The Evil that is Rita -and how about Crouch Senior?

[psychic_serpent]

No: HPFGUIDX 57813

Becky Walkden <runningbecky2002 at y...> wrote:
> 
>  >>Rita is totally amoral. 
> The fact that her lies could cause personal agony and 
> humiliation to somebody never occures to her 
> <snip>

But it's not agony and humiliation that makes her reprehensible.  
The lies about what Harry and Hermione are to each other could 
result in someone, most likely Hermione, being placed in grave 
peril, and possibly also Harry and even Ron, if they both try to 
help her.  The earlier article referred to by Dumbledore in which he 
is called an 'obsolete dingbat' doesn't seem to embarrass him in the 
least, but it could undermine confidence in him and his 
administration at the school, which could lead to his removal and 
the endangerment of the school.  

What she does has ramifications far beyond embarrassing people, and 
she is remorseless about the damage she causes.  Thanks to her, a 
mob of angry villagers could have come to the castle asking for 
Hagrid's blood--and they might yet.  The article about Harry having 
seizures could have similar repercussions.  Even if she doesn't 
write again, the damage is done.  According to her, Harry's a 
dangerous madman.  Why should anyone believe him when he says that 
Voldemort is back?  Her actions are malicious and dangerous.  People 
have been and will continue to be hurt because of what she has 
already done.  I think we haven't seen the end of the ripples 
emanating from Rita's articles.

Becky Walkden <runningbecky2002 at y...> wrote:

> By the by: I would classify Crouch Senior as being basically an 
> evil person inhis extreme cruelty even though he was an aurer 
> and worked for the good guys!<<

"pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote: 

> I don't see that Crouch Sr. showed any rejoicing  over the agony 
> and humiliation of the people he sent to Azkaban. And isn't 
> Voldemort just as cruel and unjust when he kills Cedric without 
> bothering to torture him first as he is when he tries to kill 
> Harry?
 
In the end, Crouch was trying to do a difficult job at a 
terrifically difficult time and his motive was to protect people.  
To a certain extent I think he was also trying to protect his 
career, and by putting Sirius away without a trial he may also have 
been pandering a bit to people who wanted the dirty traitor put 
away, not offered a nice fair trial where he could try to justify 
what he'd done or claim he was innocent.  

However, it's also pretty clear that he thinks that he's protecting 
other people still when he does things to protect his own career.  
He probably thinks he's the last best hope of the wizarding world, 
and if he lost his post, it would all go to hell and the DEs would 
take over.  We have no way of knowing whether he was right--he might 
very well have been.  

And one must remember that, when all was said and done, he had 
compassion for both his wife and son and engineered the switch that 
allowed his son to leave prison.  While the compassion for his wife 
was not out of place, in retrospect we know that his compassion for 
his son WAS misplaced.  In the end, it was not Crouch's cruelty but 
his capacity to risk his job for his family members that led to his 
son being able to assist Voldemort in coming back.  It was good 
intentions that led to the tragedy; if Crouch had remained 
implacable and unmoved in the face of his wife's sorrow and his 
son's possible innocence, he could have been accused of behaving 
like a cruel martinet--but one who wasn't in danger of unwittingly 
loosing a dangerous criminal on the world.  Perhaps Crouch, Sr. 
actually has more in common with Harry than we'd like to admit.

--Barb

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