Something wrong with this Fudge

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 107593

Jim:
>>> Is Fudge evil? I think so. I just don't think he's a DE or a 
mole, or that major a player any more.
JKR is character-driven.  Know her characters and you can predict a
lot of what they'll do.<<<
 
SSSusan:
>> But that's just it--I'm afraid we *can't* always know her 
characters.  The ones we know best--Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, 
etc.--I suppose have become fairly predictable to us.  But it's that 
*not*-knowing, in fact, our inability to fully know because of what 
JKR has chosen to leave out, that makes it impossible to fully 
predict the actions of people like Snape, Ludo Bagman, Lucius 
Malfoy,....  And I'd add Fudge.  The speculation is part of trying 
to figure out whether we *can* know him better than we'd thought.<<


dcgmck:
> Having lots of fun reading the various streams pouring out of this 
> topic, but I have to beg to differ with this last assertion that 
> either Bagman or Malfoy is unpredictable.  We hear two different 
> takes on Bagman before we ever see him in GoF and Malfoy 
> is...well, a man of "bad faith" from the get-go, with no sign of 
> changing.  Even LV notes this at the end of GoF when the DEs are 
> recalled and called to an accounting.


SSSusan:
Do you think so?  Hmmm.  Well, I think we certainly expect Lucius to 
behave in certain ways now.  We expect him to be nasty, superior, 
cruel, and to support Voldy, now that he's back.  I guess with him, 
though, there are enough questions about his past--particularly the 
time between Voldy1 & Voldy2--that I'm not sure I can predict his 
behavior.  

For instance, why did he give Ginny the diary?  Was it to help Voldy 
return?  Was it to get Arthur in trouble?  Was it to kill some 
mudbloods?  Was it to get DD kicked out of Hogwarts?  We don't 
really know.  I *don't* think it was to help Voldy return, because 
then I think Voldy would've pointed to Lucius in the graveyard and 
said to the other DEs who'd never tried to help him, "Look at what 
Malfoy tried to do for me!"  Personally, I think Lucius wasn't 
thinking of Voldy at all but was trying to get DD out of Hogwarts & 
get himself more power.  Anyway, I guess I don't find him fully 
predictable because we don't necessarily know his motivations.

Bagman's the same for me.  We know he has a gambling problem. :-)  
We know he was a Quidditch star.  What can we predict about him?  Do 
we know what he's likely up to right now?  John Granger predicted 
Bagman would be the Big Baddie in Book Five...and it made some sense 
to me when I read it.  But he wasn't.

I guess, too, I'm comparing people like Fudge, Malfoy & Bagman to 
people like H/R/H and saying they're less predictable because I 
think we know so much less about their motivations.  Heck, with Ron 
& Hermione, we can almost finish their sentences sometimes now, 
can't we?  We can almost guess what they're going to suggest about 
situation X, Y or Z.  Not sure I could do that w/ Fudge, Lucius or 
Bagman is all I'm saying.

Siriusly Snapey Susan