[HPforGrownups] Fourth Man, Good & Evil.../Weasleys

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 38400

Debbie:

I'm not going back to FMAT.  It's too dull, and IMO Voldemort was protecting
> Crouch's cover as a spy.  In any event, there's an easy way to save the 
> Fourth Man hovercraft.  Just dump Avery overboard!  After all, Elkins' 
> original premise behind Fourth Man is still fundamentally sound:
> 
> >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?
> 
> More to the point, though, this theory (which I hereby dub "The 
> Fourth Man Theory") serves to explain why that mysterious fourth co-
> defendent goes so suspiciously unnamed throughout all of GoF. [snip]
> And it also explains Voldemort's 
> utter lack of mention of the Fourth Man during the graveyard scene. 
> He's overflowing with praise for Crouch, and for the Lestranges, and 
> yet he never even mentions the fourth guy? Even if the fourth man 
> had died in Azkaban, wouldn't you think that V would have mentioned 
> him by name? 
> 
> Me:
> You see, just by snipping all references to Avery, Fourth Man can move 
> forward at full speed.  And Avery's still afloat, too.  He can still be had 
> with Innocence, Remorse, Toughness, etc. or even Slashy SHIP.  In fact, he 
> can trail behind in the old kayak just in case Sirius was wrong, and Avery 
> made a deal with Fudge.  We just need to find an alternative Fourth Man.  
> But 
> where?  We can't use the Weasley accountant.  David has accounted for him 
> already.  And I don't think it was anybody in the graveyard.  Perhaps this 
> person has not appeared yet in canon.  Maybe Fourth Man is even now just 
> escaping from Azkaban.  And even if he is dead, maybe he figures 
> prominently 
> in some backstory.  Who was kissing Florence behind the greenhouse, anyway?
> 
> But, alas, Cindy filed the following sad report on the vessel itself:
> 
> The Fourth Man Hovercraft has been drifting aimlessly for weeks, the 
> mini-bar long depleted and the S'mores quaffed by a certain 
> allegedly Redeemable Minor Character with a voracious appetite.  
> 
> Just like me to approach a vessel only after the refreshments have run out. 
>  
> 
> Finally, Judy wrote:
> 
> > Yep, I can't accept that Avery was the Fourth Man in the Pensieve 
> > scene, either.  In fact, I've been dying for ages to ask whether 
> > people *really* believe that the Fourth Man was Avery, or if the 
> >whole "Fourth Man is Avery" thing is just a joke.  


Eloise: (all the above is quoted from Debbie)

Yeah. Dump poor Avery, then it all works. But wasn't the whole thing about 
the Fourth Man Kayak/ Hovercraft, whatever, the identification of  the Fourth 
man with Avery? Was I missing the point?
No, I've just read Cindy's post. That was precisely the point.

Cindy <brandishing a ca(n)non at her wavering crew member>:
>Oh, ye of little faith!

>Ah, look at the exact quote:

>"Avery -- from what I've heard he wormed his way out of trouble by 
>saying he'd been acting under the Imperius Curse -- he's still at 
>large

Eloise:
But you see, it was that 'still' that bothered me. To me that makes it sound 
like he never did go to Azkaban, although I suppose it *could* mean he's not 
been re-arrested.
OTOH, we do have (evil!)Fudge being made MoM and I agree that that could 
change everything. Avery's appeal is allowed, but Sirius is put away without 
even a trial. It would be consistent. (I've just realised that Sirius' 
apparent strange omission to do anything to get himself released could be 
precisely because he *didn't* have a trial: there wasn't a conviction to 
appeal against).

But certainly, there is a convincing case for the Fourth man to have some 
significance, isn't there? 

I've just skimmed throught the graveyard scene again. I think one of the 
issues that may have clouded things is the question of exactly how many gaps 
there are. She doesn't really say. 
When she describes the circle, she just says that there are gaps in it. 
Voldemort then goes on specifically to remark on the two-person Lestrage gap 
and the six- person one, (the three dead and the deserter, the coward and the 
faithful servant). This, she tells us is the *biggest* gap. Now, assuming 
that this isn't an example of sloppy grammar (which I suppose we can't 
exclude), this implies that there are more than two gaps in the circle and 
that implicitly Voldemort has passed at least one other empty DE space 
without comment. 

So I think we have three possibilities for Fourth Man.
1. He's Avery
2. FMAT, which is, as Debbie says, dull (though I not sure that I buy the 
protecting Crouch's cover as spy idea, for all that it make Severus Snape 
Ever So Evil)
3. He's an unspecified gap in the circle.

Now I *do* think it's very strange that he doesn't get special mention in the 
way the Lestranges do. Again, there are three possibilities:

1. He's Avery, so he does get mention, but not praise bacause he' done 
nothing since wheedling his way aout of Azkaban.
2. He's dead, so is mentioned in passing, with the other dead DEs.(FMAT)
3. Voldemort is protecting *his* identity (and incidentally, JKR is shielding 
it from us, which in turn means that *he is significant*)

On balance, I don't like FMAT. Why bring up the Fourth Man at all, if his 
only other (non) appearance is as a corpse?
Nah, I've argued myself out of that one. So I'm left with his either being 
(In over His Head) Avery or yet another character yet to be revealed. 

Anonymous Yet To Be Revealed Fourth Man, I think, has a lot of potential. He 
could even come with lots of Big Bangs, don't y'know, Cindy?

And we've still got Avery, who can be a whingy mascot (figurehead? Can 
hovercrafts have figureheads?)

*And* we may still have room for that other, unknown dead DE (I still 
maintain that it is *not* Quirrell), unless we assume that the third dead DE 
is Voldemort's cover for Crouch or Fourth Man.


********************************

Weasleys........

I am delighted to find that Debbie has also found evidence for the weasel as 
an animal of great symbolic significance and come to the same conclusion as I 
have that the name indicate that they have an important part to play in the 
battle ahead.

Acronym, anyone?

************************************

Debbie again;

>This explanation of evil in the Potterverse [the view embraced by Marina and 
myself >that evil in the Potterverse = the rejection of moral conflict], 
which I think is dead >on, sounds chillingly like the Sorting Hat's 
description of Slytherin House, "Those 
>cunning folks use any means to achieve their ends."  Based on this, being 
>sorted into Slytherin seems to be a virtual death sentence to development of 
>the "good" side of a student.  How can this be justified, if the message of 
>these books is about choices?  Doesn't the existence of Slytherin House and 
>the basis of the sorting undermine that message?  Dumbledore implies that 
>Harry chose not to be in Slytherin.  But Draco chose it because his family 
>was there.  How does one break the family cycle of bad choices if that's 
what 
>the Sorting Hat does in close cases?  In fact, why should any 
eleven-year-old 
>child -- even if he thinks he wants to be evil -- be shoved into an 
>environment where the predominant message is in essence the definition of 
>"evil" even if he thinks he wants to be there?  Isn't Hogwarts abandoning 
its 
>moral responsibility? Even though we know that not all Slytherins became 
DEs, 
>this looks like they've written off one-fourth of the student population as 
>sociopaths the moment they walk through the front door of Hogwarts.  
Choosing 
>"good" after that kind of indoctrination seems well-nigh impossible.  

Eloise:
It's uncomfortable, isn't it?
My reflection is that it is, unfortunately, rather an accurate reflection of 
real life, where cycles of deprivation, abuse, bad choices etc. *do* happen. 
Dumbledore is not an embodiment of pure goodness (*pace* JKR!) and neither 
are his actions. He is flawed and his actions are flawed. Hogwarts is *not* 
the Kingdom of Heaven and I think to set it up as such, for instance, as 
opposed to Durmstrang is a mistake. Hogwarts under Dumbledore embraces all, 
whatever their strengths and virtues, whatever their weaknesses and faults. 
This, I think is its strength. This is why Slytherins can't just be thrown 
out, as some have suggested, not even, I would venture, under the 
circumstances of parents (or even students) being known supporters of 
Voldemort in the conflict to come.

Now, the House system *is* troublesome, I agree, in that it does seem that it 
must reinforce whatever traits are inherent to the members of each. I 
personally think that the point of the sorting is to sort students according 
to their natural inclinations, their temperaments and abilities. It does not 
then dictate what they decide to do with these. However decisions by members 
of any house to act in a way that seems to be outside the prevailing norm for 
that house must be extremely difficult. OTOH, perhaps it is only when we know 
our own nature fully, when it has been allowed to develop, that we are fully 
capable of deciding how to use our lives. This seems to be the path Snape 
followed.

Debbie:
>In any event, the way this is set up makes me think that JKR intended 
>Dumbledore's actions at the PS/SS Leaving Feast to rub the Slytherin's noses 
>with the fact that the Good Guys beat the Evil Guys even though everyone 
>knows the Evil Guys play dirty, because he knows the Slytherins are all 
Evil! 
>anyway so there's no point treating them with respect.  I'm not convinced 
she 
>intended to show Dumbledore making a mistake, though I think he did no less 
>than stoop to the Slytherins' own game.  

Eloise:
I sincerely hope that the reason she wrote the scene this way was purely for 
the sake of dramatic effect. I will go on record as saying that I agree with 
everything Marina has said about it.

I firmly believe that it is wrong for Dumbledore to stoop to the Slytherin's 
own level like this. If the Slytherins are to be redeemable, they must be set 
an example of behaviour and tit for tat humiliation is not the way. Two 
wrongs never make a right and Dumbledore is supposed to be on the side of 
right. However he *is* allowed to make mistakes and I think this was a big 
one, just like his handling of the Prank. 
As I have pointed out, one of the advantage of the view that sees the dualism 
in HP not so much as a good/ evil conflict, but a conflict of world views, 
one of which recognises such moral values (the Light side), and one which 
does not ( the Dark side) is that it allows for grey actions such as this on 
the part of people who are supposed to be on the side of right.

On a more frivolous note, of course, Dumbledore may have felt it prudent to 
do things this way, knowing quite well that is he awarded the points earlier, 
Snape would find some method to bump up his own house's scores! :-) 

(Just kidding, Judy)

And if it wasn't all part of a pre-arranged plot to aid Snape's cover (and I 
agree with Judy that seems a bit unlikely), but was simply an error of 
judgement, I hope that when he realised what he had done, he sat Snape down 
with a drink and apologised. Humiliating your right hand man in public is not 
a good thing. OTOH, if he did it deliberately, but without Snape's collusion, 
because he trusted him enough to know that the move would not backfire, then 
it was exploitative and cruel. Not how decent people treat those they trust.

Eloise







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