Professor Moody in book 4

[Grey Wolf <greywolf1@jazzfree.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51804

samnjodie wrote:
> I am just re-reading the goblet of fire and I am confused by some 
> apparent inconsistancies regarding Professor Moody. There are a few 
> others, but this is the big one; his identity was taken over by 
> Crouch from the night before Moody came to Hogwarts, so thereafter 
> Moody wasn't really Moody anymore.  But then why was he so eager to 
> teach the defense against the dark arts classes about the 
> unforgivable curses and how to repel them?  Isn't this the last thing 
> a death eater would want non-death eaters to be able to do?  
> 
> samnjodie

This has been discussed before, samnjodie, but I'm going to give you a 
short version of what are, IMO, the best answers.

1) Crouch!Moody was undercover, and he *had* to stay within the role. 
That's why he had Moody in the trunk, so he could Imperius him and 
learn how *he* would react. This means that Crouch is a good actor, but 
Moody isn't that hard to impersonate: extreme personalities are 
somewhat easy because exageration is not a problem. It is even made 
easier by the fact that Moody is possibly a living legend, and Crouch 
Jr. must have heard a lot about him during his time as a DE. I'm pretty 
sure that his motto "Constance Vigilance" was well known, and feared, 
by all DEs.

We know that Dumbledore is fooled by Crouch's acting all the way 
through GoF (until the moment he forgets himself and carries Harry away 
after having received strict orders not to move from Dumbledore). So 
all his supposed willingness could have been an act.

2) Notice that, although you said "eager to teach the [DADA] classes 
about the unforgivable curses and how to repel them", that isn't the 
truth. He pays little to no attention to either Cruciatus or AK - he 
just says that they're impossible to block, and that's it (ok, so he 
teaches them an unspecified amount of theory, but he certainly doesn't 
teach them to resist them). The rest of the class is spent on resisting 
the *Imperio* curse. Let's think about Crouch's circunstances: he has 
spent about 9 years under the Imperio curse. After all that time, you'd 
hate the damned curse, and you'd be willing to do anything that is in 
your hand so it could never be used again. From this point of view, 
teaching to resist Imperio makes perfect sense.

3) MD answer: all of the above, plus it was also a way of discovering 
if the love shield affected all the unforgivables or only AK (and even 
if it was still in place). Notice how Voldemort is not surprised at all 
when Harry resists his Imperio in the GG (Graveyard Gathering) - and he 
*is* surprised during that scene, later on, due to the priori 
incantatem effect. Voldemort may or might not have approved Crouch's 
teachings, but he certainly finds them useful to progresively 
debilitate Harry before risking the AK.

4) Finally, some have suggested that Crouch is a natural-born teacher, 
i.e. that he is very good at teaching despite everything, and that he 
teaches to resist the unforgivables because he just can't help himself 
- he loves guididng all those children to knowledge.

I think that covers all, but I might have forgotten a couple of 
theories. Anyone else cares to add their own views?

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf