's pet rat who turns out to be a lacky 
> for Voldemort, Moody who turns out to be someone else completely, I 
> have little doubt that she will do it again. Fudge turning out to 
be > a bad guy seems a minor flip compared to some of the others 
we've > seen.

Absolutely!
 
> I'm almost prepared to buy the theory that Nelville Longbottom is 
> really Peter Pettigrew's son, raised by his grandmother after 
> Peter's "death."

Ha!  Now, that would be a twist!

Kelley