When will the ministry start kicking butt and taking names?

[Miles]

No: HPFGUIDX 146849

quick_silver71 wrote:
> Miles I agree with your statement about not liking the
> characterization Ministry. But I'm not sure that part of that isn't
> deliberate on the part of JK (aside from taking a shot at
> politicians). <snip> So part of Voldemort plan is to kill the
> future/current leaders of the wizarding world it seems...which could
> be why the wizarding world is "scrapping the bottom of the barrel"
> with people like Fudge and Umbridge in power.
>
> It could also be that the system of checks and balances in the
> wizarding world has been thrown out by the war with Voldemort. Take
> Lucius Malfoy as an example...Lucius was able to use his influence,
> money, power, etc to sway the Ministry and have some presence within
> it. In another world Lucius would have to compete against people
> like James Potter, who was also a pure-blood, rich, well liked
> (unless your name is Snape), etc, for influence within the Ministry.

Miles:
I totally agree with the second part of your argumentation, but I'm not so
sure about the first one. The man who was supposed to be Minister instead of
Fudge was Crouch sr - we saw him, and he is really not the prototype of
politician I would like to see in charge. He maybe was Voldemorts worst
enemy during the first part of the WW, but obviously he was not killed
during the war. I don't think that Voldemort would like to kill "future
leaders" like James Potter and let someone like Crouch live. As a matter of
fact, we do not know too much about casualities among Ministry personell
(apart from the Aurors) during the first war, so it is very speculative to
assume a strategic plan of Voldemort behind his murders. Actually, I do not
get the impression that Voldemort has a strategy - what we see is tactics.

susanbones2003 wrote:
> Do you find Slughorn to be "good?"
> I find him exceptionally dodgy, apparently playing both ends against
> the middle and not at all an example of Slytherin to be emulated. Do I
> misunderstand you?

Karen wrote:
> If there is one character in this series that is clearly OFH! it is
> Slughorn. He is an extremely uncomfortable person. I do think that for
> the most part he is too much of a coward to help the dark side, but
> how
> much help to the "good" side is debatable. However, for some reason I
> did feel that the death of DD seemed to change him a bit. I would not
> be surprised to see him as a bit stronger person in the next book.

Miles:
The word "good" may not be appropriate. We debated Slughorn's character and
behaviour before. Slughorn is obviously not a courageous man. But he is was
hiding from Voldemort, he never was a DE, and obviously has no sympathies
for Voldemort's wo/men. He is not a fighter for Dumbledore - do we really
want to blame him? But we see Dumbledore asking him for help, he hesitates,
but he comes to Hogwarts. If you ask me, we will see more of him in book 7
(I agree with Karen here) - Dumbledore had reasons to call him back, and JKR
to introduce this new character. But back to "good" - he is on Dumbledore's
side, and he is Voldemort's enemy, so yes, he is "good" - with quite a lot
of flaws.

Miles