Karkaroff as educator

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 95452

"slytherin_jenn" wrote:
> > 
> > I don't think there is any word in Russian that would come close to 
> > anything sounding like Karkaroff. & I've asked several members of 
> my 
> > family who have spend most of their lives in Russia and they 
> couldn't 
> > come up with anything too. In Russian; last names like that would 
> > usially end in a -v so it'd be Karkarov instead of Karkaroff? 
> > 
> > Only think I can think of in terms of Russian "Kar-kar" is the 
> > Russian sound for a raven's crow? But maybe he's Bulgarian or from 
> > another country in Eastern Europe. JKR mentions Bulgaria far more 
> > often than she does Russia?
> > jenn
> 
Alla responded:
> Jenn, I still speak Russian at home (most of the times anyway :o)) 
> and your family members are absolutely right - to sound Russian the 
> name should end with "ov", not "off"
> 
> "Kar- kar" is a russian sound for raven crow. Could it be that he is 
> a raven animagus? (just kidding ;o))

Carol adds:
I looked up "Igor," which turns out to be simply the Russian variant
of Old Norse "Ivor," meaning "bowman" or "bow warrior"--not a meaning
I'd have chosen for the name of a treacherous coward, but maybe JKR is
considering the connotations rather than the literal meaning of the
name. (Isn't Igor always the name of the hunchbacked assistant in bad
Frankenstein movies? Very uncanonical, but this isn't a Mary Shelley
list so I'll keep my complaints on that subject to myself.)

As for Karkaroff/Karkarov, since Igor speaks perfect English and seems
to have attended Hogwarts (presumably as a Slytherin), maybe he's
trying to shake off his Russian/Slavic image by respelling his name
phonetically? Not exactly in character, so there's undoubtedly a
better explanation, but I can't think of one. 

To return to Karkaroff as educator, the topic of this thread, I doubt
very much that Dumbledore would have hired him as a teacher despite
having hired Snape, another ex-DE. Even if DD has no scruples about
hiring people who have performed Unforgiveable curses--and there is as
yet *no canon* to show that Snape ever did so--Karkaroff clearly
cannot be trusted, and hiring him would create friction between him
and Snape, DD's trusted lieutenant, whom Karkaroff betrayed. 

But Durmstrang seems to have different standards from Hogwarts and DD.
Like Salazar Slytherin, Durmstrang accepts only purebloods (and
possibly halfbloods)--no Muggle-borns--and it teaches not just DADA
but the Dark Arts themselves. It *appears* that, as part of this
training, the older students have been taught to cast Unforgiveable
Curses. The Imperio'd Krum casts a perfectly competent Crucio on
Cedric Diggory, which I don't think he could have done had he not
previously practiced it. Though I can't see Krum *willingly* torturing
a fellow human being and he may well have practiced on nonhuman
subjects much as the DA practices the Patronus Charm without real
Dementors, he nevertheless knew how to cast it, which suggests that it
was part of his Dark Arts training at Durmstrang. 

We don't know whether Karkaroff taught those spells himself or
delegated them to the Dark Arts professor, which returns me to the
question of his competence as a wizard and whether he's even capable
of casting complex spells like the Unforgiveables. He certainly would
have had no reservations on moral grounds. Whether or not we can
classify him as evil (and I think we can), he is certainly weak, with
no more moral fiber than Peter Pettigrew. As a friend of Lucius
Malfoy's and the (former) headmaster of Durmstrang, he probably holds
Muggles and Muggle-borns in contempt. And Moody (the real Moody)
suspects him of helping Antonin Dolohov "torture countless
Muggles--and non-supporters of the Dark Lord" (GoF Am. ed. 589), which
suggests (but doesn't prove) that Karkaroff was, if not a specialist
in the Cruciatus Curse like Bellatrix and Dolohov, at least perfectly
able and willing to cast it when ordered to do so.

IMO, it's a sign of how low Barty Sr. has fallen that he would free
such a man, who is not only cowardly and treacherous but willing to
inflict extreme suffering on supposedly lesser beings, in exchange for
information on his fellow Death Eaters. It's also surprising that
Dumbledore would allow Karkaroff inside Hogwarts, given that his
"reformation" (in apparent contrast to Snape's) was intended solely to
save his own skin. Presumably Dumbledore's motive in hiring the
ex-auror Moody to teach DADA was to keep an eye on the man Moody
himself had labeled as "filth" (GoF Am. ed. 588)--a precaution that DD
never took with Snape (which again suggests that Snape's role may not
have been that of a typical DE like Karkaroff).

Whatever the case may be with Snape (with whom Karkaroff is clearly
meant to be contrasted), I think the evidence indicates that Karkaroff
can and did cast Unforgiveable Curses--a fact that apparently does not
disqualify him as an educator in the eyes of Durmstrang parents (or
Lucius Malfoy, who considered sending Draco there).

Karkaroff's earlier association with the openly cruel Antonin Dolohov
(who specialized in the Cruciatus Curse and cast some unknown spell
that badly injured Hermione in the DoM) is also interesting, given
Karkaroff's pretended repentance and his tendency to hide behind an
oily facade. Yet another contrasting pair, like Snape and Karkaroff or
Karkaroff and Pettigrew. Evil as Dolohov clearly is, I think that
Karkaroff is intended to be more contemptible.

Speaking of Dolohov, is that a true Russian name, anybody? Or is the
meaning of Antonin Dolohov a dead end, as Igor Karkaroff appears to be?

Carol, who hopes we'll see more of these minor characters, if only
from a distance, so the DEs will be a little less like cardboard cutouts