Ambushes and a New Avery Theory

Tue Feb 12 05:40:11 UTC 2002

No: HPFGUIDX 35062

I have a stunning and revolutionary new Avery theory to share with
you all!

But first, some ambushes.

--Much Ado About Ambushes--

Cindy wrote:

> Oh, you want me to speak as a List Elf instead of a Spinner Of 
> Wobbly Theories?

<corner of mouth twitching suspiciously>

No, not really.  I just wanted to see what you'd look like in an oven 
mitt.

I was also rather hoping for some Jar-Jar Binks-style dialogue, but 
now I suppose that I'll just have to die disappointed.

> Oh, my. This is just making me feel all squishy inside. Finally, 
> *someone* else (besides George, who I still don't fully trust) buys 
> on to the Ambush idea. ::dabs at eyes:: 

Good lord, woman.  Suck it up, won't you?  Think of your *reputation!*

I wouldn't trust that George guy as far as I could throw him, by the
way.  Every time I see him, he's changed his clothing, or his hair
style, or his glasses have new frames...  You ask me, he's still 
trying to find himself.  I wouldn't commit myself to anything until 
he's grown up a bit, if I were you.

> Elkins, can I offer you a few cheap trinkets that probably won't 
> give you a bad skin rash if you remember to take them off at night? 

Welllll...I don't know.  You're selling those things from off of the 
deck of that <supreme distaste> *ship* these days, aren't you?  

I'm not getting on board that thing.  You bring those trinkets of
yours down here onto the beach, then maybe we can talk about it.

> Actually, Dolohov is in my ambush as well, and I'm willing to let 
> Frank Longbottom have a bit of the glory. I will note for the 
> record, however, that I think there were three Death Eaters in the 
> ambush (Dolohov, Rosier and Wilkes). That makes my ambush *bigger.* 

<eyes Cindy reproachfully>

Well, really now, Cindy.  Was there ever any doubt that yours was 
bigger?

Dolohov, eh?  I suppose that makes sense, given Crouch's exchange with
Karkaroff in the Pensieve scene.  Any chance I could convince you to 
off Wilkes in an entirely separate scenario?  

See, (where's the canon, where's the...) Wilkes was probably in a 
different *cell,* right?  Because otherwise Karkaroff would have
named him at the Pensieve hearing, along with Rosier and Dolohov.  
The fact that he *didn't* name him leads me to believe that either 
Wilkes was already dead by the time of Karkaroff's arrest or that 
Wilkes and Karkaroff were in different "cells" of the DE 
organization, and so didn't really know each other.

Either way, you need a separate scenario to account for Wilkes' 
demise.

And besides, big ambushes make me nervous.

But look on the bright side.  This way, you can have *two* ambushes!
Smaller ones, yes, and perhaps a tad less Great-And-Bloody than
you like -- but *two* of them!  Or, if you prefer, you can take
one Small-But-Bloody-Ambush and one...oh, I don't know, Entrapment
Scenario Gone Terribly Wrong, say. or perhaps a Hit Wizard Sniping.
You can take your pick.

Or do you only like ambushes?

--Cindy's ambush theory--

> This is shades of Eric, in a way, but maybe not. 

Eric?  Is he a friend of George's?  I...Oh!  ERIC!  *That* Eric!
Yes, yes, all right.  Do go on.

<Moody's attempts to talk Rosier down go horribly awry, whereupon
Frank Longbottom single-handedly takes down three DEs, thus not
only ensuring his popularity, but also establishing beyond a shadow 
of a doubt his Toughness credentials>

Mmmmmm.  I rather like that.  It has the advantage of maintaining the
Alastor-Moody-Was-the-Most-Civilized-of-the-Aurors thing, while still
allowing Longbottom to be -- if slightly more trigger-happy and 
reckless than Moody -- still most decidedly *not* one of those Judge-
Dredd-On-Acid types.  Dolohov was taken alive, right?  So there you 
have it.  Judge Dredd would have wasted the guy.

You still need to replace Wilkes with somebody else, though.  
Perhaps, uh... <sound of flipping pages> Travers?  How 'bout Travers?

Of course, if it's Travers, then your ambush is a tad less Bloody, as
Travers would seem to have been taken alive.  But that would make 
Longbottom all the more *impressive,* wouldn't it?  (If somewhat less
dripping with DE blood.)

Much as I like Longbottom-takes-down-three-DEs-single-handed, though, 
I'm still going to keep on plumping for Rosier-dead-at-Moody's-hands,
because I like what it does to Snape's interactions with Crouch/Moody 
all through GoF.  Although, really, I suppose that if you gave Moody
Wilkes, you could get much the same effect.  You just wouldn't have
quite as much canonical suggestion to back it up.

> Longbottom, like Moody, is quite Tough.

<quiet satisfaction>

Was.

<sudden horrified look>

Oh my God.  I didn't really just say that out *loud,* did I?

Ahem.  Yes, well.  Sorry 'bout that.  But somebody recently levelled 
accusations of "the Longbottoms had it coming"-itis against me (at 
least, I *think* they were levelled against me, although they might 
have been levelled against Eric -- it was sort of hard to tell), and 
you *know* how suggestible I am to that sort of thing.

Take Avery, for example...

--Much Ado About Avery--

> Yes, Avery is a difficult case to sort out. Still such a blank 
> slate, and only three books to go. 

Right now I imagine he's hanging out in the Green Room, preening 
himself and bouncing excitedly in his chair and lording it over all 
of the other guys who spend their time down there -- you know, 
Mundungus Fletcher and Arabella Figg and the Longbottom family and 
that lot, all of whom are beginning to finger their wands and squint 
speculatively at him -- but he hasn't even noticed that yet, not our 
Avery, nope, he's still far too wound up, he's all smug and gloating 
and babbling uncontrollably: "*I* had an appearance.  *I* had a line 
of *dialogue!*  Seven whole *words!*  And Harry was *watching* me -- 
not even in a dream sequence or anything like that, no, in *real 
life!*  And the Dark Lord even *spoke* to me, he addressed me by 
*name,* he said, 'Avery,' he said, he...well, er, actually what 
happened there was that he, er, sort of, well, you know.  Tortured
me.  A bit.  Which wasn't really all that enjoyable, now that you 
mention it, I really can't say that I was all that terribly *keen* on 
that part, to tell you the truth, and...well, I *do* rather wish that 
I had been able to take that wretched mask off.  I mean, it's all 
rather *awkward,* isn't it, not even knowing what you look like?  And 
I still don't have a, well, a, you know.  A first name.  Not, at any 
rate, *yet.*  Not as *such.*  But!  Still!  I've had an 
*appearance!*  *And* a line of dialogue!"

<Elkins pauses for a moment to contemplate the notion of young 
Severus Snape forced to share living quarters for an entire seven 
years with *that* version of Avery, shudders, then shakes her head 
and moves on>

> Unlike Hagrid, I can't write Avery off as insufficiently Tough, 
> though. 

<tonelessly>  

You think that Avery's Tough.

<shakes head very slowly>

> Oh, sure, he doesn't have the good sense to keep his head down when 
> Voldemort is looking for an opportunity to polish his Crucio 
> skills.  Yes, he writhes and shrieks, but who wouldn't? 

Cedric Diggory, that's who.  Diggory just yells.  And gets right back 
up on his feet afterwards, too.  Ah, the resilience of youth!

Then, I don't suppose that Imperio'd Krum's Cruciatus was really all 
that powerful.

> What Avery needs is a compelling backstory. 

Well, I'm sure that JKR has one all worked out for him.  He *is* a 
terribly important character, after all.  I myself won't be at all 
surprised if Book Five proves to be all *about* Avery!

--Cindy's Avery Theory--

> No, Avery is and has been head of DMC since the Potters were 
> killed. 

He was head of a Ministry Department by the time he was twenty-one
years *old?*

I mean, we all know that Avery's a misunderstood genius and
everything, but don't you thknk that might be a little...much?

<Cindy then goes on to attribute Avery with all manner of marvellous 
things: recovering Voldemort's wand from Godric's Hollow, tampering 
with the evidence to ensure the success of Pettigrew's framing of 
Sirius Black, and so forth>

Wow.  Well, that theory *would* clear up a number of contentious plot
points, wouldn't it?

It has the drawback, though, that it drifts quite far away from my 
original premise that Avery Is Not All That Bad A Fellow, Really.  I 
mean, you've just made him a...well, a fairly seriously committed 
Death Eater, actually.  That just won't do at all.

Besides, I think that if Avery were heading the DMC, then he wouldn't
occupy nearly so low a rank in Sirius' evaluation of threat to Harry,
do you?  The head of a Ministry Department is obviously Dangerous, 
even if he is Not Tough.

> Now that things have settled down, Avery is leading a quiet life as 
> a middle-aged bureaucrat...

<shriek>

Middle-aged?  MIDDLE-AGED?

Cindy, if we assume that Avery is Snape's age, which I think is quite
strongly suggested by the text, then he is only around 35 years old!

And 35 is *not* middle-aged!  It is *not!*  THIRTY-FIVE IS NOT MIDDLE-
AGE!  THIRTY-FIVE IS THE PRIME OF LIFE!  

<Elkins takes a few deep breaths, trying not to contemplate her own 
mortality>

Besides, it's especially not middle-aged for wizards.  They, uh, live 
a long time.

> Yes, why does Avery become unhinged in the graveyard? After all, 
> Avery did nothing more or less than Lucius did....But maybe Avery's 
> behavior can be explained another way. 

What, you didn't like my "Avery Has Recanted Deep Down Inside and Has 
Been Leading a Virtuous and Muggle-Loving Life" theory?

That's okay.  I've got a new one, and this one doesn't even require 
that you accept Avery as virtuous or at all good.  This is a theory 
that allows him to be utter scum, although it also allows for a 
Virtuous Avery variant.  Okay?  Ready?

But first, a few words of explanation as to why it is clear that 
Avery really *is* an important character, and not merely my own 
personal cause.

--Why Avery Is Very Important, Really--

Okay.  It's quite clear to me that JKR *wants* us to notice Avery.  
She's obviously setting him up for some secondary villain duty in 
future books.  He alone of the named DEs in the graveyard scene is 
neither someone we have met before nor (as far as we know) the father 
of a student at Hogwarts.  Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, MacNair...all 
these names at least ring bells.  We know Lucius; we've met MacNair; 
we know Crabbe and Goyle's kids; and we've at least heard the 
name 'Nott' in a Sorting Ceremony, and so know that he has a child in 
Harry's year at school.  Avery stands out as the notable exception.

Furthermore, JKR went out of her way to prime our curiosity about him
before we even got to graveyard.  In "Padfoot Returns" she gave us 
the intriguing notion of Snape's Old Gang, and then she went on, both 
in Padfoot and in Pensieve, to let us know what happened to Rosier, 
and to Wilkes, and to the Lestranges.  Avery, however, is strikingly 
omitted.  Furthermore, we are told that he is still 'at large.'  This 
is a set-up.  It's laying the groundwork so that when Voldemort 
addresses Avery by name in the graveyard sequence, we will prick up 
our proverbial ears.  We're meant to reach that line and say to 
ourselves: "Ah-hah!  *Avery!*"

And finally, she tortures him.  Torture's always an attention-
grabber, and it's often a sympathy engine as well.

So.  JKR *wants* us to notice Avery.  She wants him to be rooted in 
our minds.  And yet -- and this is an important point, so you there 
in the back: pay attention! -- she never actually shows us his 
*face.*  He is masked in the graveyard scene, and no hint is even 
given as to his overall body type.  We -- or, more to the point, 
*Harry* -- would be able to walk right past him on the street and not 
recognize him.

She also partially obscures his voice.  While he does have one line 
of dialogue, it is a histrionic plea for forgiveness screamed out in 
what appears to be a state of near-panic.  Thereafter, of course, all 
he can do is shriek and gasp.  Would Harry even recognize him from 
his normal speaking voice?  Quite likely not.  Unlike Nott, for 
example, who is given at least one hint of physical appearance 
("stooped") and whose voice is heard, Avery remains utterly 
camoflaged.

So I therefore predict, with the cheerful confidence of one who has no
actual money riding on any of this, that Avery *will* appear in some 
future volume -- very likely in Book Five -- and that it will be an 
important plot point that Harry Not Recognize Him.  Either he will be 
masquerading as someone else, or Harry will encounter him in whatever 
social roll Avery normally fills and be horrified when he first hears 
his name.

That's my prediction.  

(I also predict, by the way, that Ali Bashir's illegally-imported 
magical flying carpets will play some small but vital role in the 
plot of Book Five, and that a switcheroo with one of the twins' trick 
wands will save one of our Protagonists -- probably Harry -- from a 
sticky end at the hands of a Very Bad Wizard at some point in the 
story.)

(But I digress.)

Now...

--The New Avery Theory--

So.  Having established beyond an question of doubt that Avery really 
*is* a Very Important Character, and not merely my own strange little 
joke (I said *stop* that sniggering back there!  Do I have to ask you 
all to put your heads down on your desks?) I will go on to elaborate 
my most recent Avery theory.  I hope you were paying attention 
before, because some of this builds on earlier stuff.

Okay.  So we have Avery, whose most notable quality so far is his 
peculiar blend of seeming-irrelevancy and authorial emphasis.  We 
know his name, we've even heard his voice (albeit only screaming), 
but we don't actually know anything about him.  He hasn't actually 
*done* anything -- he's never even had a child mentioned at 
Hogwarts.  It's really all very odd, don't you think?

So where in Goblet of Fire do we find Avery's counterpart?  Where is 
his opposite number in the text?  What we are looking for here is a 
character who *is* of some importance or relevance, who *has* done 
something of some interest to the reader (and to Harry), and whose 
face we *have* seen -- but who nonetheless suffers from a mysterious 
and seemingly inexplicable anonymity. 

No, seriously.  Think about this for a minute.  Who have we seen who 
fits this description?  Who is it who has both a face and a role -- 
but no name?  Who is Avery's double?  Who is Avery's other half?

Are you with me here?

Yes!  That's right!  Avery was actually...

<dramatic chord>

...the Mysterious Fourth Man In The Pensieve Scene!

*This* was in fact the "trouble" that AVery "wormed his way out of" 
by claiming to have been acting under the Imperius Curse: his life-
sentence in Azkaban alongside his old friends the Lestranges and 
young Barty Crouch.  Yes, we've all been assuming that Avery never 
actually did any time -- but there's no reason that this must be so.  
Sirius does not, after all, say *when* Avery wormed his way out of 
trouble -- only that he did so.  And life in Azkaban certainly counts 
as "trouble," while wrangling a pardon after only a year or two 
served would still qualify as worming ones way out of it.  This would 
also explain why Sirius mentions Avery's name right after the 
Lestranges': they are linked in his mind by virtue of their common
crime, just as Rosier and Wilkes are linked by virtue of their common 
fate.

More to the point, though, this theory (which I hereby dub "The 
Fourth Man Theory") serves to explain why that mysterious fourth co-
defendent goes so suspiciously unnamed throughout all of GoF.  It is 
a set-up, you see, for the Great Shock Moment of Book Five, when it 
will be revealed that not only is newly-introduced Character X (who 
will have always struck Harry as vaguely familiar, but he will never 
quite be able to figure out why...) actually Death Eater Avery from 
the graveyard scene of the last book, but that he is *also* one of 
those mad fiends who tortured the poor Longbottoms.  O, horribile 
dictu!

But how (I hear you all cry), how, how, *how,* how could *any* of 
those four prisoners *ever* have wrangled a pardon after that trial, 
with its hissing mob, and Crouch's stirring denunciation, and all the 
rest of it?  How could the public mood ever have *allowed* for such a 
thing?

Well, you have to remember that not long after that trial, the public 
mood began to change.  According to Sirius, Crouch's popularity went 
into a sharp decline not long after his son's trial and subsequent 
death: people were beginning to think poorly of his excesses and 
those of his Aurors in the last years of the war.  And Crouch 
himself, as we know, got shunted off into the Department of 
International Magical Cooperation -- thus leaving his position 
open for a successor, who would likely have been eager to distance 
himself from Crouch's legacy.

So let us say that a year or two after the trial, the Wizarding 
World's Bleeding Hearts (HA!) all began to crawl out from the 
woodwork, calling for the reexamination of some of Crouch's more 
dubious old cases, the ones in which justice might not really have 
been served.  Crouch has by now been shunted off into the Department
of International Magical Cooperation, and the person who has replaced 
him sees in this an excellent opportunity to ensure his own political 
reputation by taking a second look at some of Crouch's more 
notoriously shaky old cases.  So...

Eh?  What's that?  Oh.  Why didn't Sirius Black's case ever get 
reexamined, you ask?  Well...um...

<thinks hard>

Because Bleeding Hearts don't *like* Sirius Black, that's why.  They 
all think he's a brute; he reminds far too many of them of those 
popular kids who used to pick on them in school.  And besides, 
Dumbledore himself had never expressed any doubts about Black's 
guilt -- and as everybody knows, Albus Dumbledore Is Never Wrong 
About Anything.  <snort>

Dumbledore *did,* however, seem to have held some doubts as to the 
actual guilt of Avery and young Crouch (who unlike the Lestranges 
didn't shoot their mouths off at their trial, but instead continued 
to insist upon their innocence), and this fact emboldens the Bleeding 
Hearts.  They pressure Crouch's successor to allow for a retrial.  
It's too late for young Crouch by that time -- he's already "died" in 
prison <snicker> -- but Avery is still there, spending his days 
rocking back and forth, moaning, banging his head hard against the 
walls, screaming in his sleep, and all of that sort of thing.  He 
cuts a truly pitiful figure at his trial, which sways the court's 
sympathy, and this time he manages to pull off the Imperius defense --
his claim, let us say, is that the Dead Sexy Mrs. Lestrange was 
controlling his mind.  He is granted an official pardon and allowed 
to walk free.

Traumatized, twitchy, and Having Had Quite Enough Of *That*, Thank 
You Very Much, Avery then goes home to live in his mother's basement, 
where he takes up coin-collecting.  He never pursues a visible or 
prestigious career, stays as far away from the public eye as he can 
manage, and whenever he gets an owl from one of his old DE comrades, 
scrawls "Return To Sender" hastily onto the outside of the envelope 
and owls it right back unopened.

More to the point, he never makes the slightest effort to seek out 
Voldemort.  Like I said, Avery Has Had Enough.

And *this* is the reason that Avery is in such a nervous state when 
he gets to the graveyard.  Not only because his stint in Azkaban has 
left him pretty twitchy to begin with, but also because he knows that 
his degree of infidelity is *not* really analogous to Lucius 
Malfoy's, or to that of any of the other acquitted DEs.  All those 
other guys just wanted to be on the winning side, and the Big V can 
understand that -- he was in House Slytherin himself, after all; he 
knows how that works -- and besides, they can all defend themselves
by claiming that they just didn't know *how* to go about looking for 
Voldemort: they had no leads, they had no clues, they had no ideas, 
"had there been any sign of you, any whisper of your whereabouts...," 
and all of that.  

Avery, on the other hand, was in with the Lestranges.  He *did* have 
some leads, and he *could* have continued to try to pursue them on his
own, just as young Crouch did before Daddy Imperio'ed him.  But he 
chose not to, and for no better reason than Not Being Able To Take 
His Licks Like A Man.  

Voldemort just *hates* that.  Like Cindy, he values Toughness.

Also, Avery begged off on the claim that he was Imperio'ed by a 
*peer.*  Not by the Great Dark Wizard of the Ages, not even by a much 
older and more experienced wizard, but by a *peer.*  And even worse, 
by a *girl* peer.  

And Voldemort hates that sort of thing even more.  He doesn't really 
have very much respect for women -- which is why there are so few 
female Death Eaters -- so to his way of thinking, that is just plain 
*despicable.*

So that's my Fourth Man theory.  It explains Avery's hysteria in the 
graveyard. It explains the otherwise inexlicable anonymity of that 
mysterious fourth co-defendent.  And it also explains Voldemort's 
utter lack of mention of the Fourth Man during the graveyard scene.  
He's overflowing with praise for Crouch, and for the Lestranges, and 
yet he never even mentions the fourth guy?  Even if the fourth man 
had died in Azkaban, wouldn't you think that V would have mentioned 
him by name?  "And so-and-so, who was loyal, who died a martyr's 
death in my service, blah-blah-blah..."

Well, Fourth Man explains why Voldemort says nothing of the sort.  
It's because the Fourth Man is Avery, who is right there grovelling 
at his feet already, and because Voldemort has already made it 
perfectly clear what he thinks of him: namely, that his performance 
was shoddy beyond any hope of forgiveness, and that he now owes 
thirteen years of faithful service to make up for it.

Fourth Man also offers the possibility of a <shudder> SHIP, for those 
who like that sort of thing.  One can, for example, contemplate the 
possibility that Avery was hopelessly in love with the Dead Sexy Mrs. 
Lestrange, and that he remained devoted to her even after she threw 
him over for his classmate and romantic rival.  Tragic, hankie-worthy 
speculation possibilities abound.

Really, the only problem that I can see with Fourth Man is that it 
does absolutely nothing to support the notion that Avery Is Not All 
That Bad A Fellow, Really.

In fact, it kind of makes him even more loathsome than he was back 
when he was just a grovelling toady, doesn't it?

<long silence>

Oops.

Wait...wait...I can *do* this.

<even longer silence>  

Okay.  How's this?  Avery really *was* under Imperius.  He's a 
hopelessly weak-willed but Not All That Bad Really a fellow, 
who...uh...who only really became a DE in the first place out of his 
desire to impress the Dead Sexy Future Mrs. Lestrange.  Alas, once 
within the ranks, he found that murder and torture made him sick.  
All of the other guys made fun of him, and there seemed a good chance 
that the Dark Lord might simply have him killed.  So...uh, the Dead 
Sexy Mrs. Lestrange took, uh, pity on her oh-so-pathetic admirer and 
placed him under the Imperius to help guide him safely through the 
ickier aspects of the lifestyle he had so unwisely chosen for himself.

<short pause>  

No.  No, all right.  I'm not buying the Dead Sexy Mrs. Lestrange as 
the pitying type either.  Well, okay then.  She just found him 
amusing.  It entertained her to keep him around as a pet, and she 
particularly enjoyed forcing him to commit terrible atrocities that 
she knew he found horrifying and distressing.  That seems rather more 
in character for her, really.

There.  Now we have an alternate version of Fourth Man that maintains
the whole "Avery Is Weak But Not Really Evil To the Core" theory.  We 
call this one "Redeemable Fourth Man."

You pays your money, and you takes your choice.

Cindy wrote:

> Really, all Avery needed in the graveyard was a good . . . lawyer. 
> Someone to say, Avery, don't answer that question, and whatever you 
> do, don't admit guilt.

Unfortunately, it was impossible for him to bring his advocate along 
with him to the graveyard.  And while he had indeed been advised 
against the admission of guilt back at the office, without the 
support and comfort of that smooth-tongued fellow constantly leaning 
over to whisper in his ear, he just couldn't handle the pressure.

> Uh, would it be a fair assumption that S.Y.C.O.P.H.A.N.T.S. members 
> are not Tough? 

Er...not as a general *rule,* no.  But some are.  In fact, a few of 
our members have even been known to do things like sever their own 
body parts, although they are generally only able to manage such 
feats of Toughness when the plot demands it.

As I've said before, though, there really is a great deal of 
diversity within our ranks.  We are, after all, an umbrella 
organization of sorts for those members of the fictive world who are 
what we like to call, er..."reader sympathy challenged."  So while it 
is indeed true that our Abject Neurotics are, almost without 
exception, Not Tough, quite a number of our Yes-Men are very Tough 
Indeed.  Young Crabbe and Goyle, for example, currently show every 
sign of growing up to be Reasonably Tough Yes-Men.

It is a sad truth, however, that our Toughest members are also often 
our very least articulate.  As a result, they do often find 
themselves shockingly marginalized, even within the ranks of our own 
organization.  We hope to address this problem in the future.

> Do they watch a great deal of daytime television and read a lot of 
> self-help books while they eat pint after pint of high-fat ice
> cream? :-) 

Well, many of our members currently hold 24/7 positions as Minions to 
various Evil Overlords, which doesn't leave them very much time at all
for daytime television and the like.  Really, you know, it's very hard
work being a SYCOPHANT.  It takes a lot of time, and a lot of mental
and physical energy...it can be *draining,* you know, it really can 
be... and all too often it leaves you with nothing left over for such 
frivolities as self-help books and the like.

No, at the end of the day, most of our members really just want 
nothing more than to go home and take their anti-anxiety medications, 
and their sedatives, and their anti-depressants, and their antacids, 
and their many *many* pain-relievers, and then go to bed, secure in 
the comforting knowledge that Tomorrow Is Another Day -- And Quite 
Likely To Be Your Last.

And as for the ice cream...well, minions rarely get very much of 
that.  Evil Overlords are *notorious* for bogarting the high-fat ice 
cream.

Damn them.

-- Elkins