Moody vs.Moody, Voldemort's motives-why the Potters? (long)

[pigwidgeon37 at yahoo.it]

No: HPFGUIDX 21890

Mae wrote:

"Do you think Moody/Crouch was checking out the map to make sure 
<Moody/real wasn't showing up?? I mean when it said Crouch Harry just 
<assumed it wasCrouch Sr. Moody/Crouch could have easily run with 
<that....
<Mae"

I think, Moody/Crouch was completely stunned when he saw the map, 
because he realized what danger he'd been in all the time: If Harry 
had consulted the map previously, on a day where Crouch sr. was at 
Hogwarts, he would have seen *two* Crouches on it and everything 
would have been discovered instantly. So he had to hide his surprise 
and shock under a thoughtful attitude, pretending to look at the map 
attentively.



Ali wrote:
"It seemed like Barty was fairly adept at mimicing Moody's usual 
<manerisms -the paranoia, the unconventional meathods, the ferret 
<bouncing.  In retrospect, what Crouch was often unable to hide were 
<his motivations, his priorities and his reactions.  He WAS Barty 
<Crouch, only with a thin layer of Moody-isms masking him to those 
<not paying enough attention."

Of course he *was* Barty Crouch but he also is a very good actor- 
remember him at the trial Harry saw in the pensieve. And I think that 
Dumbledore, even if not suspecting Moody/Crouch at the time, was in 
constant state of alert all through the school year, therefore even a 
slight inattention of Moody/crouch wouldn't have gone unnoticed with 
*him*.

still Ali:
"Moody's magical eye whizzed over the entire surface of the map.  He 
<looked suddenly alarmed."
<And then there's more, but I won't trouble you with it...page 475 of 
<the american edition, incidentally. 
<Now.  It is just me, or is he being incredibly shifty here?  I 
<remember noticing that even the first time I read it, though I had 
<no idea what was going on and forgot about it soon after.  The 
<entire scene with the stairs,Snape, Filch, Moody and the egg is ripe 
<with this sort of thing.
<The real Moody wouldn't have been so tentetive with that first 
<question. The real Moody wouldn't have been so alarmed at the 
<suggestion of Crouch -he doesn't really trust anyone, from what I 
<can tell, and wouldn't have been surprised if it was anyone short of 
<Dumbledore in that office."

Fortunately for Moody/Crouch, Dumbledore wasn't there: He probably 
would have put two and two together. Unfortunately Snape was into one 
of his "Damn-it-will-I-never-be-able-to- get-Potter-expelled"- fits 
which obviously blur his otherwise brilliant mind and therefore 
didn't notice anything. But I think this was the only time Crouch 
ever seriously endangered his cover, because of the huge shock the 
map gave him. And, if you think about it, it wasn't that difficult to 
act like the real Moody: Known as slightly paranoid and distrusting 
of *everybody*, he wasn't expected to show particular affection to 
anyone (Dumbledore, McGonagall etc., the ones of the anti-V. group), 
and he never spoke a truer word than when he said he hated nothing as 
much as a DE running free (which I think is a wonderful bit of irony 
JKR did): This was exactly true for Moody as well as for Crouch, so 
he had no difficulty whatsoever in acting convincingly with 
Karkaroff, Lucius, Snape etc.
Other touch of geniality by JKR: When Harry falls into the pensieve, 
he sees the real Moody who behaves and speaks exactly like the fake 
one, so any doubt that there might have been is instantly eliminated.


Hannah wrote:

"But if what he's trying to do is conquer death, then why does he go 
<round murdering loads of people ... what's the point in terrorising 
<the whole magical world if all you want to do is live forever?
<Surely he could have researched that in some little laboratory 
<somewhere without disturbing anyone.  Apart from the belief that he 
<is quite possibly mad, as well as a complete psycho, I think that he 
<must have some other aim other than 'to live forever', in order to 
<justify what he is doing.  Just out of interest, why do people think 
<that Voldemort is the way that he is?  What made him turn to the 
<Dark Arts in such a big way??"

That's exactly the point: We don't *know* anything about Voldemort's 
motivations! We know that there were lots of wizard and Muggle 
killings, but it's not really clear why. Neither is it clear what "to 
conquer death" means (I fervently hope the quotation is right- GoF 
still with my best friend- but for the strangeness of it it remained 
impressed on my memory). This is certainly a non-native-speaker 
problem, but I somehow feel that "to conquer death" doesn't *only* 
mean "to become immortal", IMHO, there's something more to it.
If we think about *who* he has killed in the past, we only know about 
MoM members (here the motivation is clear,IMO) and the Potters. and 
as there's still a big secret about what exactly the Potters were 
doing, we don't know why he was after them. At least to me it never 
seemed he attempted to murder Dumbledore, one of the Marauders, or 
anybody else who didn't directly attack him.

Ah, this is becoming more and more interesting and I hope to get lots 
of opinions about it!

Susanna (who agrees 100% with Hannah about chemistry teacher 
preferences)