Purging the DE ranks and deadly!Sirius (was Re: The boys holding the prophecy)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 128246

AyanEva:   And there's still 
the question of how a bunch of kids can best a   bunch of 
fully grown evil wizards. A bit of bad writing, or maybe   
the DEs were sabotaged by their Master so that their 
fighting  skills would be compromised? Just a thought. 
Sorry, I know I keep   asking questions that probably have 
no answer, but I'm just dying   for a theory.


Nora: Well, they are trying to avoid smashing the shiny as 
much as possible- -which causes some restraint.  It has 
also been postulated that  casting things like Killing 
Curses is rather exhausting, and not  their top priority at 
the moment.  In addition, remember that sheer  individual 
competence is really not necessary to run an effective  
reign of terror.  I think we all underestimate the DEs in 
some areas  and overestimate them in others.



Pippin:

Courage cannot be measured in years, or inches, 
especially if you have a magic wand at your disposal -- or 
a slingshot (ask Goliath.) Neville, Ron, Ginny and Luna 
have been coached by a Tri-wizard champion and *his* coach. 
But even so, I suppose they might have been killed if the 
DE's had wanted to kill them. But did they?

IIRC,  only Hermione, the Muggleborn, is threatened with an 
AK and  hit with another   curse that might have killed  
her. Neville, Ron and Ginny are members of prominent 
pureblood families, and Luna is daughter to the publisher 
of the WW's alternative newspaper -- killing them is not 
going to be as easy to keep out of the press as the death 
of Cedric Diggory. If they die or disappear Fudge is going 
to have to take action quickly whether he believes Lord 
Thingy is back or not.

I can think of another reason not to injure Ginny or Luna 
too badly. The pureblood marriage pool is shrinking and in 
such situations females are at a premium. (Eww...but it's a 
consideration. Malfoy, Nott and Goyle have sons approaching 
marriageable age.) 

In any case, only two of the DE's have been "bested" when 
the rescue party arrives. Babyhead was injured by accident. 
We don't know what happened to Nott, but since he was 
*behind* the kids as they fled, it's a good possibility 
that he was felled by friendly fire. 

Nora:  Would she make a character objectively evil and 
assign them the form  of one of her favorite animals?  I 
don't think so.  (Of course, her  pegging of Lupin as a 
favorite character has been interpreted as not  telling us 
that he's not evil, so anything can fly.)  That is, of 
course, separate from individual feelings about  
characters, which are completely up to anyone.  But if 
you're looking  for more concrete and less subjective 
things to pin on someone, it's  always good to keep the 
author's orientation in mind when guessing  whether things 
will be made manifest in the text or not. 

 -Nora herself expects Rowling's comments about various 
characters to  be made rather manifest in textual events

Pippin:

Me too. And since "Courage is the main thing with me" and 
Dumbledore says the highest form of courage is standing up 
to your friends, I would expect a character who lacks that 
attribute to ultimately lose the sympathy of the reader, 
while those who have it, such as Sirius and Snape, will 
ultimately be vindicated.

Pippin