The Death Eaters

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 182848

Athena:
>
> "I have to say that two very specifically named and described
> Death Eaters have like ZERO PLAY in HBP, or DH and it really
> irritates me to no end. I speak of course about the LeStrange
> brothers, Rodolphus and Rabastan. Why if JK wasn't going to
> use them at all did she bother naming or even creating them
> in the first place?

Pippin:
I'm afraid this won't  help your irritation, but I've always
thought it was one of JKR spy jokes. Influenced by the novella and
classic film "The Third Man", journalists covering the real life
Cambridge spy ring referred to "the third man", the then unidentified
spy who  eventually proved to be Kim Philby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Five

 
 I thought it was very funny that after all our efforts to guess who
JKR's third man might be, and all  the elaborate theories generated to
account for his presence, he turned out to be a Lestrange, just as
everything in canon had hinted. But somehow,  because Sirius said
that the Lestranges were a married couple, we never thought of the
other guy being a Lestrange too, despite canon being overrun with
multiple Weasleys, Riddles, Crouches and even an unrelated Evans.
Funny how people's minds work...

 
Pippin