Marietta the Marionette? was: Marietta's scarring

[Petra Pan]

No: HPFGUIDX 175953

Eggplant Gellert Grindelwald:
> Quite correct, she deserved a bullet to the brain as would most
> certainly have happened in a real world situation where a member
> of the underground resistance betrays her comrades to sadistic
> murderous thugs. I find it incredible that even after reading
> book 7 and there can be no longer any doubt of what a serious
> game is being played here people are still weeping for Marietta.
> This is not kid's stuff this is life or death, and Marietta
> deserves a dirt nap.
 
Petra:
 
I'd agree that this is life or death but I'd disagree that 
Marietta deserves a dirt nap.  I am just not feeling very 
blood thirsty tonight.  <eg>  
 
Besides that, I really do see her victimhood in HP5 as a 
vivid demonstration of the malevolent forces unleashed by 
Voldemort, foreshadowing progressively worse victimizations 
to come in HP6 and HP7.  Probably because I see this series 
as being all about Harry and his personal struggle against 
Voldemort, I tend to see every plot and character as 
reflective of that.  So admittedly I'm not that concerned 
with what Marietta "deserves," just with what she signifies.
 
Regardless of what JKR said in interviews about Marietta 
being a traitor, the worse kind of human being (I'm 
paraphrasing here), the bits of business outlined below 
delineating the one-upmanship between Dumbledore and Fudge &
Umbridge are definitely there, serving little else for me but 
to point to the great forces jerking Marietta the Marionette 
around.  Can't help but see Marietta's betrayal as being a 
product of that and her own inability to fight off Umbridge's 
influences rather than a reason to wish a bullet to her 
brain.
 
The choice that Marietta may have faced is one that Harry 
did not have to face.  Therefore, it is not one that gets 
center stage treatment.  We really don't get any idea as to 
what went through Marietta's head.  Harry, as the prophecy 
explained, *has* no choice but to fight Voldemort for the 
privilege of being alive.  
 
To me, Marietta represents those in the WW who chooses the 
'safer' choice of going along with the Powers That Be 
(whoever that happens to be), thinking that the PTB is 
really not that bad.  At that moment in WW history, many if 
not most in the WW were being bamboozled into believing 
Fudge's assertions about Harry being a liar after all.
 
This contrasts with the Weasleys who choose to join the 
Order for the second war, I think at least in part because 
as early as HP2 one of their own had a personal brush with 
Voldemort and in part because they have reasons (Molly's 
brothers) to wish they had joined the Order for the first 
round.
 
But we really don't know *what* Marietta was thinking, do 
we?  Or what she might have chosen to do if there was a 
third war with the Dark Lord.
 
As Eggplant Gellert Grindelwald once noted:
> I once said you couldn't have a good Snape and a good book 7,
> it turns out I was wrong. I also said if JKR can figure out a
> way to do it then she's an even better writer than I thought
> she was, it turns out I was right, she really is a better
> writer than I thought she was.
 
Petra:
 
Well, just because JKR did not write a "Marietta's Tale" and 
publish it within a series called Harry Potter and... that 
doesn't mean it could not exist, does it?  <eg>
 
Ceridwen, in part:
> to remain loyal to [the DA, Marietta] would have to choose
> between them and her mother.  She was a traitor either way,
> and once she went to that first meeting, where the DA was
> misrepresented to her, she had no choice but to be a traitor.
 
Coriandra:
> I both agree and disagree with statement.  <snip>  Marietta
> could have gone to Dumbledore, or Flitwick (her Head of House)
> or [McGonagall] (Harry's Head of House) with her concerns. The
> fact that she went to Umbridge, however, when she knew or
> should have known what kind of person Umbridge was, I think
> says something about her character.
 
Petra:
 
Hmm...though it's a fair assumption for readers to believe 
Umbridge, I'm much more suspicious of Dolores and am not 
inclined to take at face value what she said: 
 
"Miss Edgecombe here came to my office..."
 
(chapter 27 of OotP, US HB pg. 613)
 
Umbridge and Fudge seemed to me to be very keen on paying 
Dumbledore back for outmaneuvering them with his witness on 
Harry's behalf, Mrs. Figg, at the wizengamot trial (OotP, 
ch. 8).  When Umbridge offered to bring forth her informant, 
Fudge said to Dumbledore with malice (OotP, US HB pg. 612)
 
"There's nothing like a good witness, is there, Dumbledore?"
 
With the above comment to Dumbledore, Fudge seemed to have 
gotten in a dig of some kind, no?  Umbridge used the term 
'informant' but Fudge used 'witness' and I rather suspected 
then that if Marietta was either, she may very well have 
been an adulterated one, meaning she was witnessing/informing 
on Umbridge's behalf under duress.  In trying to coax Marietta 
to testify, Umbridge talked of Madame Edgecombe rather than 
anything else.
 
In essence, I get the sense that Fudge and Umbridge, believing 
that Dumbledore found a witness to be the mouthpiece for his 
"latest cock-and-bull story designed to pull Potter out of 
trouble" (pg. 614), went looking for a mouthpiece of their 
own: Marietta, whose mother was under Fudge's employ.  (As it 
turned out, Hermione's hex rendered said mouthpiece rather 
tongueless.)  I think Umbridge was being more truthful than 
she may have intended when she said (pg. 613): 
 
"But it doesn't matter if she won't speak.  I can take up the 
story from here."
 
Not that I have any can(n)on to really back this up, but 
neither is there fact/canon that Marietta actually went to 
Umbridge on her own, because of her own concerns, concerns 
that could have been taken to other authority figures.
 
One thing that seems irrefutable is Madame Edgecombe (mother
to Marietta) was cooperating with Umbridge by policing the 
Hogwarts connections to the Floo Network.  On the one hand,
Madame Edgecombe could be a crony of Umbridge's and out to 
ingratiate herself with the senior undersecretary, hoping to 
get a bit of power in return.
 
OTOH, Madame Edgecombe could be motivated by her family's 
safe-keeping and was trying to stay out of Umbridge's cross-
hairs.  We know that crime and punishment depended greatly 
on Umbridge, witness the way that Willy Widdershins got out 
of being prosecuted and I wouldn't be surprised if Umbridge 
was capable of trumping up charges even then.  She certainly 
demonstrates a capacity for that with the Muggle-Born 
Registration Commission.
 
Either way, Marietta's actions may have just as much to do 
with Umbridge's ability to affect the livelihood of her 
co-workers (and as we've witnessed in DH, even to the point 
of threatening their lives) as with Marietta's personal 
character.
 
One thing I do think can be said of Marietta's character: 
she's not exactly the toughest cookie and seemed to crumble 
under pressure.  Though such pressure can bring out the best 
in the most sterling of characters, it can also wither those 
not ready for trials by fire.
 
Hmm...Coriandra, is this the something being said about 
Marietta's character you're referring to?
 
Petra
a
n  :)