[HPforGrownups] Re: Sympathy to the characters? Fake Moody, Weasleys, Hermione

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 159656

> Alla:
>
> See to me that should have been another reason to like Fake Moody - I
> certainly enjoyed this scene and by GoF Draco did not suffer nearly
> enough, so I should have liked Fake Moody and I still in general did
> not feel for the character much. Wierd :)

Magpie:
I can't help but feel like that's not an unusual reaction, actually.  When I 
read the book the scene put me off Moody, but when all was revealed I 
thought it was cleverly intended to do both. It makes Moody a sort of an 
automatic ally of Harry's by giving Malfoy this unexpected punishment for 
his actions against Harry and his friends.  Had he done that to a character 
like the Twins Moody would have outed himself as a guy not to be trusted 
immediately.

But I feel like what's so great about the scene is that it plays fair with 
the audience by showing us Crouch acting on his own impulses (impulses that 
are bizarrely the same as our heroes in that he hates DEs that went free) 
and, as usual, getting sadistic.  But it also knowingly plays into the 
expected sympathies of a lot of the audience, knowing the scene will be 
funny, having Draco being obnoxious, knowing we're set up to automatically 
see any enemy of Malfoy's as a friend and any friend of Harry's as an enemy 
of Malfoy's etc.

But I think that even if one does enjoy Malfoy being punished in the scene, 
it's objectively not a scene that makes *Moody* look good.  That is, even if 
you enjoy the scene, you're not given any reason to like Moody personally 
for it, even if you're tricked into thinking you were.  Underneath, perhaps, 
one is aware of what's happening: this guy just walked into a confrontation 
between two students that's not all that out of the ordinary, and began 
pummelling and humiliating one of them.  Whether or not one really focuses 
on it when reading, the language used to describe Draco's experience 
describes real pain and Draco's reaction is one of his worthy of criticism. 
JKR doesn't take the opportunity to make him comic. So I think that one can 
read the scene enjoying the idea of Draco's being smacked down, but 
unconsciously still process the signals JKR is giving us in the writing and 
not transferring that enjoyment into sympathy for Moody without being able 
to explain why one never warms up to him the way one does to, say, Lupin.

-m