CHAPDISC: DH1, The Dark Lord Ascending

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176296

Geoff wrote:
> 
> I have to admit that I haven't had time to really look at the 
thread on Chapter 1 but looking at the questions set for the 
> OWL candidates, one has occurred to me which isn't on the list 
> and I wonder whether other group members might have any 
> theories....
> 
> Why did JKR create Charity Burbage, Professor of Muggle Studies,
>  just to be killed by Voldemort in Chapter 1?
> 
> She is effectively a non-entity. we have no other references to her 
> and  I have to say that it left me emotionally untouched because 
> she was a stranger, just another name in the long list of Voldemort's 
> victims.That probably sounds callous but that often happens in real 
> life situations.
> 
> Had it been a name which we knew - even one of the lesser known 
> staff such as Professor Sinistra or Professor Vector - for me, that 
> would have had considerably more impact than the unfortunate 
> victim we briefly met here.
>

Carol responds:
I think that her death was intended to demonstrate that Voldemort was
quite literally deadly serious about his pure-blood supremacy beliefs.
(Having "pruned" his only family, tree, he was a "good" as a pureblood
and meant what he said about having Bellatrix prune the diseased
branches from her family tree, as well.) He wasn't just using the
pure-blood agenda to attract Death Eaters and keep them loyal; if
loyalty were his goal, he wouldn't have treated the Malfoys so badly.
Burbage's words about the desirability of pure-bloods marrying
Muggle-borns and Muggles being people like wizards really are anathema
to him, and he's ready to torture and kill anyone who dares to dispute
the party line. Now, granted, the logical conclusion of his policies
is that there will eventually be no one left except Voldie himself,
anchored to the world by his Horcruxes, and a host of Muggle slaves,
but he's not thinking about the future or logic, only himself and
power and his loathing for Muggles like his father and Muggle-borns,
whom he sees as usurpers.

IOW, the purpose of the Charity Burbage episode is to show us where
Voldemort was going with his agenda and what would have happened to
the WW had he not been sidetracked by the Elder Wand. As it is, the
Death Eaters get essentially a free hand in running the MoM, but most
of them share that agenda anyway. (Yaxley seems to be the consummate
loyal, ambitious DE, craving Snape's place as right-hand man. Snape
himself is left to protect the students as best he can and allow a
resistance movement to build, as perhaps he could not have done so
effectively had Voldie been running the government behind the scenes.)

We see again near the end of the book that Voldie is deadly serious
about the pure-blood agenda (with powerful and talented Half-bloods
like himself and the now-dead Snape having equal status, if only so
that the wizarding population can reproduce). He tries to destroy the
Sorting Hat and have only one House, Slytherin, perhaps intending to
turn Hogwarts into a second Durmstrang. He talks about the "noble
stock" from which Neville comes (a pure-blood family) and says that
he'll make "a very valuable Death Eater" (DH am. ed. 751).

It seems to me that many posters think that because LV is a
Half-Blood, he can't possibly be serious about the Pure-Blood
supremacy agenda. I think he truly believes it. He would not have
murdered his grandparents along with his "filthy Muggle father" and
tried to pursue "Salazar Slytherin's noble work" of rooting the
Muggle-borns out of Hogwarts had he not started out believing this
ideology nor would he have recruited followers who supported it if he
did not believe it himself. That he still believes it is illustrated
in earlier books by his sneers at Harry's "Muggle mother" (he doesn't
distinguish between Muggles and Muggle-borns) and the "anger and
contempt in his voice" as he talks about Charity Burbage's
"impassioned defense of Mudbloods," whom he labels as "thieves of
[our] knowledge and magic," and adds, "She would have us all mate with
Muggles . . . or, no doubt, werewolves" (12).

He wants no such beliefs taught at Hogwarts or published in the Daily
Prophet, so he kills Professor Burbage in front of the DEs (including
Draco) as proof that he's serious and as an example of what he wants
from the DEs. The murder also tells Bellatrix exactly how seriously
she is to take the orders to trim her family tree. From that moment,
both Tonks and Lupin have very slim prospects for survival.

I felt that "The Dark Lord Ascending" perfectly illustrated the state
of affairs both among Voldie's followers (Snape as inscrutable as
ever, the Malfoys humbled and fearful, the other DEs scrambling for
favor or silent, Wormtail trying to be invisible) and in the WW  at
large (as well as making clear what happened to the bodies of LV's
earlier victims and setting up Nagini as both loathsome and terrifying).

Carol, who thinks that having the Muggle Studies teacher as the first
victim of the book makes perfect sense but wishes that we'd seen more
of Hermione's homework in the subject, which was a bit too much like
Physics for my taste