CHAPDISC: HBP1, The Other Minister

[hitchyker42]

No: HPFGUIDX 141832

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "cubfanbudwoman" 

*snip*

> KathyK:
> > 3.  The PM appreciates why a fearful wizarding public would prefer 
> > Scrimgeour to Fudge.  What differences do we encounter between the 
> > two?  Besides the lime green bowler hat

> 

SSSusan:

*snip* 

> I do think it's interesting that, after this fairly promising start, 
> we end up with a MfM who's really just incompetent in slightly 
> different ways than the former one.  Anybody disagree with me on that 
> or care to convince me otherwise?

Collin:
I have a hard time deciding if Scrimgeour is incompetent or not. 
Certainly he fails to get Harry to sign off on the MoMs Actions, but
does this qualify as incompetence?  Fudge's biggest incompetence as a
politician is his total inability to control himself.  When something
flusters him or angers him, he is unable to conceal it, and Dumbledore
totally uses this against him in OOP during the Hearing, and later
when the DA meetings are revealed, to influence the outcome of the
situation.  During the hearing he backs Fudge into a corner over the
issue of the presence of the dementors, and Fudge blithers and
seethes, and when he is defeated in the vote, the defeat is written
all over his reaction.  In fact Dumbledore and Fudge are a study in
contrast, the former cool and calm and totally unfazed even when he is
forced out of Hogwarts, the latter totally transparent when he is
outraged or upset.

"Of course, these particular dementors may have been outside Ministry
   control--'

"'There are no dementors outside Ministry control!' Snapped Fudge, who
had turned brick red.

"Dumbledore inclined his head in a little bow.

"'Then undoubtedly the ministry will be making a full inquiry into why
two dementors were so very far from Azkaban and why they attacked
without authorization.'"

(OOP ch. 8)

I see echoes of this pattern in the conversation between Scrimgeour
and the Muggle Prime Minister, with Scrimgeour in Dumbledore's role
and the PM in Fudge's.

"'Now, wait a moment!' declared the Prime Minister.  "You can't just
put your people into my office, I decide who works for me--'

"'I thought you were happy with Shacklebolt?' said Scrimgeour coldly.

"'I am--that's to say, I was--'

"'Then there's no problem, is there?' said Scrimgeour."

(HBP ch. 1)

Scrimgeour is described as being rather more cold than Dumbledore is,
but each of them is in control of himself while flustering his
opponent.  And Scrimgeour backs the PM into a corner much in the way
Dumbledore did with Fudge in the hearing in OOP.

So I guess I'd conclude that Scrimgeour isn't incompetent, at least
not nearly in the way Fudge is.  He may be taking the wrong actions,
but as a politician he is skilled enough to manipulate others and keep
his own cool, which Fudge is not.  He may fail to convince Harry to
sign off on the MoM, but I'd say he was fighting a losing battle to
begin with, given the history there, and I'd also note that even
though he loses control of himself at the very end of HBP, he fights
to keep it in ways that I could never see Fudge doing.
 
> Siriusly Snapey Susan, 
> waves at hitchyker42 and admonishes, "You should start posting!" ;-)

waves back!  :)

Collin