Portrayal of MoM in the series VERY LONG BEWARE

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 178847

Alla wrote:
<snip>
> "Ministry o' Magic  messin' things up as usual"
><snip> 
> I always loved how consistently Rowling portrayed corruption of the
 ministry throughout the series and when I look back now I can also 
see how elegantly she foreshadowed its fall as well.  This post is
just an attempt to show the canon support for this and not all 
inclusive either, so feel free to add if you wish.
> 
> From the beginning of the series we get one message pretty clear
IMO.  Ministry of Magic and its Minister is a bunch of incompetent
morons and Minister wants Dumbledore's advice on every single matter.
<snip extensive canon support>

Carol responds:

Thanks for introducing a new topic, Alla, and an important one at
that. There's no question, IMO, that political satire is an important
element of the HP books, especially OoP. I suspect that Umbridge is at
least in part a savage caricature of Margaret Thatcher, but not being
British (or particularly interested in politics), I can't be sure.
(I'd welcome opinions on the topic on the OT list, however.)
 
Alla:
> From CoS to GoF we see Cornelius Fudge and Lucius Malfoy getting 
closer and closer and closer. I wonder what does it say about Fudge,
folks. <snip canon>
 
> I had no doubt myself that Lucius Malfoy's political power is more
than Minister of Magic Fudge will ever dream of having. I thought it
was clear that Fudge does not want Dumbledore suspended, but whatever
Malfoy says goes. <snip>

> Malfoy gets kicked out of the Board at the end, but in PoA we see
that he has enough power to have the whole committee of disposal of
magical creatures at his fingertips.
> 
> And he is being better and better buddies with Minister Fudge it 
looks to me. <snip>

Carol responds:
I agree with you about Lucius Malfoy, who is using everything he
has--name, blood, money, ruthlessness that he conceals from Fudge, and
a slippery personality (he can be charming or intimidating, rather
like some other Slytherins we know, depending on whom he's
manipulating). Even in DH, stripped of his wand and humbled, he
manages to survive.

I'm not sure about his becoming better and better buddies with Fudge,
however. I think he's just using Fudge and buying influence with him
by giving gold to good causes, at the same time appearing to be a
respectable citizen concerned about the welfare of the students at
Hogwarts and the WW at large. IMO, Fudge *wants* to believe that
Lucius was under the Imperius Curse during VW1 just as he *wants* to
believe that Voldemort has not returned. 

However, it's just possible that Fudge's Senior Undersecretary dolores
Umbridge, who appears from her words to Harry in OOP to be a friend of
Lucius Malfoy's (and who, just possibly, has a DE who walked free as a
relative, if the Selwyn connection is real), is increasingly
influencing Fudge. We see in GoF that she's persuaded Fudge's junior
secretary, Percy Weasley, that she's a delightful woman. Perhaps
Fudge, who includes her on the panel of judges at Harry's hearing, is
under the same delusion. To speak plainly, I think that Malfoy and
Umbridge are working together to pull the wool over Fudge's eyes and
manipulate him to their own ends, whether it's hiding a DE background
and the return of Voldemort or passing anti-werewolf legislation and
undermining Dumbledore's credibility through Harry. I don't know
whether Umbridge believes that Voldemort has been restored to a body
and is about to return or not, but she seems to have a vested interest
in making Fudge fear that DD is spreading lies in an effort to take
over the Ministry. 

Fudge, being vain and weak and seeing nothing wrong with the
pure-blood supremacy ethic in itself as long as it doesn't lead to
terror and violence, could easily be manipulated into seeing danger
from DD rather than LV. I'm sure it's Umbridge who persuaded him that
DD is raising an army to overthrow him. (And Percy, ambitious and
blind to any faults in high Ministry officials, goes along with the
official position, at least through the end of OoP, when neither he
nor Fudge can deny that Voldemort is really back.) That Umbridge
retains her position as Undersecretary even after Fudge is fired is
rather disturbing. Maybe it shows that she has other fooled besides
Fudge (and Marietta?).

At any rate, I rather like Fudge, weak and manipulable and capable of
self-delusion though he is. Even at Harry's hearing, where he's at his
worst, he really believes that Harry has violated important laws
without good reason. (Unaware that Umbridge ordered the Dementors to
attack Harry, he believes that the attack is yet another wild story
invented by Harry--which does not, of course, justify a full trial for
a juvenile offense, much less sending Harry to Azkaban, both of which
I speculate were Umbridge's idea since she sent the Dementors.) He
thinks he's in charge but he's been deceived by Umbridge (and he's
outmaneuvered not only by DD but by the incorruptible Madam Bones, who
manages to bring about a fair verdict despite both Fudge and Umbridge). 

"The Other Minister" in HBP shows Fudge making repeated effort to keep
the Muggle Prime Minister informed of developments in the WW that
might endanger the Muggles and telling him the truth about what
happened to his own assistant, the quacking Herbert Chorley. As this
chapter shows, he's not wholly ineffectual, despite being deceived by
both Umbridge and Malfoy (and, for that matter, Macnair, another DE
employee of the Ministry), and the kindly persona we see in PoA seems
to me to be more natural to him than the angry, defensive blustering
at the hearing (in which fear and anger get the best of him). I like
his humility at the end of "The Other Minister," and it's a shame that
we don't see him in DH. Killed? Imperiused? Fled? Quietly conforming
to the new regime? We never find out.

Alla:
> BACK to the MINISTRY.
<snip>
> 
> I also think that even good people working at the Ministry get 
sucked in the atmosphere of  corruption of power, no matter how 
harmless it is to me on the grand scale of things. I love Weasleys by
and large, no matter if I sometimes have Molly's issues and Arthur I
just love. But eh, writing a law and make a loophole to be able to
amuse oneself with muggle car seems just wrong to me.  
> 
> Of course I refuse to think that it means that Arthur will ever
write a law that would truly hurt somebody, so to me it is relatively
harmless, but I am just saying that it is telling to me of what
Ministry of Magic truly is. <snip> 

Carol:
But Arthur also wrote the Muggle Protection Act, which, IIRC, is a
different and wholly well-intentioned law (one opposed by Lucius
Malfoy, who nevertheless could not prevent its being passed). No
loopholes in that one, to my knowledge. (Arthur does, however, ignore
his sons' violation of the Statute of Secrecy when they fly his car. A
bit of corruption there?)

> As an aside, for the reason that I was absolutely convinced that 
Ministry is unequivocally portrayed as bad place, despite the fact 
that several good people work there, I was absolutely sure that no
matter how Percy' storyline ends, it will not end with Arthur
apologizing to him. <snip> I knew that if Percy comes back, he will be
the only person apologizing. Since he chose the Ministry, which
condemned Sirius' without a trial, Ministry who almost expelled Harry,
Ministry who sent Dolores Umbridge to Hogwarts over his family. <snip>
 
Alla:
> Of course I think corruption and other weaknesses of  the Ministry
are shown in all its glory in OOP more than any other books.
<snip>
 
> My disdain for MoM as an institution of power reached all time low
with arrival of Dolores Umbridge.
> 
> Dolores Umbridge is a ministry official after all, let me say it
again, Dolores Umbridge is a ministry official. This woman sent
Dementors on the student. This woman used blood quill on at least two
students. This woman thought that students do not need to learn
practical DADA spells in class.
> 
> This woman actively promoted the "Voldemort is not back" line of the
Ministry and did as we all know many horrible things. That woman is a
ministry official and not only an official but in the position of
leadership.
> 
> I do not see how the MOM can be viewed with any sort of sympathy
till people like Umbridge work there, again despite many good people
working there as well.

Carol:
Absolutely, the rise of Dolores Umbridge, whether or not she she know
that Voldemort is returning, is a harbinger of worse to come. She
represents bureaucracy at its most callous and hypocritical; she's
self-serving, power-hungry, ruthless, cold, and cruel, but she wears a
facade of maternal helpfulness, telling the students that sh'e their
friend and that she's protecting them against lies. She also seems to
me to represent government interference in schools, teaching to the
test rather than providing useful information and skills that the
students can apply in their daily lives once they leave Hogwarts, but
as I'm not familiar with the British school system or the efforts of
the government to regulate it, I could be mistakenly imposing an
American perspective here. (Again, I'd be interested in responses to
this idea in OT Chatter. Does "The Ministry is/are interfering at
Hogwarts" strike a nerve with British readers in relation to
government interference in British schools, either public or
state-run, where the hand of the government might be more heavily felt?) 

However, Ministry employees run the gamut (IMO) from genuinely evil
characters like Umbridge and Macnair to Crouch Sr., who tries to fight
evil by cracking down on civil liberties and authorizing the Aurors to
use Unforgiveable Curses through well-meaning but inept bureaucrats
like Fudge who are more concerned with image than efficiency and fear
their own loss of power to the likeable and good-hearted but slightly
corrupted Arthur Weasley to the powerful and incorruptible Amanda
Bones. Somewhere in between, you have the ambitious and deluded but
not evil Percy and the efficient but not wholly scrupulous Scrimgeour,
who made the mistake of being sidetracked by DD's will, enabling
Yaxley to Imperius Thicknesse and paving the way for his own murder
and the takeover of the Ministry. IOW, the MoM is a cross-section of
the WW (as we see again in the contrasting characters of Cattermole
and Runcorn that Ron and Harry impersonate, one the husband of a
victim and the other the snitch who forced Dirk Cresswell to flee by
revealing him as a Muggle-born, and various other minor characters,
including the girl sneering at Umbridge without a second thought about
the contents of the pink pamphlets she's assembling on Umbridge's
orders). Not very different from a real-life bureaucracy in an
unstable political environment, probably. 
> 
Alla:
> We see MOM actively trying to discredit Dumbledore and Harry and 
trying to tell wizarding population that No, Voldemort is not back. Of
course not, how can he be? He is not back and we will put our head in
the sand and leave it there.

Carol:
Unless Fudge and the others are willing to take DD's word for it,
there's really no evidence other than Cedric's death, which DD does
*not* explain, at least to the Hogwarts students, other than saying
that LV murdered him (leaving out Wormtail and all the other
improbable details). I can't say that I blame Fudge for believing that
it's yet another wild story of a dead man coming back to life. Who
would believe that a man who lived as a rat for thirteen years after
framing his ex-friend for his own murder resurrected a wizard who had
existed as vapor for those same thirteen years by giving him a fetal
form and dropping that fetal form (itself capable of murder) into a
boiling potion whose key ingredients were blood, bone, and a human
hand and that Cedric was murdered by the rat on the fetus's orders?
The only convincing evidence was Snape's Dark Mark, which Fudge found
both revolting and unconvincing. Yes, he stuck his head in the sadn
because he didn't want to believe that LV was back, but he wasn't
present for Barty Jr.'s confession. All he had was the word of DD, the
injured Harry, and a staff member (Snape) who wasn't present at the
graveyard scene. 

Maybe, if Umbridge hadn't been the most important official working
directly under him and, no doubt, a trusted advisor, Fudge would have
come to believe at least some parts of the story. But given the short
time between the end of GoF and the beginning of OoP and the abrupt
change in his attitude during that time (from stunned disbelief to
active opposition) and Umbridge's own confession that she was trying
to discredit DD by sending the Dementors and "what Cornelius knows
won't hurt him," I'd say she's responsible for his belief that DD is
not only mistaking but actually lying to the wizarding public in an
attempt to take over the MoM. (Her agenda, apparently, is her own rise
to power; whether she's also working with Lucius to prepare
Voldemort's takeover is debateable. Given the useless DADA classes, I
wouldn't be at all surprised.)
> 
Alla:
> It is funny how little it takes for the Ministry to finally believe
that Voldemort is back. It only takes one person's death, right? <snip>

Carol:

Well, no. It took a lot more than one death to open Fudge's eyes. In
GoF, Fudge refused to believe that Cedric's death had anything to do
with Voldemort's return, and Sirius's death (and loyalties) had to be
taken on faith, given that his body had disappeared beyond the Veil
(OoP). What convinced Fudge was seeing the resurrected Voldemort
disappearing from the atrium of the MoM, taking Bellatrix with him,
amid the ruins of the demolished fountain, which was obviously the
scene of a battle. Once he went down to the Department of Mysteries,
he would have seen the wreckage caused by the battle between the Order
and the DEs (now bound by DD's jinx to keep them from Disapparating),
many of them escapees from Azkaban. Under the circumstances, he could
hardly deny that DEs (Lucius Malfoy among them) had broken into the
Hall of Prophecy and that Voldemort had returned. That's rather
different from hearing an improbable tale of a man everyone thought
was dead restoring another man that everyone thought was dead in a
giant stone cauldron in an unidentified graveyard, witnessed only by
Harry. Fudge can deny DD's version of events when there's no evidence
to back him up, but he can't deny it when he sees the evidence all
around him, including a glimpse of LV himself, also witnessed by Aurors.

Alla:
> So, one would think that now Ministry will do their best to prepare
people to war and start doing smart things, right?

Carol:
Well, you know politicians. Fudge can't help but admit the truth under
the circumstances (meanwhile hoping that Harry will raise public
morale by supporting the Ministry), and sending out pamphlets advising
the public on how to prepare themselves is better than nothing. (It's
what most governments would do, right, even if it's not much more use
than the old "duck and cover" messages during the Cold War?)
Propaganda, pamphlets, and arresting a few people. As for "doing the
smart thing," putting Scrimgeour in charge certainly *seemed* like a
smart move, and I don't think they could have anticipated the murder
of a gifted witch like Amelia Bones. What do you think they should
have done instead (or in addition), other than informing the Wizarding
public about the second mass escape from Azkaban (between HBP and DH),
which they certainly should have done? (I really don't know the
answer; I don't think they suspected Umbridge as a link to the DEs,
and we don't know anything about Thicknesse except that he must have
been an acquaintance of Yaxley's. Ideas, anyone?)
> 
Alla:
> In HBP we see Fudge telling Muggle prime minister that his junior
minister is under Imperius curse.
> 
> I thought it was a nice foreshadowing of Pius Thickness being under
Imperius in DH. In fact, I thought (in retrospect obviously, since I
totally did not predict that the Ministry will fall in DH) that one of
the reasons JKR wrote this chapter was to stick in some hints that
Ministry will fall in DH>
> 
> I mean, we know DE can get really close to high politicians now,
again Quacking minister as an example. Witness DH and just see how 
close they can get.

Carol:
Well, yes, it was foreshadowing (unrecognized by most of us, probably)
but Herbert Chorley was a Muggle who'd never heard of Voldemort, so it
would be easier to place him under an Imperius Curse than it must have
been to do the same with Thicknesse (a wizard, however "thick," and
one who certainly knew that LV was back, whatever his loyalties).
Getting near enough to a Muggle bureaucrat to Imperius him would
merely require getting past Muggle security measures (which wouldn't
be triggered by a wand). Any DE not in Azkaban could have done it,
even a stupid one, and considering that the curse was botched, it
probably was a stupid one. And afterwards, Scrimgeour placed Kingsley
Shacklebolt on the Muggle Prime Minister's staff, so, ironically, the
Muggle PM had better security than Scrimgeour himself. (Being an
ex-Auror, he probably didn't think he needed it.)

Alla:
> Witness Voldemort being so kind as personally going after the only
strong and powerful witch who is also as we know firmly on the side of
good and who probably can resist Imperius, resist bribes, etc. I am of
course talking about Voldemort being as kind as personally go and kill
Amelia Bones, who put up a fight, but was unable to win.

Carol:
Yes, that was a clue, all right. I just thought that he was killing
off a powerful enemy. Should have known he was preparing a Ministry
takeover, but I was caught by surprise.
> 
Alla:
> And of course we see that Fudge is being sacked. <snip>

Carol:
I'm not sure how sacking Fudge fits in if you're still talking about
foreshadowing. The WW thought (with good reason) that Fudge had failed
and/or misled them, so of course they clamored for his resignation.
And the tough, efficient, not wholly scrupulous Scrimgeour was a
logical replacement. I guess JKR had to kill him off so that the DEs
could run rampant through DH. His death was as necessary to the
takeover as Amanda Bones's.
> 
Alla:
> Isn't it beautifully done? At the beginning of HBP morale is already
pretty low at the Ministry, should it be really wonder how Voldemort
and co managed to get in?

Carol:
I'm not sure about the low morale at the Ministry itself once
Scrimgeour was in office. Are you referring to the Dementors spreading
depression and gloom everywhere? Amanda Bones's supporters and staff
would be upset, certainly, and outspoken enemies of Voldemort (if any)
might fear for their lives (though most of them were Order members).
But until the death of Dumbledore, Voldemort's return didn't seem all
that catastrophic. A murder or disappearance here, a "hurricane" or
collapsed bridge there, shops going out of business, the opal necklace
scare at Hogwarts, but no significant murders between the Bones and
Vance murders and DD's supposed murder, IIRC. Voldie seemed to be
biding his time, though maybe he was making some behind-the-scenes
preparations, including plans for the Azkaban breakout when the time
came. IMO, he was wasn't just biding his time waiting for Draco to
fail so he could punish the Malfoys. He really wanted DD dead, which
is why he was getting angry and making threats as the end of term
neared and Draco still hadn't gotten the DEs into Hogwarts. He was
counting on Snape to do the job not if but when Draco failed. The
Hogwarts takeover was a key element in his plans, and the death of DD
would also make taking over the MoM easier. He might not even have
regarded the takeover as possible while Dumbledore lived, given the
results of the MoM battle in OoP.
> 
Alla:
> Funny, JKR mentioned in the interview that in the first war
Voldemort could not that far because he was unable to infiltrate the
ministry. For those of you who consider interview at least somewhat 
canonical, why do you think he was unable to infiltrate Ministry in
the first war?  

> I mean, from what we hear the atmosphere of mutual distrust and fear
was also there. What do you think was different? 

Carol:
I don't consider the interview canonical, but canon makes it clear
that he didn't fully infiltrate the Ministry despite having Rookwood
as a spy and DEs like Macnair as Ministry employees. And I think the
reason is "the only one he ever feared." As long as DD lived, he could
only fight a small-scale war involving murders and terorism and small
battles between DEs and Order members, spreading fear and discord. But
kill DD and he could take over the WW. I think that would have been
his next step after killing baby!Harry: kill DD, steal the Sword of
Gryffindor and use it to make his last Horcrux (with Harry's or DD's
murder; it wouldn't matter); take over Hogwarts; then take over the
WW. Fortunately for the WW but not for LV, it didn't work out that way.

In a word, what was different was Dumbledore: alive in VW1, dead,
supposedly on LV's orders, in VW2. That, IMO, is what enables the war
to escalate from the scary but endurable conditions of HBP to the
chaos of DH. (Of course, I still think the takeover of the MoM and the
small number of DEs should not have been sufficient to send such a
huge number of Muggle-borns into panic mode so quickly, but I've said
everything I have to say on that topic in another post.
>
Alla: 
> Well, what happened in DH we all know and of course in the days
before the takeover, Scrimgeour shut himself in his office and as many
people hoped to work on the plan, but even if he was, obviously plan
was not successful?

Carol:
I'm not sure what you're saying her. Do you think that Scrimgeour was
working on a plan? I thought he was studying the will and trying to
solve the mystery of the book, the Snitch, and the Deluminator.
Whatever he was doing, he ought to have been keeping an eye on his own
employees, notably Pius Thicknesse and Dolores Umbridge, and watching
out for people like Yaxley who pled the Imperius Curse after Godric's
Hollow 9which partially answers my own question above, but I still
wonder what else people think he ought to have been doing).
 
Alla:
> Again, all that I attempted to do was to show that JKR portrayed
Ministry or at least its leaders in a very consistent way through the
books – as bunch of corrupted, incompetent and often evil morons. <snip>

Carol:
I've gotten a bit away from this idea since I don't consider either
Fudge or Scrimgeour to be evil, flawed though they are in different
ways, nor do I consider them to be morons. Fudge is to some degree
self-deluded; he's also weak and easily manipulated. Nevertheless, he
seems to be a genuinely decent man and I liked him a lot in "The Other
Minister." Scrimgeour is tough, shrewd, intelligent, and, at a guess,
normally efficient. He's too concerned with public image, he sould
have spoken up about the second Azkaban breakout, and he certainly
should not have spent so much time in his office at such a crucial
period. But it would have been better if he'd remained the head of the
Auror office rather than being promoted to Prime Minister. I doubt
that he was influenced, as Fudge was, by Malfoy and Umbridge, but he
certainly failed to see Umbridge, at least, for what she was (and how
Harry expected him to know that the scars on his hand were from
Umbridge's quill, I really don't know). Even Barty Crouch Sr. does not
strike me as evil despite Sirius Black's view of him as "ruthless." I
think he made a serious mistake in judgment, pursuing vengeance at the
expense of justice, and paid the price. Umbridge, however, is without
question, ruthless, cruel, corrupted, and evil. It's possible that she
really believes what she's saying in OoP (Voldemort is not back and DD
is just making a bid for power), but it's also possible that she knew
the truth and was preparing the way for him, along with Lucius Malfoy,
unknown to Fudge, who trusted them both.

At any rate, absolutely, OoP is an attack on corrupt bureaucracy, but
there's a lot more to it. Maybe JKR believes that corruption, which
leads to bad laws and loss of freedom (Harry's trial, Sirius's and
Hagrid's arrests, government-controlled newspapers), paves the way for
dictatorship. (The Nazis, of course, were hardly the only party or
faction to do such a thing. Communists, military juntas, radical
Islamic factions--it happens all the time, even in Europe.) Just what
sort of political statement JKR is making with regard to Britain, I
can't say. (Again, I'd welcome answers on OT Chatter.) But she's no
fan of bureaucracies or big government, or of government-controlled
schools, if I'm judging correctly.

Leaving JKR out of it, we can simply say that the WW is clearly not a
democracy, its laws are too easily and too arbitrarily changed, and
civil liberties appear to have little protection. Not such a wonderful
place to live after all, wnad or no wand.

Carol, not sure what her point is and just responding to Alla's post