Lack of re-examination SPOILERS for Corambis and Tigana

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186580

Alla wrote:
> 
> LOL, so I waited till somebody asks me and what do you think about Snape then, because isn't it the same then, I mean isn't it a double standard when I think that Moody was not a sadist in that scene and that Snape always is?
> 
> No, not the same at all to me. Yes, we know that Fake!Moody did not like that DE did not go free, but to me as far as I know he did not have that extensive history that Snape had with James.

<snip>

> Now before you ask me, yes, if you show me definite evidence that Fake!Moody was punishing Lucius' shadow and now Draco and what he did, yes, I will agree that he was acting sadistically, but still will not agree that there was much for Harry to reevaluate.

Carol responds:

Leaving Snape out of the discussion since we see him so differently, I just want to look at Fake!Moody himself. First, we do learn later, as you point out, that he hates Death Eaters who ran free (including Snape, who was protected by Dumbledore for reasons which, fortunately for Snape, Crouch!Moody doesn't fully understand, and Lucius Malfoy, who stayed out of Azkaban by pleading the Imperius Curse). It's also clear that he knows exactly who Draco's father is:

"I know your father of old, boy. . . . You tell him Moody's keeping a close eye on his son . . . . you tell him that from me" (206). More brilliant impersonation on Fake!Moody's part, using the real Moody's known dislike of Death Eaters (including those who escaped Azkaban and are posing as respectable citizens) to cover his own hatred of DEs who walked free (and to send a message to Draco and his father that they will perceive as a threat from the real Moody without saying openly that he knows the truth about Malfoy Sr.).

So, yes. It's personal. And, yes, he knew who Draco was when he punished him. But it's also true that this point doesn't come up until Draco has been restored by McGonagall to his own form and starts muttering about "my father" (just as he did more openly with Hagrid in PoA). Since we can't see into Fake!Moody's mind, it's not clear how much of a role, if any, Draco's being Lucius Malfoy's son plays in his punishment.

But I don't think we need to know his motivation to decide for ourselves whether the punishment is sadistic. We all agree, I'm sure, that Umbridge's quill was sadistic regardless of whether she used it on Harry or Lee Jordan and regardless of whether she hated their fathers (which I think we can safely say she did not).

First, Draco's infraction, the one for which Moody punishes him, is (oddly enough, given who he really is) the cowardly act of trying to hex Harry from behind. (Whether the fact that it was Harry and not some other student he was trying to hex played a role in Fake!Moody's reaction, we don't know.) But it seems clear to me that Fake!Moody is overreacting; if the culprit and his intended victim had been, say, a Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff, he might not have reacted so angrily. It's just possible--and we can't know one way or the other--that he associates Draco's cowardice in this instance with his father's cowardice in not going to Azkaban. (Whether Lucius Malfoy's action was really cowardice or merely self-preservation is beside the point, as is Fake!Moody's own cowardice in the courtroom. I'm talking about Fake!Moody's perception of the two actions as far as they can be determined.)

Fake!Moody has apparently been told that the teachers aren't supposed to use Transfiguration as a punishment. McGonagall clearly considers it not only excessive but apparently uncalled for under any circumstances. She reminds him that they use detention or speak to the student's Head of House.

And it isn't just Transfiguration. When the Transfigured Draco trise to run off with a "terrified squeak," Fake!Moody sends him ten feet into the air and bounces him off the stone floor. As he bounces Draco "higher and higher" and Ferret!Draco "squeal[s] in pain, Fake!Moody says, "I don't like people who attack when their opponent's back's turned. Stinking, scummy, cowardly thing to do." 

Whether this "justification" is his real reason for punishing Draco or only an excuse, he's clearly hurting him, he's insulting him by referring to an action that's probably an everyday occurrence at Hogwarts as "stinking, cowardly, and scummy" (by implication, Draco himself is a "stinking, scummy coward"), and he's openly expressing dislike for him (whether he's giving the real reason or not).

As the ferret flails its tail and legs helplessly in the air, he bounces it again, one bounce per word: "Never--do--that--again."

As McGonagall approaches, he calmly bounces him still higher.

This is the same man who later enjoys the prolonged torture of a spider in front of a boy whose parents he helped torture into insanity.

At any rate, the details that we have--a stone floor; repeated, hard bounces of ten feet or higher; squeals of pain--indicate that it did hurt, probably a great deal. Had Draco been a real ferret, he would not have survived. I think it's safe to call his action sadistic regardless of whether he did it because, in his view, Draco deserved such a severe punishment for a minor and probably common offense or because Draco is the son of a Death Eater who walked free while he himself suffered in Azkaban (loyal, no doubt, in his own view, but more so after his father rescued him than when he was being sentenced along with the Lestranges).

Had he simply done what he does at the end, seizing Draco by the arm and marching him off to see Snape, the punishment would have been entirely appropriate. As it is, it's excessive and prolonged physical punishment. Had the student being punished been Harry or Ron, I suspect that both readers and characters (including McGonagall) would have been outraged by "Moody's" cruelty (especially if it were Harry and the painful, repeated contacts with the stone floor had been presented from his point of view).

At any rate, I don't think we can prove that hatred or resentment of Draco's father played a role in his punishment though I suspect, given his words about Lucius, that it did. But we can prove that he disliked Draco (he said so) and that Draco was both terrified and hurt. That he suffered no broken bones as a magically transformed animal is beside the point. It hurt, "Moody" knew that it hurt, and he seems to have enjoyed the pain he was inflicting.

Carol, deliberately refraining from mentioning Snape so that we can focus on "Moody"