The Madness of Barty Crouch, Jr???

[Marina Javor]

No: HPFGUIDX 30148

We all have a lot of questions about plot in GoF--
I've just had another re-re-reread(ha, ha) of the book
and started really thinking about some things that
have been bothering me.  Due to my slavish adoration
of all things Harry Potter and my staunch belief in
JKR's skill as a writer, I refuse to believe that the
inconsistencies are due to mistakes on her part.  My
main issue is with the plot twist revealing Mad Eye
Moody to be Crouch jr, and my problem with this is
that Crouch jr says and does many things in disguise
which do not seem to fit in with what he was trying to
accomplish.  How does he manage to fool Dumbledore so
well, anyway?  My answer to this is that he simply
does a remarkable job of portraying Mad Eye... almost
too good a job.  Which raises a lot of questions,such
as: Why does he do such a good job as the DADA
teacher?  If he was plannning to kidnap Harry, why
didn't he just magic some other random object to be a
portkey earlier in the school year?  Why does he tell
both Harry and Hermione that they should consider
careers as Aurors?  Being the DADA teacher seems like
an excellent opportunity to "sabatage" the student's
education, but in fact he does none of this.  Granted,
he must do a sufficiently good job as a teacher as to
not arouse Dumbledore's suspicions and to ensure that
Harry has enough magical knowledge to win the
Tournament.  But if Crouch Jr is really a Dark wizard
with the intention of helping Voldemort to rise back
into power, it seems like the last thing he would want
to do would be to increase the students' knowlege of
how to defend themselves against the Dark Arts. 
However Crouch as Mad Eye is an excellent teacher, not
just for Harry's class, but for all the students. 
After their first class, Fred, George, and Lee Jordan
appear to have great admiration for him, saying that
he "knows what it's like to be out there fighting the
Dark Arts" (GoF13).  As for telling Harry and Hermione
they should consider careers as Aurors-- it certainly
makes no sense for a Dark wizard to encourage this
career path for H&H, considering that the two of them
are among the more gifted students at Hogwarts and
that he himself was supposedly caught by Aurors and
imprisoned.  And what's with Crouch jr striking up the
very weird sort of friendship with Neville?  Crouch jr
really could have gotten that book to Harry by some
other furtive method-- but he doesn't, he actually
seeks out Neville and comforts him after the
demonstration of the Cruciatus curse in class.  Given
that he was supposedly one of the people who used the
same curse on Neville's parents, this little
friendship between the two of them is rather sick and
doesn't make sense at all.

For me, the only logical explanation that I can come
up with to explain Crouch Jr's actions is that he
could not have truly wanted Voldemort to regain power.
 But how can this be true?  I believe that Crouch Jr's
motivation for joining Voldemort and going to Hogwarts
was NOT to assist in the kidnapping & killing of
Harry.  My reasoning for this is that Crouch Jr was in
fact innocent of the crimes he was originally
imprisoned in Azkaban for, by his own father.

When Harry sees Crouch Jr's trial through Dumbledore's
memory in the Penseive (GoF30) it is apparent to me
that his pleas of innocence are very convincing.  Of
course, we now know Crouch jr to be a very good actor,
but he is the only one out of the four who keeps
stating his innocence.  The other three show no
regret, and appear to be convinced that going to
Azkabad will not matter, because they all believe that
Voldemort will rescue them eventually.  But Crouch Jr
keeps crying and carrying on, insisting and pleading
with his father to believe his innocence.  Later,
under the truth serum in GoF35,  Crouch Jr complains
bitterly about the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World
Cup who managed to keep themselves out of Azkaban.  
He steals Harry's wand and sends up the Dark Mark in
the sky to scare them.  He expresses contempt towards
them for not "going down" with the other Death Eaters
who were imprisoned.  But yet he attempts to get
himself off at his own trial... in essence doing the
same thing that the free Death Eaters did.  I believe
that either Crouch Jr was: A)a Death Eater, but not
involved in the torturing of the Longbottoms and
therefore was telling the truth, or B) NOT a Death
Eater at the time of Voldemort's downfall and was
simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I believe that Crouch jr's reasoning for crossing over
to the Dark Side is that it would be the ultimate
punishment to his father.  If Crouch Jr was truly
innocent, it seems to me that he would be very, very
angry with his father for not believing him.  Crouch
Sr sent his son to be imprisoned in Azkaban, then
smuggled him out a year later only to imprison him in
his own house for 12 years, controlling him with
curses.  I suppose this is better than being in
Azkaban, but I imagine that Crouch jr's hate towards
his father's unfair treatment was growing and growing
during his long years of imprisonment.  What better
way to punish his father than to really join Voldemort
and become the Dark Wizard that Crouch Sr feared he
was?  As Mad Eye Moody, Crouch Jr appears to have
twinges of conscience.  Perhaps the reason he attempts
to give the Hogwarts students a good education in DADA
is because he doesn't really want Voldemort to gain
absolute power-- he just wants to be evil enough to
make sure that his father will be punished.  He must
have enjoyed Crouch Sr being controlled by curses and
Voldemort living in his own house.  Of course Crouch
Jr's capacity for evil grows as he enters Voldemort's
service.  He appears to grandually lose the twitches
of concience, eventually killing his father when
Crouch Sr escapes and tries to warn Dumbledore. 
Certainly there doesn't seem to be any good left in
him during the scene where Dumbledore questions him
under the truth serum-- he appears delighted that
Voldemort has now been officially reborn.  

I don't know if any of my speculations is relevant to
further books-- we will probably never know if Crouch
Jr was innocent because of the nasty incident with the
Dementor's kiss at the end of GoF.  But I think my
theory may at least partially explain some of his
actions.  What do you guys think?? 

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