Moody's death (was: Dumbledore's authority WAS: Re: Fees for Harry)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 179457


> a_svirn:
> I don't know. Do you? Personally I find it most improbable that any 
> sane person would join an organisation under such terms. No doubt the 
> Dark Lord thought his death eaters and their nearest and dearest 
> *expendable*, but the good guys are supposed to be different, aren't 
> they? Being ready and even eager to risk your life is not the same 
> thing as being *expendable*. If you appreciate the distinction. 

Pippin:
I don't, actually. The word means, "open to sacrifice in the interests
of gaining an objective, especially a military one." Or as Sirius put it,
"This is how it is--that is why you're not in the Order--you don't
understand--there are things worth dying for!" (OOP ch 22)
He is specifically talking about protecting the Order's plans and not 
making things look any fishier than they already do.

The difference between the Order's plan and Voldemort's is that
Voldemort's purpose is world domination and Dumbledore's is saving
thousands of innocent lives. I suppose a moral relativist might equate
the two, but canon clearly isn't going there.

There was a time when innocent lives didn't matter to Dumbledore,
but that was before he lost (or killed) Ariana. 

A_svirn:
> As for Fletcher, it is painfully obvious that he does *not* want to 
> sacrifice himself. He is compelled to do so by the other members of 
> the Order. 

Pippin:
But he wasn't compelled, that's why he was able to disapparate. He
could have been confunded but Moody chose not to do
that. Voldemort would have used the Imperius curse, as he did on 
Stan Shumpike. The only person who was threatened into cooperating 
was Harry, and that was a case of a child being told what to do by adults 
in a life-threatening situation.

> 
> a_svirn:
> That's what you say. Moody didn't take that into account and he was 
> right. As he predicted the death eaters came first after him and then 
> after Kingsley. 

Pippin:
Canon says it, not me:

"We think the Death Eaters will expect you to be on a broom." DH
US p 53.

> 
> a_svirn:
> Not if he walked under the cloak outside the range of the anti-
> apparition spell. Not to mention, that he could summon Kreacher and 
> told him to apparate himself to the Tonks's place or even straight to 
> the Burrow. 

Pippin:
Dementors and animals can detect someone under the cloak, and
both can be used as spies. If you have a limited area to survey and
you know that the person you're looking for could be using
a cloak, it's not that hard to find them, as canon demonstrates
numerous times.  It was the resurrection stone, not the cloak, that 
enabled Harry to get past Voldemort's perimeter in the forest. 

Harry had not yet won Kreacher's loyalty, it would have been insane
to trust him with his life. And Dobby's attempts to save
Harry's life had been, well, eccentric to say the least. I'm not
surprised no one thought of asking him to help. 

> a_svirn:
> Well, if I can't enjoy DH, I can at least entertain myself in finding 
> flaws in it.
>

Pippin:
And I can entertain myself by finding flaws in your arguments <g>

Alla:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/179450

I am not arguing that they were coerced to participate, of course
not. What I am arguing is that Dumbledore put their lifes in the
risk that could have been avoided **because of that particular
plan**, that's all.

Even at war, if commander can avoid the army of the enemy waiting to
ambush their forces durin the war operation, isn't the duty of the
commander to do so?

Pippin:
Curiously enough, that exact situation comes up in LOTR. There's
an attempt to take the leading companies in an ambush. Avoiding
them is exactly what Aragorn does *not* do -- instead he sets
up a counter ambush and traps them. 

He could have avoided them, I suppose, but it would have been
out of character with the "pride of the new Ringlord" that he was
pretending to display. 

Alla:
This - no way, if Harry could leave in simpler and safer ways. IMO
of course.

Pippin:
The trouble is, if we can think of those ways, so could Voldemort.
We can amuse ourselves by thinking of other ways that Harry could
have left the Dursleys, and  how Voldemort could have prepared
to thwart those actions, but that's not what the book is about.
 
It's not about *trying*. In the immortal words of Yoda, 
"There is no try." The Ministry tried -- it tried all sorts of things that 
didn't work just to show that it was doing something, and it didn't do 
things that could work because they'd be perceived as risky or
unpopular. I think we're supposed to contrast that with Dumbledore's
methods, and respect Dumbledore because he was willing to do 
unpopular things and frankly told people that they would have to fight 
what seemed to be a losing battle. 

He was indeed a flawed leader, but one of the things that canon
shows us is that  those who won't respect a flawed leader are only
placing themselves in the hands of leaders clever enough to con 
people into thinking that they're  flawless. *We* were tricked into
thinking that Dumbledore was flawless--but JKR did that, not
Dumbledore himself. *He* never claimed to be the epitome of
goodness. (And as I've pointed out numerous times, that was a
tricky statement all along. "Epitome" means a typical example, not a
perfect one.)

 Snape's position was more precarious than you seem to think --
Voldie has a short memory. If Voldemort began to think that 
Snape's exposure as a traitor lost him the chance of learning the 
Order's plans to move Harry, Snape might have fallen from favor 
very quickly. 

OTOH, if Snape had done nothing, neither informed the DE's of the 
Order's plans nor suggested the Seven Potters idea, what would have
been gained?  Voldemort would have had spies in the area in any case, 
as Moody points out, and canon shows they could have summoned 
their master and he in turn could summon other Death Eaters almost 
instantly. We're talking about a few minutes at best. Even if Harry
did escape the DE's by dis-apparating, he would then have had the
whole Ministry after him for breaking wizarding law. 

Pippin