In Defense of Scrimgeour - Authority

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 179625

> Carol responds:
> 
> I'm not sure, but I think we have an example here of the kind of
> suspicion and distrust that Voldemort revels in. I agree that
> Scrimgeour was a good guy and that DD should have trusted him,

Mike:
I think this one is more on Dumbledore's shoulders than blaming 
Voldemort's "gift for spreading discord and enmity". I am not even 
asking for Dumbledore to have trusted Scrimgeour nor the Ministry
in general. But he could have at least tried a little harder to 
foster a spirit of goodwill with Scrimmy. 


> Carol:
> Meanwhile, Scrimgeour seems not to have trusted ... Harry, 
> either, simply because he's a young and unqualified wizard.

Mike:
Right. Scrimgeour only knows that Harry lead a group of students 
into the DoM and a sticky spot the year before. He may or may not
buy in to the "chosen one" hoopla, but he does seem to be genuinely 
trying his best in a difficult situation.


> Carol:
> Harry doesn't trust Scrimgeour because of the Stan Shunpike
> arrest, but he keeps holding up his fist, as if he expects 
> Scrimgeour to read it and understand immediately how the words
> "I must not tell lies" got there. -<big snip>-

Mike:
Yes, excellent point. It does seem obvious that Umbridge has 
effectively covered her tracks and that Scrimgeour is oblivious
to her crimes. 




> > Mike:
> > 
> > But why doesn't DD try to enlist more allies
> > rather than making more enemies?
> 
> Carol:
> Because Albus learned secrecy at his mother's knee and was 
> betrayed at an early age by a boy he cared too much about?
> Because Albus was a genius who didn't think that anyone's
> intellect could match his own? Because he thought that Scrimgeour
> had succumbed to the lure of power, which was his own personal
> temptation? Because the more people you tell a secret to, the 
> more likely it is that the information will reach someone that
> you want to keep the secret from? 
  -<snip>-
> IMO, it's perfectly in character for DD not to trust Scrimgeour 
> or anyone at the Ministry with information that he won't even 
> share with his own Order members.

Mike:
My question was more rhetorical, but you have enumerated the many 
reasons why DD acted the way he did. I agree, it was perfectly in 
character. This would be a good place to point out that I don't take 
the position that DD was a bad person. He was a very good person 
imo, but he made a lot of mistakes as the self-appointed leader of 
the anti-Voldemort movement. It's his poor generalship that I am 
criticizing, not the man.

I think Dumbledore could have done much more to prevent the 
Ministry's eventual fall to LV's henchmen. A bumbling and somewhat 
corrupt Ministry is a far sight better than a Ministry under 
Voldemort's control.



> Carol:
> -<snip>-
> 
> As for the graveyard, 
> -<snip>-  The Ministry may have detected some Unforgiveable 
> Curses in a Muggle graveyard, but maybe the spells only show up 
> if there's a Muggle present or magic is performed in a place where
> an underage witch or wizard is known to live. 

Mike:
Umm, can you say "plothole"? <g> Harry was in the graveyard for a 
long time. Harry was underage, so the "Trace" was still on him. AKs
and Crucios being fired off left and right, and nobody from the 
Ministry is alerted? 

I also remember there was an underage wizard that ventured into a 
Muggle's house and promptly AKed three people, who just happen to 
have the same last name as that young wizard. Never caught the boy 
and never suspected the boy, even though they knew the adults were 
killed by magic. Hmm, a "trace" of ignorance to the rules of the 
universe the author set up. Do ya think she invented this "Trace" 
without considering how it might have affected the stories she'd 
already published? <that's rhetorical, too>


> Carol:
> Agreed about Snape, but I'm not sure that Helena Ravenclaw would 
> have opened up to McGonagall as she did to Harry. After all, she 
> seems to have pretended to know nothing about the tiara when 
> others questioned her, and surely those others included DD and 
> Flitwick. 

Mike:
OK, that's reasonable. But Harry didn't even know who the Grey Lady 
was in life. Don't you suppose DD could have at least passed on that 
info to Harry? And, while were at it, DD figured out that Harry was 
the right person to wheedle the memory out of Slughorn. DD also 
suspected Voldemort was using founder magical objects. Was it such
a leap to ask Harry to have a shot at the ghost Helena?


> Carol:
> I'm not so sure about the pure-blood bigots being deterred from
> joining (though that knowledge might have kept Regulus out).

Mike:
Well, you've just speculated on one. I'm talking about DD revealing 
Voldemort's true identity going all they way back to the 1957 
teaching interview. That was the time to throw a wet blanket on all 
this "Lord Voldemort" crap. Surely, the half-blood Tom Riddle 
wouldn't have had as easy of a time recruiting new DEs if his past 
history was an open book. As a_svirn has so eloquently stated 
upthread, removing the cloak of secrecy from Voldemort's true 
identity takes away from his mystique. It's one more straw in the
poor leadership pack of Dumbledore's camel.



> Carol:
> 
> Tom Riddle had presumably been transformed into the blurred-
> featured Voldemort of the DADA interview and had fled the country
> to consort with Dark wizards. (Did Grindelwald meet him and
> dismiss him as an ignorant interloper, I wonder? He seems to know
> quite well who he is and to hold him in contempt for his ignorance
> right before LV murders him.)

Mike:
I think Grindewald was in prison after his defeat by DD in 1945, 
which would have been the year Riddle graduated from Hogwarts. It's 
possible Tom visited GG in his prison, but I rather doubt GG was 
allowed visitors.



> Carol, who doesn't consider the Dark Mark a tattoo because it 
> doesn't involve ink (I think it's burned into the skin with the 
> Morsmordre spell)

Mike:
I think we understand that the Dark Mark on the DE's forearms was 
placed there with magic. I doubt LV took his boys and girls to a 
tattoo parlor. We're calling it a tattoo to distinguish it from the 
like named Dark Mark in the sky conjured by that Morsmordre spell.
Ater all, I doubt a Bludger is manufactured by normal means, but 
it's still a ball.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/179617
lizzyben:
Also, in passing, DD never mentions trying to absolve Hokey.

Mike:
DD said that the Ministry blamed Hokey, but they also called it 
accidental poisoning. I don't remember DD saying that Hokey was 
ever incarcerated for this crime, convicted yes, but did she get 
jail time for it? Does one get thrown into the pokey in Britain 
for accidental homocide?

Mike