Chapter 35 - more, and more and more

[Schlobin at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 14556

So, hopefully this is not too opinionated, or redundant to past discussions...


1) What about the father-son relationships in HP/specifically in GofF

a) The fake Moody talks about how he and Voldemort had disappointing fathers, 
were named after them, killed them...and then exults in the  anticipated 
reward.
"I will be his dearest, his closest supporter...closer than a son."

b) What about Harry's relationship with his father/father figures? The end of 
PoA where Harry sees Prongs, thinks he sees his father (does he?) is really 
seeing himself and then is told by Dumbledore that he has found his father in 
himself. HP is often told he is reMARKABLY like James

c) What about Harry and Dumbledore? Dumbledore is the Great Protector of 
Harry, watching over him, throughout his life. Harry begins to trust 
Dumbledore.....is Dumbledore's relationship to Harry more like Merlin's to 
Arthur's? and so is Dumbledore not just personally concerned about Harry but 
sees him as a future leader in the war against Voldemort...
d)Then we have Sirius and Harry..Sirius is Harry's godfather, and Harry has 
also begin to depend and trust him.

e) Amos and Cedric Diggory....

f) Arthur Weasley and sons....

g) Will I be shot if I ask about JKR's relationship with her father?


2) What about Barty Crouch, Jr. and Lord Voldemort.....some have suggested 
that Barty's worship has an erotic base -- or is it shared blood lust? or 
does Barty not want to be Voldemort's lover, but in fact, his son?

3) This chapter does focus on Barty Crouch, Jr. but you can't really 
understand Barty Jr without Barty Senior.
(Back to Sirius talking to the Triad about Voldemort's reign of terror)
Sirius talks about Barty Senior  --- how he went after the Death Eaters, put 
people (including Sirius) in Azkaban without a trial, authorized the use of 
the unforgiveable curses against DEs, authorized the Aurors to kill. He 
contrasts Barty Senior with Mad Eye Moody who he said never killed when he 
didn't have to.....

We hear at that time that Junior was a boy (and we see him as a terrified 
pleading boy in the Pensieve), that Sirius doesn't know if he was 
guilty....and how Senior sent him to Azkaban....

Then Sirius says that "Crouch's fatherly affection stretched just far enough 
to give his son a trial and by all accounts it wasn't much more than an 
excuse for Crouch to show how much he hated the boy..then he sent him staight 
to Azkaban." (They are all shocked)

"Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic towards 
him, and started asking how a nice young lad froma good  family  had gone so 
badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never cared much for him."

Crouch, Senior, is portrayed as someone to whom reputation meant everything. 
Ron worries that Percy might do the same thing.

But let's pause for a second here. We have already seen how a loved character 
can be wrong -- Hagrid saying that all the wizards that have gone bad came 
from Slytherin. And Sirius hates...remember Dumbledore saying that although 
Sirius was innocent, he had not acted too well in breaking into the castle...

We NOW know that Junior WAS guilty, and then he tortured Frank Longbottom and 
his wife, and that he absolutely WAS a death eater, 
that he killed his father, and that he did his damndest to kill Harry. That 
he showed Neville the curse that HE killed his parents with and then 
pretended to comfort him.

What about Senior? If you had been a foe of the Death Eaters, and your son 
turned out to be one, might that not drive you crazy?
(If you know a little history, we all see how those who were fighting for a 
revolution, like the French one, can become just like the people they were 
fighting against?)

It may in fact be true (Junior thinks so) that Senior didn't love him, but 
maybe Junior turned to the Dark Side early on.....Crouch's sin then becames 
not SENDING his son to Azkaban (what should he do? leave him at large to 
torture and kill more people? leave him at large to engineer the return of 
Voldemort). It may not even be smuggling him out..so that he could be 
imprisoned by dad and the House Elf..but not tortured in Azkaban.......the 
mistakes become doing a memory charm on Bertha Jorkins, and dismissing the 
House Elf..at the end he tries to redeem himself by going to Voldemort.......

Did someone compare Barty, Senior to Richard III?
What about the Greek tragic heroes....remember Oedipus was one,
and Pentheus, in the Bacchae..they had a tragic flaw, often overweening 
pride, hubris, that eventually encompassed their own destruction -- this 
sounds familiar to me.......

just a thought....



Susan McGee


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