Fudge is Way Evil and I have the acronyms to prove it With a helping of EDGE

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 35738

Cindy wrote:
>I must admit I hadn't noticed how Fudge keeps that twisted smile
>just a little too long. But Elkins' treatment of Lupin's twisted 
>smile has confused me. How do we know that Fudge doesn't just have 
>Edge?

A brilliant stroke, Cindy.

But Fudge cannot be Voldemort-evil for me.

It's an intensely personal thing.

My parents were involved rather heavily with a certain bureaucracy. A 
certain rather highly placed bureaucrat, who is now so highly placed 
in another bureaucracy that a few list members might recognize the 
name if I let it drop, was our personal Fudge.

My mother was growing increasingly depressed over the havoc he was 
making of real peoples' lives, by letting his underlings get away with 
things he purported to condemn. And being a media hog, he had actually 
cultivated quite an image for himself as a reformer. Nonsense. He 
meant well. After all this time, I can still say that. He really set 
out with good ideals, and to a certain extent, still believes in them. 
He just wouldn't let himself believe that what he had really done and 
made way for, was the opposite of these ideas, even when the people 
who he was supposed to be relying on told him he had to take drastic 
reaction.

My Mother was becoming very depressed, as I said, and she started 
reading "GOF" again. She had read the books earlier that summer, when 
GOF came out, but she had not been very taken with them. However, it 
now rang completely true for her. She identified this bureaucrat as 
Cornelius Fudge. A particularily obnoxious troublemaker was her 
personal dementor: "just sucks all the happiness out of me." 

So, I have a personal stake in keeping Cornelius Fudge from being a 
Death Eater. 

Secondly, I think there's more literary appeal in making him an 
appeaser, rather than a servant of the Dark Lord. Fudge is another 
welcome patch of grey. Not all black and white. 

> You see? Something just occurred to Dumbledore that hadn't before. 
> Something about the fact that Crouch can't reveal any more. Surely, 
> Dumbledore suspects that Fudge deliberately set the dementor on 
> Crouch to silence him, so he couldn't name anymore names. Names like 
> Cornelius Fudge, I daresay.

No doubt, Dumbledore suspects Fudge is shutting Crouch up. Crouch 
would probably finger a lot of people. Avery, for example. If the 
fourth man theory is right, Crouch could take out Fudge's political 
career with that accusal. No, better to set the dementor on him, 
before he turns on Avery, Malfoy etc. Even without a current Voldemort 
plot, Crouch could perhaps severely wreck their previous defenses. 

> ::Spins about again, cape swirling.::
> 
> And that's not all. In the next few paragraphs, Dumbledore explains 
> how Crouch was instrumental in bringing Voldemort back to life. 
Fudge 
> appears to disbelieve:
> 
> "'See here, Dumbledore,' said Fudge, and Harry was astonished to see 
> a slight smile dawning on his face, 'you--you can't seriously 
believe 
> that. You-Know-Who--back? Come now...'"
> 
> What is the meaning of this smile? Harry certainly doesn't know. But 
> the smile cannot be insignificant because it persists for several 
> more minutes.
> 
> "Dumbledore glanced around at Harry and saw that he was awake, but 
> shook his head and said, 'I am afraid I cannot permit you to 
question 
> Harry tonight.'
> 
> "Fudge's curious smile lingered. He too glanced at Harry..."
> 
> Fudge questions Harry's reliability. Dumbledore explains how Harry's 
> story fits in with the facts. 
> 
> "Fudge still had that strange smile on his face. Once again, he 
> glanced at Harry before answering."

I thought he had that strange smile, because Dumbledore was taking 
seriously the ravings of this mentally unbalanced child. Just like 
Dumbledore not to read Rita Skeeter's column, and take Harry's every 
word. After all, the mention of the smile is every time linked with 
his glancing at Harry. 

> "'You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the 
so-
> called purity of blood!'"
> 
> Missed it the first time, didn't you? Since when did we ever hear 
> Fudge say anything about pure blood? Never! (I already looked. He 
> doesn't.) But now Dumbledore reveals to us, the alert reader, that 
> Fudge subscribes to the very core doctrine that Voldemort preached. 
> The accusation seems to come out of nowhere! There's no reason for 
> Dumbledore to mention it. Fudge certainly hasn't. But there it is, 
> nonetheless, another clue to Fudge's true leanings.

Yes, but if, as seems obvious, the "Parting of the Ways" is meant to 
remind the reader of 1920s/30s appeasement, and I think it'd be hard 
to deny it, even though it may not parallel it, there were plenty of 
people who shared, in smaller doses, Hitler's views about the unfit, 
the Jewish etc. And because of that, they were less wary of the evil 
that was staring them in the face. 

Eileen

PS. A meagre attempt, but I just can't let Fudge be evil.