[HPforGrownups] Arthur Weasley, With Imperius Curse (WAS: What's In A Name?)
Liz Sager
ChaserChick at hotmail.com
Fri Mar 29 23:32:55 UTC 2002
No: HPFGUIDX 37162
Elkins wrote:
>Debbie wrote, about the Weasleys:
> > There certainly doesn't appear to be anything "weaselly" about
> > them. Quite the contrary. I think the Weasleys are among the most
> > straightforward characters in HP, and quite comfortable in their
> > own commoner shoes. (Now, is there an English town called
> > "Weasley"?)
>
> > Debbie, waiting for someone to prove her wrong by posting the
> > sinister Weasley backstory (no, I don't think Molly's sandwich
> > crimes will do)
>
>Weasley backstory? Did somebody request a Weasley backstory?
Well, as for the name, I stand by a theory that one of the Weasley's
ancestors was an animagus who turned into...a weasel. (Took me about ten
tries consisting of "weasley", "weasle", and "weasy" to get that one right!)
>
>You don't want your Weasleys straightforward, eh? You want someone
>to suggest something that will make you lie awake nights, worrying
>about them? You want something a bit more dire than Molly's culinary
>amnesia to make you feel paranoid and unsettled about the dear old
>Weasley clan? You asked for an improbable backstory speculation?
Oh I already worry about them. Like which one's gonna die. :(
>but
>would you care for a bite of Arthur Weasley With Imperius Curse?
*pops the popcorn and sits on the inflatable couch*
<<snips most EXCELLENT explanation>>
>Why would Arthur have told Ron about Lucius Malfoy's acquittal,
>when he's never even explained to the kid what the Dark Mark was?
>
>Well, if he really had *sincerely* been placed under the Imperius
>Curse at some point during Voldemort's reign, then the fact that
>Lucius Malfoy got off on the same claim must have really rankled.
>It might even have rankled badly enough for him to have told his
>younger children about it,
Seems to me that the Weasleys and Malfoys fighting goes back a few
generations or more -- but true.
>'Ah, yes,' said Moody appreciatively. 'Your father *would*
>know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one
>time, the Imperius Curse.'"
>
>Now, we all know what Crouch is, right? He's both a sadist and a
>show-off; and he's sly. He just *loves* to entertain himself by
>making double-edged statements with malicious secondary meanings.
>Just about everything he says throughout the novel has some nasty
>message lurking beneath it. So is it possible that there could
>have been a second meaning underlying that "your father *would*
>know that one," as well as some reason for him to be so
>"appreciative" of Ron's answer?
I think if everything we were speculating upon here, that Arthur Weasley was
Imperio'd for an indeterminate amount of time, and Crouch knew it, that it
would qualify as a gloat.
>I also see a certain symmetry emerging in this chapter if we accept
>as our hypothesis that Ron's father was indeed, at one time, a victim
>of the Imperius Curse. Crouch calls on Ron to volunteer the name of
>the Imperius. He calls on Neville to volunteer the name of the
>Cruciatus. I feel absolutely certain that he was just *dying* for
>Harry to raise his hand, so that he could force him to speak the name
>of the Avada Kedavra. Alas for Crouch, though, Harry was an
>ignoramus, and so he was forced to call on Hermione instead; all the
>same, he *did* go out of his way to draw the class' attention to
>Harry after his demonstration of the curse. Crouch is just like
>that.
This is the chapter that got the wheels in my head turning. It wasn't until
the second time that I read that chapter that I realised that three of the
people in class could have the connection to the Unforgivables. Harry has
the obvious one of Avada Kedavra, Neville's connection to the Cruciatus
curse through his parents (which, unless I'm mistaken, we don't learn about
until after the penseive, and it broke my heart to read Neville's reaction
to the spider the second time around :( ), and Ron's connection to the
Imperius curse, which we are speculating upon here.
>He's a sadist, and he has some...well, let's just say some
>parental issues.
Haha, not enough football as a young child. :D J/K. How much do you think
that Crouch Sr. actually blames himself for his son's choices? At all?
>And finally, in defense of my Imperio'd Arthur Weasley theory, I
>would point out that Ron seems to find fighting off the Imperius
>Curse unusually difficult. Nowhere else in canon is Ron depicted as
>a poor student. He does have some difficulties in CoS, but only
>because of his broken wand; he doesn't take Divination at all
>seriously, but then, neither do any of the other male Gryffindor
>students. Ordinarily, Ron is canonically depicted as a perfectly
>average student. So why the trouble with the Imperius Curse? He's
>not a weak-willed person at all, really.
Imperius seems to be an insanely hard curse to overthrow, whether you have a
weak-will or not. Its probably like rolling your tongue--some people can,
some people can't. (Note: rolling your tongue IS a hereditary trait, I
realise that and that's my point.)
>Of course, if poor Arthur Weasley really *had* spent some time under
>the Imperius Curse back in the bad old days, then clearly no one has
>ever told Ron or the Twins about it. While Ron doesn't care at all
>for those spiders, Crouch's Imperius demonstration doesn't otherwise
>seem to bother him at all -- he thinks that it's cool -- and he has
>no negative reaction to Crouch's comment about his father. Similarly,
>the Twins show no signs of distress over Crouch/Moody's DADA class;
>on the contrary, they are overflowing with enthusiasm about it.
I don't think being Imperio'd is something people necessarily want to
discuss openly. Kind of like some vets don't want to speak about the Vietnam
War, its just something that they'd rather forget.
>No, if Arthur Weasley ever had a little Imperius problem, then that's
>been kept a secret from the children -- or at least from the younger
>ones. Bill and Charlie might know about it, but Ron, Ginny and the
>Twins certainly don't. Percy...
>
>Well, Percy might, or he might not. Hard to say, really.
Percy is such a character. He's the kind of person that makes me think of
reading "Tale of Two Cities" at the age of five (maybe he can explain it to
me, because *I* sure don't get it). He's very smart, and was probably mature
for his age, being only five during the first defeat of Voldemort. His
parents might have told him, or they might not've.
>At any rate, if it's true, then it's a rather large secret, don't you
>think? Rather a nasty secret. Rather an ugly secret. A Deep Dark
>secret. A Skeleton In the Weasley Family Closet sort of secret.
>
>So I'm hoping that it's true. Because not only do I think that the
>it would be interesting for the Weasleys to have one of those; I also
>think that the Weasleys *act* as if they have one of those. There's
>something festering away somewhere in that family dynamic, and I
>don't think that it's just a matter of financial stress. I think
>that there's something swept under the carpet somewhere in that
>household. Something secret, and sad.
>
>Further speculations about missing Weasley children, Arthur's
>particular demeanor when telling the children about the significance
>of the Dark Mark at the end of Chapter 9 of GoF, Bill's contributions
>to that particular conversation, literary parallels between Percy
>Weasley and Barty Crouch, and how any of that might intersect with
>the series' thematic emphasis on damaged families, secrets, the
>effects of the past upon the present, and father-son relationships, I
>will leave to the cruel and ruthlessly bloody minds of my fellow
>FEATHERBOAS.
Well, as a very wise person once said..."If you're going to have skeletons
in the closet, you may as well teach them to dance." :)
I'll do you one better.
Nevermind, I just crushed my own theory...do you have any idea how terribly
frustrating that is? >_< Maybe one day someone will open that closet door,
and the skeleton will come tumbling out--and become a canon.
And just a question, what's a FEATHERBOA?
>-- Elkins, who really does adore Arthur Weasley.
Liz, who agrees. Who doesn't?!
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