Bagman: Red Herring or Not?

[ourobouros_1999 at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 17876

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Andrea <ra_1013 at y...> wrote:
> --- Michelle Apostolides wrote: 
> > As for Ludo Bagman. Well I know that Dumbledore
> > states ant the end of
> > The Pensieve chapter that LB is NOT a DE but I
> > wonder... Winky is
> > obviously a very loyal elf and I don't think she
> > would have been so
> > vehement about LB at the end of " The House Elf
> > Liberation Front "
> > without good reason.
> > I think Ludo is one to watch.
> 

I think we have to take what Winky says with a grain of salt. She is 
anti-Bagman because of her respect for Crouch Sr, which makes her 
judgements not entirely reliable. Crouch Sr. hates Bagman not only 
because of his seemingly inadvertent passing on of secrets, but 
because he's not efficient, lazy, etc. 

To me, Bagman seems too comic and ineffective to be really plausible 
as a DE. He reminds me more of Lockhart and Rita Skeeter than a real 
agent of evil. Just an agent of annoyance, but potentially dangerous 
annoyance. 

> I agree to a certain extent.  I think Ludo *was*
> really a DE, not just an innocent dupe.  It only
> occurred to me in my last reading of GOF, but remember
> that Ludo also ran off after the TWT, not just
> Karkaroff.  Fred and George say it was because of the
> goblins, but what if *Ludo* was who Voldie was
> referring to as the coward?
> 

That's a good point. Maybe JKR really is planning for Bagman to 
really be one of the DEs, although I can't think of anything that 
really points to any holes in his story conclusively. 

Charmian