Death Eaters

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 120514


Neri wrote:
<snip>
There seems to be a connection between Death Eaters, the Dark Mark and
fear. Here is what Arthur had to say about this:
> 
> *****************************
> GoF, Ch. 9:
> "Ron, You-Know-Who and his followers sent the Dark Mark into the air
> whenever they killed," said Mr. Weasley. "The terror it inspired
you
> have no idea, you're too young. Just picture coming home and finding
> the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and knowing what you're
about to find inside.
" Mr. Weasley winced. "Everyone's worst fear
the
very worst
"
> *****************************
> 
> Everyone's worst fear, a boggart maybe? <big snip>
> So: the Dark Mark, eating Death, eating emotions, saying or not
saying Voldemort's name, and fear. How exactly are all these connected?


Carol responds:
Forgive me for saying this so bluntly, but a boggart *in itself* isn't
"everyone's worst fear." If it were, everyone's boggart would be a
boggart, which is impossible, since the boggart takes the shape of
each person's individual worst fear. It isn't the boggart itself but
whatever it embodies that's terrifying to the particular wizard it's
reacting to. Ron isn't afraid of Hermione's boggart and she probably
isn't afraid of his.

But Mr. Weasley is almost certainly talking in general terms about
something much more real and terrible than the spiders or zombies or
full moons that particular witches and wizards see when they face a
boggart: the fear of opening the door of their supposedly safe home
and finding a loved one or loved ones dead on the floor. That must
have happened to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley when they saw the Dark Mark
hovering sinisterly above the house (or houses) of Mrs. Weasley's
brothers, Fabian and Gideon. And that very real fear is represented by
Mrs. Weasley's boggart: she fears that she'll see the same thing
again: her husband or her children or Harry murdered by Voldemort. I'm
surprised that there wasn't a Dark Mark hovering above the
boggart!Weasleys.

I absolutely agree that the Dark Mark is connected with fear, but not
because it's terrifying in itself. Ghastly and ugly, yes, but the kids
don't run away in terror because it hasn't been invested with meaning
for them as it has been for the adults. Mr. Weasley, OTOH, knows what
it means, and even though he isn't overcome with terror when he sees
it at the QWC, he's very much aware of what it portends: Death Eaters
becoming active once again, and doing much worse things than Muggle
juggling. 

The Dark Mark seems to be a grotesque caricature of Salazar Slytherin
with a Death's head (skull) for a face and a snake or basilisk for a
tongue. Tom Riddle, Slytherin's heir and himself a parseltongue, seems
to have taken a distorted version of the statue in the Chamber of
Secrets with the basilisk coming out of its mouth and adopted it as
his badge, to be burned into the arms of his Death Eaters so that they
can never forget their sworn allegiance to him and to be cast into the
air to mark the scene of their murders, claiming responsibility for
them (as gangs of thugs and terrorists do in the RW) and warning the
friends and relatives of the dead person of what they're about to
find. It's a boast, a kind of group pride in doing evil, for which
they get no individual credit because they are the masked and
anonymous servants of the master whose sign they have cast like a
curse into the darkness. And the more evil deeds they do, the more
often that Dark Mark appears, the more terror it will hold for the
ordinary citizens of the WW.

Or that's how I see it.

Carol, who woke up thinking today was Christmas Eve, which shows how
much *she* knows!