Scrooge McDuck - Did Karkaroff know James?

Amy Z aiz24 at hotmail.com
Wed May 2 17:16:05 UTC 2001


No: HPFGUIDX 18027

Morag wrote:

> *Rich* Scot??  Not too many of those...

LOL!

(nor mean i.e. cheap ones 
either) I 
> suppose Disney was thinking of Andrew Carnegie :)

I'm not too up on this subject, since anti-Scottish sentiment is not 
exactly a raging problem in the USA, but a few English fictional 
characters I've encountered, and, unfortunately, a couple of English 
people I have known, have expressed a prejudice towards Scots along 
the lines that they're pennypinching.  I'm not sure whether "rich" 
went along with it.  It had the same flavor as the similar stereotype 
of Jews.  So I wondered whether this was a too-common prejudice in 
England and Unca Scrooge (don't know how far he dates back--40 years?) 
reflected it . . . ?

Carnegie was rich but emphatically not known for being cheap; he's one 
of the biggest philanthropists in US history.  (He deserves a less 
glowing reputation than he has, IMO, but recounting labor history 
would spill into politics, so I'll desist.)

I fear the Mods' wands are twitching, so I'll rush to my on-topic 
topic.  It strikes me that in the scene in which Karkaroff first sees 
Harry (GF 16), he recognizes him not from his scar, but from something 
else--presumably his overall appearance.

Harry stopped to let him walk through first.
  "Thank you," said Karkaroff carelessly, glancing at him.
  And then Karkaroff froze.  He turned his head back to Harry, and 
stared at him as though he couldn't believe his eyes. . . . 
Karkaroff's eyes moved slowly up Harry's face, and fixed upon his 
scar." 

Am I reading too much into this?  It's possible that he saw the scar, 
did his double-take, and then did the long stare, ending on Harry's 
scar again.  But it seems to me that he recognized him first and the 
scar then confirmed his suspicion, which suggests that he knew James 
and is recognizing Harry from that resemblance (the same way Snape 
recognizes him from across the Great Hall in PS/SS).  Whaddaya think? 
 I'm so intrigued by the doings of that generation and the way Harry's 
parents' roles in the time of Voldemort keep reverberating down to his 
life.  I'd like to see more of Karkaroff in 5-6-7, though if we do 
see him again, it will probably be just to see him die in some very 
nasty way at the hands of his former Master . . . 

Amy Z

------------------------------------------------
 Ern jerked the wheel so hard that a whole
 farmhouse had to jump aside to avoid the bus.
              -HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban
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