In Defense of Igor & Pettigrew, The First-Rate Liar (WAS Weak

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 35004

Elkins wrote:

> Aw.  Poor Igor.  What's so nauseating about him?  At least his 
> standards of personal hygiene seem up to par.  
> 
> You know, I'm beginning to agree with Cindy?  Karkaroff gets 
> nothing around here but disdain.

No, Karkaroff can't catch a break, can he?  I think it is high time 
someone pointed out all of Karkaroff's good qualities.  It's late and 
I'm tired, but uh, this shouldn't take too long.

Yes, Karkaroff cut a deal with MoM to rat out his former colleagues.  
That looks bad, I know.  But what evidence do we *really* have that 
his conversion to the forces of good was not genuine?  Don't laugh.  
Ratting people out is bad in a way, but he was doing it for all the 
right reasons, right?  Reason Number 1 was a legitimate and laudable 
desire to put the wizarding world right by capturing DEs who were 
still at large.  Frank Longbottom can tell us all about how dangerous 
those DEs can be.  Maybe Karkaroff fled when the Dark Mark burned 
because there was *no way* he could ever return to evildoing, because 
he is now *Good*.

Reason Number 2 is to save Karkaroff's own skin, that's true.  I 
think we can feel fairly certain that Karkaroff didn't go to the 
graveyard in GoF.  So he isn't all *that* evil.  He is a reformed DE 
in desperate need of a first-rate witness protection program.  He 
deserves our collective pity and sympathy, not the scorn heaped upon 
him and one of the most demeaning (and hilarious) acronyms ever 
devised. 

Gee, no one even tries to come up with a good psychological theory to 
explain Karkaroff's behavior.  Sirius gets Post Traumatic Stress 
Disorder.  There must be some form of syndrome that would fit 
Karkaroff.


Elkins again:

> So that does it.  I'm inviting Igor out for a few drinks and to 
pick 
> up his S.Y.C.O.P.H.A.N.T.S. membership packet.  We'll go far over 
our 
> limits, and sing old songs loudly and off-key, and then get all 
weepy 
> and bathetic and sentimental before staggering home at dawn.  
> 
> I'd invite Cindy to join us, but...  Well, I fear that the weepy 
> bathetic stuff might prove too much for her.  I wouldn't want her 
to 
> snap and...well, you know.  Kill us.
> 

No, I wouldn't kill you.  I'd send Sir Cadogan over to bop your heads 
together, though.  :-)

Elkins again (about whether the Fidelius Charm can be broken by 
force):

>This is a question that puzzles me because on the one hand, the only 
> reason I can imagine for Pettigrew not utilizing the "they found 
out 
> and came after me, and I just couldn't keep it from them" strategy 
> would be that the information hidden by the Fidelius Charm *can't* 
be 
> wrested from the secret keeper by force.  <snip> But on the other 
hand, if this is the case then I confess myself
> puzzled by the decision to try to bluff the enemy by switching 
secret-
> keepers in the first place.  "They'd never suspect we'd use a 
> weakling like Peter" would seem to imply that the Fidelius Charm is 
> *no* proof against extreme forms of coercion, that the Secret 
Keeper 
> can indeed be forced to reveal his secret through torture or 
Imperio 
> or Veritaserum or whatever forms of magical mind-reading might 
exist.
> 

OK, OK.  How about this?  The Fidelius Charm can be broken by force.  
That's why Sirius and Peter went into hiding.  (How much excitement 
and tension can be generated by any defense that is impenetrable, 
after all?)

Peter's problem, though, is that he never considered the possibility 
that Voldemort would fail in his mission to kill Harry or would fail 
so spectacularly.  When Sirius went to check on Peter, there was no 
sign of a struggle.  So if Peter had tried to lie and say that he 
betrayed the Potters against his will, he would have to explain the 
lack of a struggle.  And he'd have to explain this to a grief-
stricken, powerful Sirius.

No, lying just wasn't going to work.  I do wonder, however, how 
Sirius tracked Peter down at all.  Sirius didn't have his preferred 
means of transport.  So does he just randomly pop himself all over 
Britain looking for Peter?  And why doesn't Pettigrew just apparate 
out of trouble?  Very strange.  

Elkins again:

> No.  No, Sirius would have been utterly justified in blasting 
> Pettigrew on the street for the simple reason that Pettigrew is a 
> *terrible* liar.

<snip>

> You know, I really do have very little patience with pathological 
> liars who aren't even any *good* at it?  God, I hate that.  That 
just 
> annoys the hell out of me.  What's wrong with Peter, anyway?

Oh, such a harsh assessment of poor Peter.  He's not a terrible liar 
at all.  He convinced Sirius and James to use him as secretkeeper, 
probably telling all manner of tall tales about how wild horses 
couldn't drag the information out of him.  He also probably had to 
tell a boatload of lies to be an effective spy.  He certainly told a 
whopper when he accused Sirius of betraying the Potters before he 
blasted the muggles.

No, Peter is a decent liar.  

What's Peter's problem in the Shrieking Shack?  His main problem is 
that he's just plain afraid of dying.  He lies just fine when nothing 
is at stake right then.  Put him in a room with Cold-Blooded Killer 
Lupin and Dead Sexy But Deranged Sirius, where his best chance of 
escape is an unconscious Snape, and, yes, he gets a little tongue-
tied.

Cindy (who can't believe she spends so much time defending liars, 
ambushes, and cold-blooded killing)