[HPforGrownups] Re: Fudge is Way Evil and I have the acronyms to prove it

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 35820

> 
> ::Pippin gives the cape a whirl, but decides it makes her look like 
> a vampire::
> 
> Dumbledore asks the students to do three things, in order to 
> choose what is right over what is easy.
> 
> 1) Acknowledge that Dumbledore is telling the truth. Voldemort 
> has returned 
> 2) Set aside their old enmities and differences
> 3) Consider themselves welcome at Hogwarts
> 
> The three adults, Fudge, Karkaroff and Bagman, act out  the 
> rejection of this message.
> 
> 1)Fudge does not acknowledge Voldemort's return
> 2)Karkaroff cannot set aside the differences between himself 
> and Dumbledore
> 3)Bagman flees Hogwarts, covering up his own crimes, not 
> Voldemort's
> So if Fudge does indeed realize that Voldemort has returned and 
> is covering up, it knocks the artistic and logical stuffing out of 
> Dumbledore's speech. There is then no one whom we can be 
> sure has heard the bad news and refused to believe it. 

Eloise:
Now this is a good argument. But I think that I have suggested that in fact 
Fudge doesn't want to hear the bad news, that he is in fact reacting in 
dismayed disbelief. He doesn't want to know. It'll disturb his comfortable 
world too much. 

> Fudge's prejudice in believing that people of "very old family" who 
> contribute to "excellent causes" are  not capable of anything 
> shady, and his belief that the Dementors are under control are 
> objective evils, but not the result of malice, IMO.  Therefore I don't 
> consider Fudge evil. "Those who aren't with us are against us," 
> sounds too much like old Crouch for me.
> 
> 
Eloise:
Isn't this effectively what Dumbledore says, in 'The Parting of the Ways'?
My  case is that Fudge *did* do wrong, out of self interest, but since 
Voldy's fall has not supported him in any active way. He has sided with the 
establishment - again, out of self interest. Insofar as he has done anything 
actively wrong since Voldy's fall, it has been to cover up his own misdeeds, 
nothing more. *But*, he lacks the insight and more critically the will to act 
against the gathering forces of darkness. He has, after all, been bombarding 
Dumbledore with owls asking for advice, but now, at the critical moment, he 
just doesn't want to know. Perhaps, as you say, this is objective evil, 
rather than the result of malice, but I think it is a critical point that 
evil can be *allowed* as well as deliberately caused. There is a fine line 
between doing wrong and knowingly not acting to prevent it. Sins of omission 
and all that. I think that the later Fudge is precisely an example of this.
My view of him is, incidentally the inverse of my view of Snape.
I see Snape as a strong man who did evil very deliberately, but who having 
realised his error made a principled decision to change sides. I see Fudge as 
a weak man, who hasn't decided anything. he's just gone with the flow and now 
he and potentially the rest of the wizarding world are in Big Trouble.

Eloise, who really thinks that she has argued this thing to death and is 
hanging up the cape and dearstalker for a bit. Anyone fancy the pipe?



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]