It's All Winky's Fault (And Mrs. Crouch's of course)(WAS: Re: Winky's dismissal

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 46923

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Grey Wolf" <greywolf1 at j...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., Ashfae <ashfae at t...> wrote:
> > 
> > 	Actually, that's not what happened. It looked to the world in
> > general that Winky was sacrificed because of politics and had done
> > nothing wrong herself, as Hermione so emphatically pointed out; but
> > we didn't know the whole story at that point. She *did* fail in her
> > duties. She abandoned Barty Jr.'s side at a crucial moment, which
> > allowed him to escape and send up the Dark Mark. I feel sorry for 
> > Winky, but she had made a serious error of judgement, and it can be 
> > argued that Crouch Senior was perfectly right to sack her. He had 
> > trusted her to look after his son, and she failed.
> 
> Interesting point of view, I hadn't considered it that way. I had 
> simply looked beyond that point to what lies beyond: Winky did not, in 
> fact, leave Jr.'s side: she followed him and *tried* to stop him, but 
> she couldn't. I said it was Sr.'s fault because it's his spell that 
> goes awry: what was suposed to keep Jr in line wasn't Winky, but the 
> Imperius. It was because the Imperius failed that everything happened, 
> and Sr, instead of realizing it was his own fault, decided to sacrifice 
> Winky. 

Arggh... I'd decided not to post anything more about the Crouches till
Elkins finishes her encyclopaedic Crouch thing and unveils it to the
list. And given that Elkins has been ill, trying to organize and
motivate us at the Department of Fantastic Posts, and working
furiously on the LupiFAQ, that might be a while from now. But still, I
was determined to wait. 

But now, you two have hit on one of the things I have up my sleeve
about the Crouches. 

Message 45693 - TBAY - Winky and Crouch Sr. - Very Nasty and Twisted

Among other things, I wrote "The two: Winky and Mrs. Crouch, pretty
much killed him in the end."

You see, Ashfae's entirely right. As I wrote in that post, "He didn't
let go of Winky b/c she embarassed him. He let go of her b/c she
endangered him."

But Grey Wolf says, 
>I said it was Sr.'s fault because it's his spell that goes awry: 
>what was suposed to keep Jr in line wasn't Winky, but the Imperius. 
>It was because the Imperius failed that everything happened, and 
>Sr, instead of realizing it was his own fault, decided to 
>sacrifice Winky."

But, you see, whose stupid idea was it to bring Barty Jr. to the World
Quidditch Cup in the first place? Who bullied him into risking
everything? Who insisted nothing could go wrong? Who hit him over the
head by bringing his dead wife into it? 

Ashfae wrote
>I feel sorry for Winky.

Well, so do I. So do I. But I came to the conclusion re-reading GoF
that people feel sorry for her for the wrong reasons. They read her as
a victim of the whole dysfunctional Crouch family dynamics. But she
isn't really. She's part of the problem. As much as either of the
Bartemii, as much as Mrs. Crouch. (Check out that message for my take
on Winky as Mrs. Crouch's double.) 

In dismissing Winky, Crouch is finally throwing off the control she
had over his life (which is as real as the control he had over hers),
and I've argued in the past, throwing off the control his wife had
over him as well. After all, the whole "Let him go to the QWC" is just
a continuation of, "Let him switch places with me in Azkaban." 

Winky had failed Crouch. His wife had failed him. As I said before,
they both killed him. His wife by persuading him to rescue their son.
Winky by being careless enough to let Bertha Jorkins find out about it. 
So, it was already too late when Crouch dismissed Winky, the damage
had all been done and she actually could have helped him in what lay
ahead, but I know exactly where he was coming from.

Winky isn't tragic because she's innocent. She's tragic, because she's
as messed up as any member of that family. 

Eileen