Dark Mark and DEs (was:DE Name Origin, & some Dark Mark)

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 36833

Eloise, Porphyria, and Amanda were having a really fascinating 
conversation last week about Dark Marks, DEs, scars, and a whole 
lot of great Snapestuff.  I was particularly sorry to miss out on
it because I would very much have liked to direct people to an old
message of Porphyria's, #35386, on the subject of scars: Harry's,
Snape's, and how the two might relate to one another thematically
as well as plot-wise.  A lot of that material did get revised in 
the course of the discussion, but I still wanted to weigh in to 
recommend that people go back and read the second half of message 
#35386 (the subject heading is "Serpensortia -- Scars"), because 
I thought that it was terrific, and it did sort of get lost in the 
shuffle back when it was originally posted.

-----

At one point in the course of the discussion, Eloise wrote:

> This 'How visible is the Dark Mark?' thing is a bit puzzling. 

I'm sorry to jump into this conversation so late -- I've been very
busy this week, and am now desperately playing catch-up -- but as I 
see that this has been revised lately, I'm figured it's okay.  A
lot of ground has already been covered here, but it seems to me that 
there's still some discomfort over the fact of the visibility of the 
Dark Marks during GoF.  As I see it, the dilemma as it stands goes 
something like this:

The marks have been invisible since Voldemort's fall.  They have been 
gradually reappearing, growing more and more clearly visible, as 
Voldemort himself approaches full reincorporation.  When he finally 
gets around to actually *summoning* his DEs, which he does somehow by 
using Wormtail's mark, they not only burn, but also show up very 
clearly indeed -- Snape not only shows Fudge his mark, but also tells 
him that it was even more clear earlier that evening, when 
it "burned."  Right?

So the temptation, certainly, is to view the marks' appearance as 
intrinsically and visibly tied to Voldemort's state of being, and 
thus to assume that before his fall, they were always visible.  This, 
however, raises questions about DE secrecy: wouldn't it be awfully 
easy for Aurors to identify Death Eaters, if they all bore visible 
brands of their allegiance?  Wouldn't the Ministry know about them by 
now, given that Dumbledore had all those spies in Voldemort's camp, 
and given that people like Karkaroff spilled their guts to get 
themselves released from prison?  Wouldn't it have become common 
knowledge by now that the Death Eaters had been marked in such a 
fashion?  Wouldn't Sirius have known what to make of it, when Harry 
told him about Karkaroff showing Snape something "on his left arm," 
rather than being simply bewildered?

So perhaps they weren't always visible after all.  Perhaps their 
means of serving as a form of "identification" among Death Eaters was 
some more subtle form of magical sympathy: they burn, perhaps, or 
tingle when you are in the presence of a fellow DE, or perhaps 
somehow you just *know.* Or possibly there is a magical trigger which 
can be activated by the mark's bearer to *make* it visible, thus 
enabling it to serve as a means of identification to other DEs, but 
only when its bearer wants to use it for that purpose.

But of course, that leads right back into the question of why the 
marks should all have started to reappear during the year in which 
GoF takes place, and why Karkaroff's frantic attempts to talk to 
Snape about the Mark should focus so heavily on its visual appearance 
(Karkaroff does not, for example, say anything about suddenly being 
able to *feel* the thing again; instead, he tries to *show* it to 
Snape and speaks exclusively about how it appears visually).

Is this an accurate representation of the dilemma as it stands?  I've 
been trying to keep up, but I could have missed something, so 
apologies in advance if I've left out anyone's ideas.

Okay.  Now my own theory about the visibility of the Dark Marks over 
the course of GoF is that the reason that they begin reappearing in 
visible form is because Voldemort himself has been *willing* them to 
do so.  

I don't think that they're always visible.  As others have pointed 
out, this would have been an idiotic way to mark the members of ones 
organization, especially as we know that some of them (Rookwood, for 
example) were working deeply undercover.  I also don't believe for a 
moment that it wouldn't have become common knowledge that DEs were 
marked in this way at some point after Voldemort's fall, if not 
before.

But I do think that Voldemort can make them appear in visible form, 
if he so chooses, much as he can use them to summon the DEs to his 
side.  The marks themselves, like the people bearing them, are 
intrinsically bound to him.  The status of the marks is subject to 
his will.  I also suspect that they have always manifested visibly 
when they "burn" -- in other words, when they are used to summon one 
or more of their bearers to apparate instantly to Voldemort's side.  
This is never explicitly stated, but it seems suggested to me both by 
Snape's comment about his own mark showing up less clearly now than 
it did when it burned and by Karkaroff's utter panic at the thing's 
growing visibility.

My feeling about this is that in GoF, Voldemort is willing the Dark 
Marks to reappear in visible form because he *wants* the DEs to know 
that he's coming.  With the exception of a very few loyalists, they 
all betrayed and abandoned him; while he was languishing in his 
strange neither-dead-nor-alive nether-state for thirteen years, weak 
and helpless, they all just went back to their nice cushy lives.  
Most of them were probably secretly relieved to be free of him in the 
first place, very few of them are going to be truly happy to see him 
back, and he knows it.  And that *infuriates* him.  He is going to 
forgive most of them for it -- because really, what other choice does 
he have?  He needs followers, and disloyal though the DEs may be, 
they're still the only one's he's got -- but he wants to make them 
suffer agonies of trepidation first.

I think that the instant that Voldemort had gobbled down enough of 
that snake venom and unicorn blood and whatever other nasty 
concoctions he was using to build up his strength throughout most of 
GoF, he started focusing his will on making the Dark Marks reappear.  
He wanted his DEs to know that he was on the mend.  He wanted them to 
know that he was coming back.  And he wanted them to have a good long 
time to think about just what that might mean for them.  He wanted 
them to be really *sweating* it.

And it works -- although I suspect not quite as well as Voldemort had
hoped.  He still has to twist the knife around a bit in the graveyard 
before he manages to get someone to react with the kind of abject 
grovelling terror that I suspect he'd been hoping to inspire.  But 
when he finally does get there, he's just tickled.  I mean, look at 
his reaction to Avery's crisis of nerves in the graveyard.  He's 
absolutely *delighted!*

So that's my suggestion as to why the Dark Marks are reappearing in
visible form throughout GoF.  It also explains why they start to fade
away after the graveyard convocation.  Voldemort stops paying 
attention to them after graveyard.  The DEs all know for sure that 
he's back now, so he can stop concentrating on that.  I suspect that 
by the end of the school term, they'd vanished from normal sight 
completely.


Eloise wrote:

> But I find it curious that Voldy examines Wormtail's arm for his 
> ('It has come back') in the graveyard, when Snape's and Karkaroff's 
> have been visible for some time. 

My interpretation here is that by "It has come back" Voldemort 
meant: "It has now come back *completely.*"  In other words, now that 
he is fully reincorporated, his will has become strong enough to 
bring the dark mark back to *full* visibility, which means that it 
will also be strong enough to summon the DEs to his side.  I don't 
think that he could have summoned them in his slimy baby form even if 
he had wanted to.  In that body, he was just far too weak.


-----


As to the question of how the dark marks normally served as a means 
of identification among DEs, though, I find the notion that it wasn't 
necessarily visual at all, but instead tactile or some form of more 
mystical recognition believable.  I also find it perfectly likely 
that it *was* visual, but normally under the conscious control of 
those bearing the mark, thus allowing one to "show" the mark to 
others when this seemed called for, while ordinarily keeping it 
safely hidden.  This of course would do little to ameliorate the 
friendly fire problem that Eloise suggested, but it would at least 
help in preventing infiltration.  Tingling would indeed work better,
but I don't know that I believe that Voldemort and the DEs were 
necessarily all that canny.


Porphyria wrote:

> If the Mark didn't tingle then there'd be a lot of potential for a 
> Good Guy to club a DE over the head and change into his clothes, 
> just as you've seen in every action/adventure movie that ever was. 

If this ever really does happen in canon, then I will be extremely 
annoyed, and I will probably come right over here immediately, just 
to tell everyone, in excruciating detail, all about just how 
extremely annoyed I am.

Just so you're warned.

> Boy, I hope JKR is thinking this through as well as we are. ;-)

I hope that she isn't.  Without the inconsistencies, what on earth 
would we have to talk about?

Besides, if she's thinking through this stuff nearly as 
*neurotically* as we are, then we really never *will* see Book Five.


-----


As to the question of whether or not Snape's clutch at his arm during 
the staircase encounter in "The Egg and the Eye" was due to some Mark 
Tingling action caused by the presence of fellow mark-bearer Crouch...

Oh, ugh!  No!  That's unspeakable!  I totally reject that notion.  I 
reject it because...um...er...

<Elkins racks her brains to come up with some canon to back up her 
instinctive emotional reaction>

Because if that had been the case, then surely Snape would have 
recognized the particular *nature* of the tingle or the burn or 
whatever.  He would have told Dumbledore about it immediately, just 
as he'd been keeping Dumbledore informed throughout GoF on the status 
of his own dark mark and of Karkaroff's.  Dumbledore therefore would 
have suspected Moody much sooner, he would have taken some form of 
action, and the entire tragedy would have been averted.  

Okay.  So that's not really canon at all, but merely extrapolation.  
But all the same, I really do think it unlikely that it would have 
played out any other way.

Also, I don't believe for a moment that Crouch would have taken that 
risk.  Whether or not all of the DEs know that Snape's in with 
Dumbledore these days, I think it quite clear that Crouch himself 
did -- or at least that he strongly suspected it.  I can't imagine 
that he would have sent Snape a little "Hi!  I'm a Death Eater too!  
R U Available?" tingle, just for the sake of some casual sadism.  I 
mean, the man may have been slightly off his rocker, but he wasn't a 
total moron.

Mainly, though...

Porphyria:

> I really like the idea of Snape's having properly hysterical pain 
> there, especially since he acts ashamed of reacting to the pain, as 
> if it shows up a weakness. 

Yes.  That's my primary reason as well.  For heaven's sake, that scene
is one of the few places in all canon where poor Severus stakes a 
claim on some pure and undiluted reader sympathy!  If you guys want 
to water down his one unequivocal demonstration of overwhelming and 
deeply-felt shame about his past, then you can go ahead, I guess, but 
I'm not helping.  I'll just stand here in the corner and sulk. 

-----

Amanda suggested that the mystic link that the DEs share with 
Voldemort might in fact bind their very lives to his.  

She wrote:

> It seems his style, to demand such a commitment, and it would 
> guarantee their support of him (you'd think), and it would be a 
> very good reason for Snape to look pale or Dumbledore to look 
> anxious at the end of book 4--even when you have known for years 
> what you will do, and come to terms with what will happen, still, 
> walking out the door to begin steps that will lead, if successful, 
> to your own death, cannot be a thing one does lightly.

She also suggested that this would contribute to Voldemort's fury 
with his Death Eaters: as they themselves were still alive, they 
*must* have known that he hadn't really died either, so they can 
hardly beg off on the "But, my Lord, I thought you were *dead!*" 
excuse for not having tried to find him after his disappearance.

I find this an extremely compelling theory, particularly as I notice 
that not one of the Death Eaters in the graveyard scene so much as 
*tries* to excuse himself by means of the "But I thought you were 
dead" defense.  Lucius Malfoy whines a bit about not having the 
slightest idea how to go about finding him, but that's not at all 
the same thing, and he does insist that he was "always on the alert."

I also found Eloise's defense of the notion that "And then I ask 
myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again?" 
really means, "They knew I couldn't be dead, how could they think I 
wouldn't regain my powers?" to be perfectly convincing.

Porphyria objected that if this were indeed the case, then it would 
seem highly unlikely for the DEs to grant their allegiance to 
Dumbledore, which is what Voldemort accuses them of in the graveyard, 
as Dumbledore could bring about their own deaths.

I'm not quite sure that I agree.  Dumbledore is widely believed to be 
the most powerful wizard alive, right?  And he worked with Flamel on 
the alchemical work which led to the discovery of the Philosopher's 
Stone.  I think that if I were Voldemort, Dumbledore would be the 
very *first* on my list of people I'd suspect my disloyal, selfish, 
lusting-after-the-secrets-of-eternal-life Death Eaters to turn to, 
after I myself had vanished.  It's not merely the fact that 
Dumbledore's the arch-enemy that leads to that accusation, in my 
opinion, but also the fact that from Voldemort's point of view, 
Dumbledore is a potential *rival* in the Promising To Grant Eternal 
Life To Followers game.  This is Voldemort, remember.  He probably 
comprehends the notion of rejecting eternal life about as well as he 
understands that whole Protective Power of Self-Sacrificing Love 
thing.  Those sorts of concepts really do seem to be somewhat beyond 
his mental grasp.

So I don't have that problem.  I do have one cause for hesitation 
before wholeheartedly embracing Amanda's theory, though, which is 
that to my mind, if the relationship between Voldemort and the Death 
Eaters binds them in life and death, then it would also seem likely 
to me that it would bind their magical power as well.  I would expect 
for the Death Eaters to have lost a good deal of their magical 
abilities when Voldemort was discorporated, and to have remained 
relatively weak for all of those years while he lingered on in his 
impotent state.  And while I can certainly accept Eloise's suggestion
that the reason that none but the looniest of the DEs ever tried to 
find Voldemort because from their point of view, Voldemort alive -- 
but also powerless, safely hidden away, and out of their hair -- was 
a win-win situation, I find that notion a bit harder to swallow if 
alive-but-powerless Voldemort also means alive-but-powerless Death 
Eaters.  If that were the case, then I think more of them would have 
tried harder to restore him to power.

But it's a minor quibble, and one that I am happy to quash by simply 
telling myself that the only powers they lost due to Voldemort's fall 
were all of those special ones that he had imbued them with in the 
first place -- a sacrifice that they were willing to make if it meant 
that they were also free from Voldemort himself and his bwah-hah-hah 
comic-book villain nuttiness.

So okay.  Amanda's convinced me.

Eloise wrote:

> Ooh, Amanda....you've made me go all quivery. I might have to go 
> and lie down for a bit. I wonder if Elkins still has that brandy?

Help yourself, but I'm warning you: Cindy put something in it.  You
drink this stuff, and the next thing you know, first you'll be 
telling perfect strangers all about your most embarrassing childhood 
experiences, and then you'll find yourself jumping up and down on the 
couch, screaming things about bloody ambushes.

But if you're willing to take that risk...  <hands Eloise the 
brandy>  Here you go, kiddo.  Knock yourself out.

-----

On a somewhat related topic, I've been wondering for some time now: 
what do people make of Voldemort's cheerful naming of names in the 
graveyard?  I mean, Lucius Malfoy is one thing -- *everybody* knows 
that Malfoy is a Death Eater -- but people like Avery?  Nott?  
MacNair?  I don't get the impression that those guys were necessarily 
so high-ranking that the entire DE circle would have known their 
identities.  I *particularly* don't believe this about Avery, who 
since he was one of Snape's contemporaries had to have been quite 
young the first time around, whose position within the circle would 
seem to imply a fairly low rank (he's not standing next to anyone 
important, and he doesn't even seem to have made it to the grouping 
where the Lestranges and possibly Rosier and Wilkes once stood), and 
whose demeanor...um...does not give the impression of someone with 
very much on the ball, shall we just say.  (Of course, if one accepts 
Fourth Man, then it doesn't really matter if Voldemort names Avery, 
as everyone present would already know his identity -- but let's just 
leave Fourth Man out of this one, shall we?)

So what have people made of all that name naming?  Have others read 
this as proof that Karkaroff's claim that the DEs worked in secrecy 
was in truth a bit of a fib?  Or have they preferred to assume that 
all of the DEs whose Names get Named in the graveyard really were 
people of some importance -- or people whose covers had already been 
blown -- and so secrecy for them was not an issue anyway?

I tended to read it as a bit of stakes-raising on Voldemort's part, 
myself, combined with a bit of punishment.  I don't think it at all 
likely that people like Avery and Nott had ever previously been Named 
to the DE circle as a whole.  I think that by naming them -- to my 
ear, he does so rather deliberately that first time with Avery, 
almost as if he's making a point -- Voldemort is both expressing his 
disapproval of their past performance and making it clear to them 
that their loyalty to him this time around really is their best 
chance of personal safety.  

I find it telling, for example, that while Voldemort does name the 
Lestranges (whose cover has already been blown sky-high), he never 
once speaks Crouch Jr.'s name, nor those of the "coward" and 
the "traitor."  Now, this is obviously primarily an authorial matter -
- JKR wants to keep us guessing -- but I also think that it makes a 
certain degree of in-character sense: Voldemort isn't yet *certain* 
about what's going on with the suspected coward and traitor, and 
before he knows for sure that they really aren't both loyal and
potentially useful to him, he's not going to put them at risk by 
revealing their names.  Similarly, he obscures Pettigrew's identity 
by referring to him only as "Wormtail."  This may be simply because 
that's just what Voldemort calls him, but it strikes me that it might 
also be a precaution: Wormtail may have been disloyal enough to merit 
some punishment, but he's also been loyal enough to merit a rather 
large reward, and for the time being, Voldemort's clearly planning on 
keeping him around as some kind of lieutenant -- or at the very
least, as his personal valet.  It seems quite possible to me that he 
really didn't want to reveal the man's real name to the entire DE 
circle.

Of course, I do realize that my reading here is more a little bit 
weasel-like ("See, the reason that he names Avery and Nott is to 
*punish* them, and to make them all the more dependent on him, but 
the reason that he names *Malfoy,* see, is because Malfoy's an 
*important* Death Eater, so everyone knows his identity already, 
and...").  Nonetheless, I find myself believing in it.

Any thoughts?

-----

Oh, and I'm definitely in with SUCCESS.  But I'll take my juice glass 
with Dumbledore's fingerprints all over it, if you don't mind.  I 
don't think that Snape would have allowed Quirrell anywhere *near* 
his pumpkin juice.  

And besides, I like imagining Dumbledore spiking the juice.  
Twinkling as he did so, no doubt.  (Does anyone but me ever kind of 
want to *hit* Albus Dumbledore?)



-- Elkins, who doesn't know about Diana, but who certainly doesn't 
think that George has any problems with the idea that the DEs are an 
elite group.  Certainly *her* SWEETGEORGIAN version of Snape was no 
wimpy, wishy-washy fellow-traveller.  "Eyes Open" is, after all, part 
of the SWEETGEORGIANISM acronym.