Plot Twist Clues (WAS Dumbledore's gleam(long))

[Cindy C.]

No: HPFGUIDX 30754

Ladjables wrote:

<snip good analysis of Dumbledore>

> In each of these situations, the villain usually says, "yep harry, 
it 
> was me, I'm the bad guy".  They never slip up or leave clues for 
> Harry.  We don't ever see Crouch forgetting to take his polyjuice 
> potion or Quirrel missing his turban, and the turban just seems 
> comical.   JKR wouldn't have such a wonderful climax if Harry ever 
> figured out the truth in advance, so misdirection is key.
> 

Originally, I thought there were few clues to JKR's big plot twists, 
particularly Crouch/Moody.  But there actually are many subtle clues, 
often with just a bit of misdirection.  The misdirection often seems 
to come in the form of characters disbelieving or discounting the 
clues.

The most blatant clue in GoF, IMHO, is when Harry's name comes out of 
the Goblet of Fire.  Crouch/Moody strolls in and explicitly tells us 
exactly how he put Harry's name into the goblet:

"They hoodwinked a very powerful magical object!" said Moody.  "It 
would have needed an exceptionally strong Confundus Charm to 
bamboozle that goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete 
in the tournament . . . I'm guessing they submitted Potter's name 
under a fourth school, to make sure he was the only one in his 
category."  

Then Karkaroff endorses the theory before he calls Moody 
paranoid:  "You seem to have given this a great deal of thought, 
Moody . . . and a very ingenious theory it is."

But we dismiss all of this and don't believe it was Crouch/Moody, 
possibly because JKR has established him as paranoid, and because it 
would be too obvious for him to have done it and then tell everyone 
how it was done.  So she gets away with it.

Another Crouch/Moody clue is when they are in the cave talking to 
Sirius.  Ron says that Dumbledore is smart, but that doesn't mean a 
really clever dark wizard couldn't fool him.  Another one (I think) 
is when Crouch/Moody turns Draco into a ferret.  McGonagall asks him 
whether Dumbledore told him transfiguration wasn't to be a 
punishment, and Crouch/Moody doesn't know this.  This is another clue 
that he isn't who we think he is.  

I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of any more at the 
moment.

Cindy (determined not to be fooled in OoP)