How Many DEs Left? Was:Dark SHIPS ( was Re: Possession)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 91118

But still, as I said in another post, I can only
account for about 28, including three dead ones, Karkaroff, and our
favorite ex-DE, Snape. But I'm still coming up about 372 short.
Carol
> 
>
Siriusly Snapey Susan: 
> Call me simplistic, but I think it's just as it is with the Hogwarts 
> students.  We are familiar now with, what?, 50, 60, 70 student 
> names?  Yet we know JKR said there are HUNDREDS of students there.  
> Likewise, we are familiar with a couple of dozen Death Eater names, 
> and similarly, there may be many times that number we've just not 
> heard about.  
> 
> I mean, where in the books would it make sense for JKR to have given 
> us a listing of DEs?  Just as we don't get a full Hogwarts roster for 
> each year, we don't get a roster of DEs.  I think that's partly 
> because it's more character names than we need or could handle and 
> partly because JKR wants to keep some secrets.

Carol:
Nah, I won't call you simplistic. It's just that it bothers me to be
able to account for less than thirty Death Eaters, living and dead,
when Lupin said there were originally about 400. That's a lot of
missing people, who can't possibly be accounted for as killed by
Aurors. And LV didn't seem to think that the number of DEs in the
graveyard was inadequate (knowing, of course, that one more was at
Hogwarts and ten more were in Azkaban waiting to be rescued--a bit
worse for wear, but we won't bring that up).

So, unless Lupin is extremely wide of the mark or JKR can't
distinguish between 40 and 400, there has to be some logical
explanation for where all the others are. And for the moment, I'm
stuck with bboy's (Steve's) idea that the ones whose names we
know--Crabbe, Goyle, Karkaroff (yes, I know, he fled), and the
groveling Avery, among others, are the elite and the others are the
Stan Shunpikes of the DE world. I mean, really. The only DEs with any
intelligence that we've seen so far are Malfoy, Wormtail, Rookwood (an
Azkaban escapee not present in the graveyard) and Bellatrix (another
escapee who's somewhat less than sane). The only really intelligent
person (Snape) has left the fold.

That's it? And now most of the escapees plus Malfoy and a few others
are back in Azkaban (not that I think they'll stay their but their
cover is completely blown). That plus several hundred renegade
Dementors and about eighty giants who seem as prone to kill each other
off as to side with any wizard? That's LV's army? Either this new war
is going to be very small-scale and personal, or there's something we
don't know--like 370-odd Death Eaters elsewhere in Europe or (if JKR
remembers our existence) America.

Carol