The Motivations of Fudge and Dumbledore (WAS:Fudge: DE or not?)

[erisedstraeh2002]

No: HPFGUIDX 55359

Tom Wall wrote:

> At any rate, if Fudge believes that he's the best man for the job, 
> then he'd also believe that it was best for him to stay in power. 
> <snip> I think that JKR's doing more than create another 
> stereotypical politician in Fudge - I think she's showing us 
> that even the good guys make mistakes that have consequences. 

Now me:

I'm not so sure that Fudge believes he's the best man for the job.  
In PS, Ch. 5, Hagrid tells Harry "They wanted Dumbledore fer 
Minister, o'course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius 
Fudge got the job.  Bungler if ever there was once.  So he pelts 
Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin' fer advice."  Whether 
anyone else was in the running isn't clear, but what is clear is that 
Fudge is a poor second choice compared to Dumbledore.  I know I find 
that when I enter the voting booth, I'm often faced with a choice of 
candidates where I feel as if  I have to pick the best of a bad lot.  
(I often wonder why, with all of the smart and talented people that 
are in this world, I'm left with having to make such a choice...)  
What I'm trying to say is that the best man (or woman!) for the job 
isn't always the person who's in that job - the best person for the 
job is often the person who wouldn't take the job, for one reason or 
another.

I actually think that this is one of the rare instances in which JKR 
is creating a stereotypical character, and I think she's doing this 
intentionally to make a point about what can happen when politics 
interferes with good judgement.

I came across the following quote from Philip Pullman's second novel 
in the Sally Lockhart trilogy (The Shadow in the North, Ch. 17) that 
expresses much better that I did the point I was trying to make about 
politicians and power:

"She [Sally] had suddenly realized something about people like this - 
whether they were businessmen, policemen, civil servants, hotel 
proprietors, landlords, or what: it was that they didn't mean what 
they said.  They never told the truth.  What they seemed to be doing -
catching criminals, buying and selling, banking, administering, 
making things - wasn't the real business of their lives at all.  It 
was a cover.  They were only playing at it, and they didn't even do 
it well, because they didn't believe in it.  The real, secret 
business of their lives lay in keeping power for people like 
themselves.  That was all they really cared about, and they were 
desperately serious about it, because the thought of losing the 
little power they had was terrifying to them; and they didn't mind 
what damage they did to truth or honesty or justice in the struggle 
to hang on to it."

~Phyllis