Two Wormtails was Re: Plot in OotP (wand confusion)

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 118537


> > Neri:
<snip> The mystery of 
> the Two Wormtails was never  introduced to the reader, nor even 
> hinted.<
> 
> Pippin:
> ::raises eyebrows::
> 
> "Hero-worshipped Black and Potter. Never quite in their league, 
> talent-wise."-- PoA ch 10
> 
> "Stupid boy... foolish boy...he was always hopeless at 
> duelling."--PoA ch 10
> 
> "Peter needed all the help he could get from James and 
> Sirius."--PoA ch 18
> 
> "Then, before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the 
> wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of 
> himself  -- and sped down into the sewer with the other rats." 
> --PoA ch 19
> 
> "I'll never understand why I didn't see you were the spy from the 
> start." -- PoA ch 19
> 
> "a weak, talentless thing like you" -- PoA ch 19
> 
> "You will do it quietly and without fuss; I only wish I could do it 
> myself, but in my present condition...come Wormtail, one more 
> obstacle removed and our path to Harry Potter is clear. I am not 
> asking you to do it alone. By that time my *faithful* servant will 
> have rejoined us." --GoF ch 1
> 
> 
> "It just makes me...wonder whether...if *[Cedric]'d* known it 
> all...he'd still be alive...."[...]
> "He did know this stuff," said Harry heavily."He was really good at 
> it, or he could never have got to the middle of that maze. But if 
> Voldemort really wants to kill you, you don't stand a chance." 
> --OOP ch 21
> 
>   The GoF exerpt makes clear that Voldemort didn't feel secure 
> enough to take on Mad-eye with Wormtail!Peter alone. Odd, if 
> Peter is really so powerful after all. 
> 
> The last exerpt has the  discussion you were looking for. Of 
> course what Harry isn't saying is that Voldemort didn't duel with 
> Cedric, it was Wormtail, holding Voldemort's wand, as confirmed 
> by JKR. So either Voldemort ordered "Kill the spare," and Cedric 
> stood there like a doofus while Harry was collapsing in pain, 
> Wormtail!Peter shifted his burden to one arm, got Voldemort's 
> wand out of his robes, aimed it and killed him, or there was 
> somebody else there, who obeyed the command instantly.
> 
> By the way, if Voldemort knows a spell that will kill everyone 
> within twenty feet  with a wand held behind him, he really missed 
> a bet when he was fleeing the Ministry. 
> 
> So will the real Wormtail please stand up?
> 

Neri:
I agree that the passages you brought may be seen (if one chooses to) 
as presenting a mystery "is Peter strong or weak?" I'd even say that 
if not for that "correct!" of JKR it would have been possible to 
claim that there is a mystery "did Peter really kill Cedric?". BUT 
there is no reason in canon to think that the "real" killer of Cedric 
is also called, for some reason, "Wormtail". The idea of the "second 
Wormtail" was invented in order to explain how JKR didn't lie when 
she confirmed in the chat that Wormtail killed Cedric. So there is no 
mystery "who else besides Peter was called Wormtail" in canon. In the 
case of the "what was Barty Crouch doing in Snape's office" mystery, 
a shrewd reader could realize that it might be another person of the 
same name, because Harry didn't actually see Crouch Sr in Snape's 
office, he saw the NAME in the Marauder's Map. But in the Wormtail 
case we don't have any reason to think that the "real" killer of 
Cedric also goes by the NAME "Wormtail", other than to claim that 
JKR's answer in a chat was, for all practical purpose, a lie.

JKR answered "correct" when asked "did Wormtail kill Cedric" while 
knowing that 99.9% of us believe "Wormtail" is Peter. She also knows 
that when she says something unambiguous in a chat, 99.9% of us 
accept it as the simple truth. In these conditions saying "correct!" 
was tantamount to saying: "there is no mystery who killed Cedric. 
This case is close and you don't need to waste time in this 
direction." If she wanted to leave this mystery open she could have, 
as you wrote, simply ignored this question.   


> Pippin:
> LOL! But timid speculations are just as speculative as bold 
> ones. Unless you  have hacked your way into JKR's computer, 
> there's no way to know whether your ideas about how to solve 
> the mysteries above are any closer to JKR's planned resolution 
> than mine.


Neri:
I'm not sure what do you mean by "timid" and "bold" here. If my 
choice is between a speculation that fits nicely with several canon 
points vs a speculation that has no canon to support it (or even 
clear canon against it), I'd usually say that the first speculation 
has higher chances of guessing JKR's planned resolution. Otherwise, 
what do we need canon for? Inventing FF plots is much easier than 
solving the mystery.

Neri