FUDGE IS A DE!!!!/Stop Making Excuses

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 79021

Maneelyfh: "EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES.  You guys are making excuses
for Fudge. When you constantly make excuses for someone, the is
something very wrong. Explain why when the 10 DE's escape in OOTP,
Fudge did not send Dementors out to hunt for them. He did when Sirius
escaped. Also, Fudge conveniently blames Sirius for the breakout.  So
Fudge only cares about his own butt, and not the safety of those in
the WW.  If you don't believe he is a DE, then he is just as evil as LV."

We're not making excuses, but I think you're missing an important
point that JKR is making.  She's contrasting the evil of cowardice and
self-interest (Fudge) with the integrity, courage, and leadership of
Dumbledore and Harry.

Fudge is an example of what happens when someone who's supposed to be
in charge sticks his head in the sand 'cuz he likes his cushy job. 
That's really not better than being a DE; that's the whole point.

I think you offer speculations as proof, but more important to me is
the thematic role that Fudge plays. All through history there have
been Cornelius Fudges who, through complacency, self-interest, and
cowardice, do evil's work as well as if they were active agents of the
evil power. If you think of Fudge as Neville Chamberlain and
Dumbledore as Churchill you get the drift. They call it the "Jaws
Syndrome" now, after the fictional town fathers who insisted there
wasn't a big shark out there eating people. I believe JKR is making an
important moral point to her young readers. What JKR is saying, I
believe, is that Fudge's cowardice and failure to act is just as bad
as being a DE. He's an example of moral corruption. If Fudge is an
active DE, then the books are less than what I think they are in that
one respect.

I wouldn't say Fudge is as evil as LV; he's not an actively evil
psychopath.   He's bad enough, though.

Jim Ferer