The Imperius Curse (was: Re: Ron Going To The Dark Side), and Snape on the Quidditch Pitch

[Jennifer Boggess Ramon]

No: HPFGUIDX 35371

At 9:09 PM +0000 2/12/02, jenny_ravenclaw wrote:
>
>I see Ron mostly as weak.  In JKR's wizarding world, weak is a bad
>thing to be.  Ron cannot fight the Imperius Curse (baaaaaad sign).

Why does this paint him out as special?  Only three people so far 
have managed to throw of Imperius "on stage", as it were - Harry, 
Crouch Jr., and Crouch Sr.  In the second case, it took him eleven 
years to manage the feat.  In the third case, it took him several 
months, and drove him mad in the process.  All the discussions of it 
in GoF suggest, to me, that for a mere fourth-year student to be able 
to consistently throw it off, even with the coaching of someone who 
has already done so, is quite amazing.  _None_ of the other 
Gryffendors manage it in that lesson (and it takes Harry four tries 
to do it completely).  Of the three people we have who actually 
manage the feat, moreover, one is Good, yes, but one is Very Bad, and 
one is at best Deeply Questionable (unless you think that Crouch Sr. 
was justified in putting Sirius away without a trial).

Is there any evidence that being able to throw off the Imperius is at 
all common?  As powerful and competent a wizard as Lucius Malfoy 
claims he can't do it, that Voldemort's Imperio has him dancing like 
a puppet all through his Death Eater years - and while there are some 
people who don't believe the story, no one seems to disbelieve it on 
the grounds that Lucius should be able to throw the curse off.  Ditto 
for all the other DEs who pleaded bewitchment.

If not being able to throw off Imperius should make us suspect 
someone of being temptable to Voldie's side, we'd best worry about 
Dean Thomas, Lavender, and Neville as much as Ron.


At 9:32 PM +1100 2/13/02, Tabouli wrote:
>Snape may or may not have played Quidditch.  However, we *do* know 
>that he was jealous of James' Quidditch ability, whether because 
>James was better at it than him or because he didn't play Quidditch 
>at all (and resented the jock getting the girl of his dreams).

The way Lupin puts this in PoA suggests to me that Snape at least 
_wanted_ to play Quidditch.  Moreover, I doubt he'd have been allowed 
to referee back in PS/SS if he weren't intimately familiar with the 
rules of the game, and a reasonably good flyer.  The twins hit a 
Bludger at him, and he awards a penalty - it does _not_ say the 
Bludger actually hit him, so he appears to have at least been skilled 
enough to dodge.  (Either that, or George missed on purpose, which 
seems a bit out of character.)

So what position could he have played?

If we're meant to see Draco as his "reflection," was he a Seeker like Draco?

But Harry is James's reflection, and he was a Chaser (movie be 
damned), so to keep the parallelism, Snape must have been a Chaser, 
too, right?

But would that have produced this bitterness?  What position would 
have pitterd Snape against James in every match directly, with every 
score by James a failure of Severus's?

My prediction:  Severus Snape, Slytherin Keeper, 1973-1978.

-- 
  - Boggles, aka J. C. B. Ramon			boggles at earthlink.net
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