The Death Eaters Are Off Their Game?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 71806

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Danger Mouse"
<dangermousehq at h...> wrote:
> >>>I found the Department of Mysteries fight scenes rather strange
and..., Unbelievable? ... a handful of students ... beat the living
Spam out of ... evil wizards and witches (trained under the Most Evil
Lord Thingy). Does it make sense ... these wizards, clearly ...Evil
enough to pull off Unforgivables, choose not to use them? <<<

bboy_mn:

You're forgetting the standard operational procedure for all evil
overlords and their Death Toadies. Death Toadies, on penalty of their
life or at least a great deal of pain, never engage in independant
thinking or take initiative, they do exactly what the evil overlord
says because that's how you stay alive.

The evil overlord say, 'get the prophecy, then kill them', so that is
exactly what you do; prophecy first, killing second. If you kill
someone first and against the expressed orders of the evil overlord
and some how it mucks up the plan, then you will pay a very high price.  

It's a fatal flaw of every dictator, and the very reason that all
dictatorships are destine to crumble under the weight of their own
every expanding disfunction.




> Danger Mouse continues:
> 
>>> Not one fatality for the Students. Little Harry manages to do a
good enough Protego charm to protect himself from various curses, so
why not the DEs? <<<

bboy_mn:

The heat of battle is very dynamic and unpredictable, even the best
martial artists have a substantial drop in the quality of their
technique when they are in a real dynamic fight. Of course, the best
of the best are still so good that even with that drop in technique
they are still far better than the average bar brawler. It's the same
in war, there is not a lot of time to aim, or concentrate on technique. 

The ability ability to use a 'Shield' charm hinges on a fore-knowledge
that the curse is coming, and the lightening reflexes to act before
your opponent. That set of dynamics doesn't come up that often in real
battle. And if you throw up a Shield charm and guess wrong, you have
left yourself vulnerable to attack. It's like jumping up from behind a
bush and realizing you are out of ammo... oops.



> Danger Mouse continues:
>>>Sure, they were trying to get the prophecy back to Lord Thingy, but
there were plenty of times they could've killed/seriously injured one
of the kids. Why not do a quick switching spell on one of the brains
and one of Ron's vital organs? It doesn't need to be accurate--even
done wrong, it'd still probably kill him... were they just forgetting
that they're the bad guys who are supposed to be more skilled and
underhanded than a couple teenagers?
> 
> Disbelievingly,
> Dan

bboy_mn closes with:
Simple curses are fast curses, and short incantations are fast
incantations; certainly you can say 'Stupify' faster than you can say
'Expelliarmus'. 

Also, more powerful curses like the Death Curse may require you to
focus your mind, and in the heat of battle that fraction of a second
of extra concentration could be enough to allow your opponent an
advantage. Think about the Partonus charm, you have to draw a happy
thought into your mind, and you could see how difficult that was for
Harry to do when a Dementor had him by the throat.

Reductor, Impedimenta, Expelliarmus, Stupify, and things like
Petrificus Totalus can be casts easily and quickly. In a real dynamic
fight, a smart fighter leaves the fancy stuff behind and sticks to the
basic. 

Just a thought.

bboy_mn