Crouch Jr and Mystery DEs, Fourth Man, SYCOPHANTS

Wed Mar 13 23:20:44 UTC 2002

No: HPFGUIDX 36473

Hi, Jamie!  

Wow.  Did you *know* that you were touching on all of my favorite 
topics here?  I mean, it's just uncanny.  You hit Crouch Jr.  You hit 
the graveyard scene.  And you even brought up the ever so mysterious 
Fourth Man!

I hope that you don't mind long replies.  ;->

Jamie asked:

> Does anyone else think that, while Crouch Jr. was certainly guilty 
> of being a Death Eater, he may not have been guilty of using an 
> Unforgiveable Curse?

Yes, that's occurred to me as well, and honestly, it wouldn't 
particularly surprise me if JKR were to reveal this as truth in some 
later volume.  It seems perfectly likely to me that while guilty of 
being a Death Eater, Crouch really was innocent of torturing the 
Longbottoms.  Dumbledore himself acknowledges that there was little 
real evidence against him, and from what we saw of the ugly mood of 
the crowd at his sentencing -- not to mention his father's 
desperation to uphold his hard-line reputation -- his trial was 
obviously grotesquely biased.

Like Eileen, I too find myself wondering if Crouch might not have 
been telling the truth whenever I contemplate his behavior in 
Penseive.  He was obviously a rebellious teen, and there does seem to 
me to be a strong hint of that classic indignation of the bad kid 
actually *wrongly* accused for once in his life -- "But when I'm 
*really* telling the truth, you won't even *believe* me!" -- to his 
pleas in Penseive.  It's emotionally magnified by a factor of 
thousands, of course, but nonetheless I do still see bit of it there.

And it *is* interesting that no one bothers to ask him about the 
Longbottoms while he's under the veritaserum, isn't it?  Certainly 
JKR's left open the possibility that he might have been innocent -- 
and making him so would be just the sort of thing that she likes to 
do.

But then, of course, there's plenty to support the notion that he was 
guilty as well.

Personally, I tend to prefer to believe that he really *was* guilty, 
but only because I find that believing him so makes his interactions 
with Neville in GoF absolutely fascinating for me to contemplate.  
(And also, as Eileen pointed out, I really do enjoy spinning wild and 
implausible backstories predicated on the assumption of young 
Crouch's guilt.  For "Neville Owed A Life-Debt To Barty Crouch," 
see the ends of both messages #35187 and #35895.)

> It's come up before that maybe he was under the Imperious Curse.  
> How else could a man who spent most of his adult life in Azkaban 
> perform such difficult magic unassisted?  

There is some suggestion in the books that either Voldemort himself 
or allegiance to Dark forces in general might indeed have the ability 
to imbue wizards with magical powers previously beyond their 
capabilities.

In the Shrieking Shack scene of PoA, for example, Pettigrew offers up 
Sirius' escape from Azkaban as proof of his Dark allegiance.  ("He's 
got dark powers the rest of us can only dream of!  How else did he 
get out of there?  I suppose He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named taught him a 
few tricks?")  And Pettigrew himself seems to me to be *extremely* 
magically capable, for someone who is constantly accused of being a 
weak wizard.  That muggle-blasting spell couldn't have been easy, and 
I imagine that the ritual spell by which Voldemort was rebirthed in 
GoF must have been quite difficult -- yet Pettigrew manages to 
complete it even after severing his own hand.

It seems more than likely to me that casting ones lot in with Dark 
forces really *does* grant one a certain boost in magical power.  It 
would do much to explain Dark magic's siren song appeal to those 
ambitious, power-hungry, ends-over-means, rules-disregarding, fair-
play-is-for-dummies members of House Slytherin.  And there's also an 
enormous weight of cultural and literary precedent behind the 
notion.  Traditionally, after all, deals with the Devil do usually 
get you *something* -- even if you pay far too high a price for it, 
in the end.

If this is the case, then it could help to explain Crouch's magical 
prowess.  We know that he was exceptionally bright to begin with: he 
got twelve O.W.L.S.  And then, under the influence of veritaserum, he 
claims that once he had been nursed back to health after being 
rescued from Azkaban: "I had to be controlled.  My father had to use 
a number of spells to subdue me."  

In fact, his father eventually resorts to the Imperius Curse to keep 
him under control.  That certainly makes it sound to me as if even at 
the age of twenty, young Barty was magically powerful.  If he was 
getting an added boost from Dark magic, then he could have been quite 
formidable indeed.

> It seems unlikely to me that such a young man with no family 
> background in the Dark Arts should be able to perform the Cruciatus 
> curse to the degree required to drive the Longbottoms to insanity.

Well, at the risk of sounding utterly morbid here, I don't really 
know that I think this would be nearly so much a matter of magical 
prowess as it would be a matter of...well, *time* mainly.  Time and 
patience and, er, determination.  We don't know, after all, how long 
the Longbottoms were forced to suffer.  I rather got the impression
that it, um... <wince> that it went on for a while.  

And, of course, Crouch had help.  Which brings us to...

> Who are the other Death Eaters involved in that trial?  There are 
> two men and a woman - one of those men and the women might be the 
> Lestranges?  

The text never explicitly states that they were the Lestranges, but 
it implies it so *very* strongly that I think we're reasonably safe 
making that assumption.  I find it very difficult to imagine why JKR 
would have chosen to deliberately lead the reader astray on that 
particular point.  

> Who is the last man?  Anyone we know?  

Ah-HAH!

Eileen wrote:

> /me calls to Cindy, Elkins, and Avery (still dripping wet and 
> cowering under Cindy's tough gaze) 

> "Let's row the Fourth Man kayak over here to talk with Jamie, OK?"

Yes!  Let's!

<Elkins pins her SYCOPHANTS badge onto her chest, leaps into the 
kayak behind Eileen, and picks up her paddle, grinning in 
anticipation of yet another exhilirating battle with the treacherous 
currents of canonical plausibility.>

Jamie wrote, about the mysterious Fourth Man:

> Whoever he is, we can presume he is still in Azkaban.  

Ah.  But *can* we?

It certainly is curious that Voldemort doesn't mention him by name in 
the graveyard, isn't it?  He raves on and on about the Lestranges, 
after all, who were loyal to him even after his downfall, who have 
suffered imprisonment for him, who will be sprung from Azkaban and be 
honored above all other Death Eaters, yadda yadda yadda.  He just 
can't stop rubbing all of the other DEs' noses in how much he loves 
those Lestranges, right?

So what *about* that Fourth Man?  If he were still alive and in 
prison, then presumably he would be mentioned along with the 
Lestranges.  Even if we assume that he died in Azkaban, you would 
still think that he would warrant some special mention, wouldn't 
you?  Wouldn't you think that as Voldemort was walking around his 
Death Eater circle, he would have said something along the lines 
of: "And here is where once stood so-and-so, who remained loyal to 
me, who died a martyr's death for me in Azkaban," and all that blah-
blah-blah?

Well, I sure would.

I also find the Fourth Man's utter anonymity in the text highly 
suspicious.  Why *does* he go unnamed throughout Book Four?  The 
reader is certainly encouraged to be interested in the Longbottom 
Affair.  We are given (or at least believe ourselves to have been 
given) the names of the other three defendents.  So why should the 
identity of that Fourth Man remain so strangely hidden from view?

Could it be because his identity is intended to come as a surprise 
when it *is* finally revealed to us?

Could the Fourth Man in fact be a character we have seen...and yet 
not seen? Is there a character who seems unusually strongly 
emphasized by the text, and yet has no seeming narrative *function?*  
A character that we as readers have been actively encouraged to pay 
attention to and to remember, but who nonetheless seems to have no 
strong connection to anything else within the story?  A character 
who although he has indeed appeared, has yet remained so utterly 
lacking in any form of physical description that he really could be 
just about *anyone?*  A character whose face and normal speaking 
voice have been obscured both from both Harry's view and from our 
own?  

Is there a character who has a name, but neither face nor role -- 
just as the Fourth Man has both a face and a role...but no name?

The "Fourth Man" theory, outlined in message #35062, proposes that 
the mysterious Fourth Man in the Pensive scene was actually Avery, 
who managed to secure himself a pardon when his case was reexamined 
during the political backlash to which Sirius refers in the "Padfoot 
Returns" chapter of GoF, the same wave of public sentiment which 
swept Fudge into office as Minister of Magic and got Crouch Sr. 
shunted off into the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

It further proposes that after his release from Azkaban, Avery 
shunned Dark activities, severed all connections with his former DE 
colleagues, and *certainly* made no effort at all to seek out 
Voldemort.  This, claims Fourth Man, is the reason that Avery arrives 
at the graveyard in such a highly nervous condition, and the reason 
that he cracks so quickly once Voldemort starts accusing his Death 
Eaters of ideological infidelity.  

It is also, the theory suggests, the reason that Voldemort punishes 
Avery for the same sins that he is willing to overlook in others.  
The other DEs abandoned Voldemort at the time of his fall, which is a 
matter of self-interest, of wishing to be on the winning side -- in 
short, a matter of ambition, a motivation which a Slytherin Old Boy 
like Tom Riddle can grudgingly accept.  Avery, on the other hand, 
remained loyal to Voldemort even after his fall and only later 
abandoned his efforts, thus making it obvious that his infidelity was 
motivated less by any personal ambition than by weakness and fear -- 
both things that Voldemort simply despises.

"Fourth Man" therefore offers the suggestion that the reason that 
Voldemort never mentions Crouch Jr's fourth co-defendent in the 
graveyard scene is because all of the DEs present already know 
perfectly well who the Fourth Man was: he was Avery, and Voldemort 
has made it all too clear what he thinks of the Fourth Man's 
performance -- namely, that it was shoddy beyond all hope of 
forgiveness, so craven that only thirteen years of faithful service 
could possibly even begin to make amends for it.

The canonical defense for this theory, and for its mother-theory,
"Redeemable Avery," is laid out in messages #34911, 35062, and 
35187.  

Eileen wrote:

> Avery comes with sidehelpings of Imperius, Remorse, and whatever 
> else you want to add. 

Yup.  We're pretty accomodating here in the Fourth Man kayak.  

Because the Fourth Man Theory grew out of a previous "Redeemable 
Avery" defense, many of the variants on Fourth Man are designed to 
excuse or to defend his behavior, but if you like him better as a 
thoroughly venal and villainous coward, then you're free to stick
with "No-Frills Fourth Man."

Otherwise, you could go for "Fourth Man with Remorse," in which Avery 
feels truly repentent about his DE past and has been striving for the 
past decade or so to redeem himself.  In "Fourth Man With SHIP," 
Avery was hopelessly in love with Mrs. Lestrange, remained so even 
after she married his classmate and romantic rival, joined the DEs in 
the first place largely in the hopes of impressing her, and joined 
with her and her husband in searching for Voldemort chiefly out of 
personal devotion.  In "Fourth Man With Imperius," Avery really *did* 
spend much of his time as a Death Eater under the Imperius Curse.  
There's even a "Fourth Man With Innocence," in which Avery, although
he was indeed a Death Eater, was nonetheless utterly innocent of any 
complicity at all in the Longbottom Affair and was arrested and 
convicted solely on the basis of guilt by association with the 
Lestranges.  

Naturally, all manner of permutations of these factors (some even 
involving perversions!) are possible.  "Fourth Man with Imperius, 
SHIP *and* Remorse," for example, is my own personal favorite (and 
also one for which Porphyria has expressed a preference), while I 
believe that Eileen prefers to take her Fourth Man with Remorse 
alone.  Cindy, who does not share our Bleeding Heart tendencies, is 
far more of a No-Frills type.

Avery himself, although he sometimes shares the kayak with us, 
doesn't get to express his own opinion on the matter, because he's 
just an in-jokey parody of somebody else's fictional character, and 
so doesn't count.  ;^)

So that's Fourth Man.  It's, er, not a very *popular* theory, I'm 
afraid.  In fact, at one point I seem to remember being reduced to 
claiming that two people constituted a "drove" in my feeble attempt 
to portray it as a burgeoning speculative movement.  But you're 
welcome to join us, if you like.  We don't have staterooms or cute 
cabin boys or tasty snacks or great big can(n)ons, like some of those 
bigger ships do, but...um...we do have Avery on board as our mascot.  
And sometimes Cindy brings S'mores.

Eileen warns:

> But remember that the crew of the Avery kayak: Elkins, Cindy, 
> Eileen (and anyone else?)...

Well, Porphyria once agreed to join us, but I think that she was 
probably just being polite.  

> ...are rather bloodyminded people, and are also into bloody 
> ambushes. 

That is true, I'm afraid, but you don't really have to be morbid and 
bloody-minded to adhere to the Fourth Man theory.  In fact, Fourth 
Man is really quite a kind and gentle theory, offering as it does the 
possibility of redemption and great reader sympathy to a character 
who, frankly, does not seem terribly likely to be granted the same 
consideration by Rowling herself.  

Nor, for that matter, do you even have to join the Society for Yes-
Men, Cowards, Ostriches, Passive-Aggressives, Hysterics, Abject 
Neurotics, and Toadying SYCOPHANTS -- an organization for the 
promotion of reader sympathy and identification with a wide range of 
grossly underappreciated character types -- if you don't want to.  
Very few people do.  In fact, I believe that Eileen and I are 
SYCOPHANTS' *only* two members.  Which does mean, though, that if you 
want in, you'll be on the ground floor, so that when the stampede to 
join us begins, as really, it must do, one of these days...

Eileen?

> Eileen, still smarting from being called a SYNCHOPHANT by Elkins, 
> but not sure how to deny it...

Smarting?  Uh-oh.

<Concerned, Elkins offers Eileen a tube of soothing ointment>

Smarting?  Because I called you a SYCOPHANT?  Oh, but Eileen, 
consider the *source,* will you?  I mean, I'm all in *favor* of 
sycophants!  Look, I've even got the badge to prove it.

And besides, you think that *I'm* one to talk?  The person who 
grovels at Captain Tabouli's feet, only to then turn around and spray-
paint graffiti all over the side of her SHIP?  The person who snaps 
at Tough Cindy about canonical *support,* of all things, only to then 
back away quickly, hands raised and teeth bared in an ameliorating 
submissive grin, whining for forgiveness?  The person who calls 
herself a Sweetgeorgian, yet who jumps onto the Big Bang destroyer 
whenever she gets bored, vacillates wildly between wearing her 
featherboas with pride and shuddering at the mere thought of them, 
claims to dislike SHIPs but can't seem to stop boarding them, and 
confesses to a partiality for So EWWWWWer It's In the SEEWWWWWWer?  
And you're worried because *I* called *you* a *sycophant?*

There is *nothing wrong* with being a SYCOPHANT!  We are fine people, 
people of great sensitivity and refinement.  Oh, sure, we may not 
have much in the way of those boring old heroic virtues, like 
Toughness and Valor and Honesty and Integrity and the Courage of Our 
Convictions.  We may not get much in the way of reader sympathy, and 
we may rarely get happy endings.  But we have something even better 
than that!  We have...we have *soul,* is what we have!  We have 
complexity!  We're cross-motivated!  We have pathos, and we have 
bathos, and sometimes we even have a touch of eros!  We.  Have.  
HUMANITY.  

And so long as we stand together...

...er, which may prove a little difficult for us, as truth be told 
we're not really known for our loyalty...

...and, um, which might also prove a bit difficult for us as we are, 
as a class, generally more comfortable kneeling, or lying prostrate 
on the ground, or else curled into fetal position than we are 
standing...

...and, um, which could *also* prove difficult given that to date 
there are in fact only the two of us here in SYCOPHANTS, no one else 
having been willing to buy a badge, or even to accept a *free* badge, 
or even for that matter to sign a single lousy one of our many 
petitions...

...and...and...oh, damn, where was I?  

Oh, yes.  That's right.

*And,* so long as we stand together, we shall certainly if not 
exactly prevail (for in truth, we hardly ever do that), nonetheless 
*survive* -- which is very nearly *almost* as good as prevailing, 
once you factor in all of the extenuating circumstances, and, um,
well, and...you know.  And take one consideration with the other.  
And all of that.

-- Elkins, offering to read Eileen that nice bit at the end of Return 
of the King where nasty old Saruman finally gets his, if it will help 
her to feel better about the whole SYCOPHANTS thing.