Lords of the manor and dark siders

Sat Feb 22 02:08:10 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 52683

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "manawydan" <manawydan at n...> 
wrote:
> irretrievably coloured by the fact that Voldemort himself appears 
to be a > psychotic megalomaniac. A Malfoy-led movement would I think 
have a far > different colour.

Melpomene shudders and says: A different color indeed, but *what* 
color? Perhaps it's just a case of the devil we (think) we know being 
better than the one we don't but right now I'll take Voldemort's 
Mwahahaha comic book villany over Lucius Malfoy's malignant evil 
Any-Day-Of-The-Week!  Voldmort, as horrible as he was/is is an easy 
target. He brought attention to himself, which is the usual goal of a 
psychotic megolomaniac I guess. But Malfoy, now Malfoy would have 
done it differently. Quietly, smoothly. It would have been like the 
difference between being hacked at with a machete or being cut by a 
very sharp razor. One gets your attention right away, the other you 
don't notice until you've bled half to death.

> Also, I wondered recently about whether <snip>and whether there is 
a > possibility that there are other groups "out there" who are 
neither for the > MoM nor for Voldemort.

There must be...undoubtedly there are. But here you have a situation 
not unlike what is happening right now in the USA. There are an awful 
lot of us who believe this push for war is misguided. There is no 
reason to go into the reasons but what we face for voicing that 
opinion is the automatic assumption that we are UNPATRIOTIC (or 
worse! Supporting the Enemy!) if we are not jumping up and down 
screaming "DROP THE BOMB!" Of course, that assumption is dead wrong. 
It plays to reason that there were at the time of V's rise, and may 
be "now" at the time of his return, factions who are ambivilent for 
reasons we don't yet know. But what would happen if they opened their 
mouths? They'd be considered supporters of Voldemort and hurled into 
Azkaban, likely without trial. 
I agree with Elkins, there are some pretty scary things coming out 
about the "good guys"  I wonder where *I* would have stood as an 
idealistic student if "that sort of thing" was the norm around me. 
Look at Hermione--she can't stand the thought of House Elves working 
like slaves. What're her thoughts on innocents in prison just to keep 
them quiet? I wonder....

> I think that the politics _will_ come more to the fore in future 
volumes,

Agreed! It would be nice to see some of this treated in canon. Really 
it's just a bigger picture of, "Things aren't always what they seem. 
Black isn't all black, white isn't all white."

Melpomene,  still shuddering at the thought of a WW movement led by 
the likes of Lucius Malfoy.