Was enviable/pitiable Amos Diggory

[serenadust]

No: HPFGUIDX 35694

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "ssk7882" <skelkins at a...> wrote:



> 
> No, I pity Amos Diggory.  The poor man.  Cedric would seem 
> to have been an only child, and it's just painfully obvious 
> that the kid meant all the world to him.  He was if anything 
> over-involved in his son's life, over-identified.  And when 
> we see him at the end of GoF, he is grieved beyond the capacity 
> for speech.  He doesn't even seem capable of providing any 
> support at all to his wife.  The man's just a mess.  
> 
> I think that losing a child to murder must be one of the most
> horrible things that anyone could ever undergo, and when you're
> an overidentified parent like Amos Diggory, it's got to be just
> that much worse.  So Amos gets my pity vote.
> 
> And as for that suggestion that someone (I can't remember who,
> sorry) made a while back that poor Amos Diggory might be high 
> on the list of Characters Now Vulnerable To Seduction By the 
> Dark Side, all I can say is: my God, have you no *heart?*
> I mean, the very thought!  It just makes me want to drop my
> head down on the keyboard and *weep,* that does.
>

While I agree with you that he's unlikely to be seduced by the dark 
side, I think that he may be vulnerable to being unwittingly used by 
them to harm Harry.
In GoF we see that he has resentment towards Harry for upstaging 
Cedric in the Rita Skeeter article.  This is of course, quite unfair 
of him as Molly points out (Chap. 31 The Third Task), but we know 
already he has a large blind spot where Cedric's concerned.  He also 
accuses Harry of conjuring the Dark Mark in chapter 9, and all in 
all is very prone to jumping to negative conclusions where Harry is 
concerned.
I was quite surprised when, in Chap. 37, he doesn't blame Harry for 
Cedric's death since it would have been consistant with Amos' 
character to do so (although I was very relieved that he didn't.  
Poor Harry has suffered more than enough at this point).  However, 
he was mad with grief at this point.  I fear that as time goes by, 
that grief will turn to bitterness and anger, and who is most likely 
to be the target?
I fear and expect that Amos will begin to vent his feelings publicly 
and accuse Harry of all sorts of awful things, fanning any 
smouldering suspicions others may have about the events at the end 
of the tournament.  I think that Harry's in for a very rough ride in 
book 5.

Jo Serenadust