Barty Jr.'s role (Was: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 150665

> KathyK wrote:
> 
> I certainly agree Crouch Jr had to do a fair bit of acting to
> impersonate Mad-Eye for a year, but he does hate Death Eaters "who
> walked free."  He says this as Moody back in Chapter 25 of GoF and
> then agin in Chapter 35 when he has revealed himself as LV's follower
> (he called those who avoided Azkaban, "scum," "treacherous cowards,"
> "worthless bits of filth," etc).  He was not feigning hatred toward
> the Malfoys or Snape.  He *hates* them rather violently.  That part of
> the Crouch!Moody bit was not an act.

Carol adds:
I agree that Barty Jr.'s hatred of Snape et al. is real, but the role
of Moody is serendipitous for him. They hate the same people for
different reasons; he has to conceal the reasons, but the gruffness
and eccentricity of the real Moody allow him to express his hatred. He
can even indulge, or feign, a liking for Harry since his job is to get
the boy safely through the TWT and into the hands of the Dark Lord. He
can get away with abusing Draco (the ferret incident) because of the
real Moody's paranoid eccentricity, and his appearance (scarred face
and hands, a chunk out of his nose, a wooden leg with a clawed foot,
and above all, the magic eye that sees out the back of his head) makes
him a scary figure that no one is going to question too closely. Even
Snape, who is no coward, seems to avoid his gaze. He even has the
growly voice that requires no effort to imitate; it goes with the
polyjuice potion. And how convenient that the real Moody carries a hip
flask that he can sip at appropriate intervals to maintain his
appearance without arousing suspicion, and that his own father
authorized the Aurors to cast Unforgiveable Curses so that he can kill
and torture spiders under the pretense of teaching the kids to protect
themselves from Unforgiveable Curses. (You can't protect yourself from
an AK except perhaps by deflecting it, and there appears to be no
countercurse for a Crucio; it ends only when the caster lifts it. I'm
not sure about Imperio; there may be a countercurse. Certainly Barty
didn't expect any kid to be able to resist it. But he could entertain
himself, all the while pretending to be teaching, watching Harry
bruise his shins against the desk, "knowing" that it made no
difference, that the Potter boy was dead meat.) 

So the role of Moody was perfect for Barty, the fanatically loyal DE
and sadist because it allowed him to indulge his hatred and sadism
under the cover of eccentric pananoia. He had Imperio'd the real Moody
and could easily observe his mannerisms and speech patterns. (Even if
the real Moody didn't go around yelling "Constant vigilance!" it fit
the role he was playing.) And he could hardly forget who he was, or
rather, who he was pretending to be, with that eye whirling around in
his head and his leg clunking at every step, nor would his fanatical
devotion have allowed him to do so. Serving his master, preserving
Harry so that he could sent to the Dark Lord as living prey, was his
purpose in life, and he prided himself on his own cleverness in
arranging it, all the while keeping his cover (unless, as I suspect,
certain breaches of Hogwarts decorum aroused Dumbledore's suspicions
and, as he stirred his thoughts in the Pensieve and relived various
moments, began to create the perception that revealed itself when
Fake!Moody disobeyed DD at the TWT--the imposter, the person who put
Harry's name in the GoF, is none other than Barty Crouch).

At any rate, we know that young Barty was clever. Like Hermione, he
received twelve OWLs. We know that he eagerly turned to the Dark Lord
as a father figure when his own father failed to love him (and yet he
could be wrong here; Barty Sr. seems to have been proud of him for the
twelve OWLs). We know that he precociously mastered the Crucio and
became a follower of the Cruciatrix herself, Bellatrix Lestrange. It
appears that he also mastered Imperio and AK before his arrest as
well; he could hardly have learned them while he was sitting around
his father's house under the Imperius curse and watched every moment
by Winky. He wasn't allowed a wand and had to steal Harry's. So I
think that Barty was, if not brilliant, at least very bright, and
single-minded as well. He can feign kindness and concern for his
students if they lead to his goal. (Certainly he was indifferent to,
and perhaps even enjoyed, Neville's suffering as he, Barty, Crucio'd
the spider, but he could divert suspicions of sadism by giving Neville
tea and lending him the book on water plants--two birds with one
stone.) He can indulge the one emotion he does feel, hatred, because
the person he's impersonating hates the same people. Altogether a
lucky break for Barty, who would, I imagine, have had a much tougher
time impersonating Arthur Weasley or Nymphadora Tonks.

I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I suspect that Barty Jr.,
so dedicated to the cause of evil that he can Imperio one boy to 
Crucio another and kill his own father without a qualm, is some sort
of sociopath, either mentally or emotionally ill and yet capable of
laying out and following an apparently rational plan of which he is
thoroughly proud, as evidenced by his stating, in the third person,
exactly what the clever witch or wizard must have done to confund a
powerful magical object, and by his words to DD under the influence of
Snape's Veritaserum.

Carol, who sees in Barty Jr. the spiritual and moral corruption that
follows from habitual use of the Unforgiveable Curses