Evil! McGonagall Revisited (WAS: Who Will Betray the Order?)

[Wendy]

No: HPFGUIDX 83998

Debbie said:

> <<Ever So Evil! McGonagall lives! Don't be fooled by surface
evidence! Yes, I know the conventional wisdom is that
McGonagall came into her own in OOP. McGonagall is shown to
be a faithful member of the order *and* an effective fighter
against Umbridge. But I'm not convinced. Not at all."

Now me (Wendy):

Me, either. Oh, I was fooled at first. I didn't trust her before 
OoP, but my initial reading of OoP lulled me into liking her. She 
certainly seemed to 'come into her own,' didn't she? Oh, yes, she 
showed a lot of spunk in pulling together with the rest of the staff 
against Umbridge. So she couldn't *possibly* be evil, now. Right?

Wrong. I think the Umbridge storyline in OoP is the mother of all 
red herrings. Oh, that's not to say that Umbridge wasn't awful, and 
certainly she played a major and legitimate part in the happenings 
of OoP. But I suspect that what Umbridge leads us to believe about 
the other characters in the story is a grand misdirection.

I first noticed this in regards to the Twins. I've never liked them 
much - we've repeatedly seen them do things I thought were dangerous 
and dodgy. Ton-tongue toffee being, in my mind, the most heinous of 
the things they've done prior to OoP. And in OoP we see behaviour 
that's downright criminal - buying Venomous Tentacula seeds (Class C 
non-tradable substance) from the equally dodgy Mundungus Fletcher to 
name just one. And yet, when they left the school in such a 
memorable way, I was cheering along with everyone else (which, I'm 
sure, is exactly the reaction JKR hoped to evoke). It didn't matter 
what they'd done before - in that moment, they were heroes in the 
fight against Umbridge. But are they really heroes based on this one 
situation, or are they still dodgy criminal types who just happened 
to use their skills for something of which we approve this one time?

And this, then, brings me to consider the actions of certain other 
people in OoP. Specifically (getting back to the topic at hand): 
Minerva McGonagall. Before OoP, I was very firmly convinced that she 
was going to turn out to be EverSoEvil in Book 7. As Debbie has 
already pointed out, there's a whole bunch of evidence for this. I 
loved this theory, but felt like it got blown apart by OoP; because 
she just rocked so hard against Umbridge, it was hard for me to see 
her as potentially evil anymore. 

However, on second thought, this started to bother me. Just like 
with the twins, I'm wondering just which is the reality - the 
evidence I saw in earlier books for her being evil? Or is what we 
see in OoP McGonagall showing her true colours? Just how tricky *is* 
Rowling, anyway? Well, I think she is very tricky - and is working 
on getting trickier all the time. She knows we're onto her. We've 
figured out that Snape is a vampire ;-) (I'm sure she didn't want 
anyone to guess that before she sprang it on us in Book 6 or 7 <g>). 
And I wouldn't put it past her to try and fake us out now. So, I'm 
thinking that one of the reasons she introduced Umbridge was to 
obscure some of the characterizations she built up in earlier books. 
Oh, certainly Umbridge had her own part to play in the storyline. 
But she also created a very interesting dynamic at Hogwarts during 
the OoP year, and I think JKR exploited that to misdirect and 
confuse us about the true motivations of the characters at Hogwarts. 
I think it's worthwhile to consider what characterizations in OoP 
match with those in previous books, and which ones seemed to 
drastically change when Umbridge appeared on the scene. I think that 
McGonagall went through some changes in OoP, and I'm not at all 
convinced this is just her "coming into her own."

You see, I truly believe that someone we know and are supposed to 
love and trust in these books will prove to be a betrayer in the 
end. It might not be someone at Hogwarts (if not, my favourite 
candidates are Lupin or Molly), but if it *is* someone at Hogwarts, 
JKR has made it more difficult to suspect any of the Hogwarts 
professors who joined together with the students so brilliantly 
against Umbridge. Common enemy and all that . . . but Umbridge was 
apparently *not* a death eater, so there is no reason to assume 
someone secretly working for Voldemort wouldn't hate Umbridge just 
as much as the folks loyal to Dumbledore did. As Debbie has already 
pointed out elsewhere, Evil!McGonagall has just as much reason to 
hate Umbridge as anyone. So now, I'm starting to wonder if I wasn't 
too hasty in ditching Evil!McGonagall purely on her reaction to 
Umbridge. I think JKR wanted to throw us off the track . . . and by 
letting McGonagall be spunky and stand up to Umbridge as she did 
(and even take several stunning spells in the chest for her 
efforts), JKR has made McGonagall look like a hero. Sure, she was 
great against Umbridge. But I'm not fooled - I can see right through 
this little game. McGonagall is evil. Just wait and see. 

:-)
Wendy