Why did Barty Crouch Jr join Voldemort?

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 189707



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "katherinemaurer at ..." <katherinemaurer at ...> wrote:
>
> Hi, I'm new here and was hoping to ask some questions and speculate on Harry Potter.
> 
> Barty Crouch Jr is my favourite character and as so, I have read a lot of ssk7882's fantastic posts. They did enlighten me on some things, but one main question seemed to be unanswered.
> 
> Why did Barty Crouch Jr join Voldemort? Further to that, what was Barty Jr's childhood like, to lead him to that decision?
> 
> The most canon says about Barty's childhood was in Padfoot Returns, page 459 Sirius says, "Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic towards him, and started asking how a nice young lad from a good family had gone so badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never much cared for him."
> 
> That conclusion was considered a cop-out in ssk7882's message #47931 "Midnight in the Golden Wood". Then from that, ssk7882 discounts a theory and creates a few of their own to do with that subject. Their theories seemed quite vague, because the question as to why Barty Jr joined Voldemort was probably not primarily what they were trying to answer. But it is what I would like answered.
> 
> Could you please help me with this.

Mike:
I don't know if Elkins answered your particular question either, it was so long ago that I read her amazing (and amazingly long) 9-part series on the Crouches. That said, here's a link to the first post in that series:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/47927

Elkin's series was written as a T-Bay (Theory Bay), that is, it was written as a ficticious conversation between herself and two other listies, expounding on various theories of each. Though filled with a lot of speculation, she would have based all of her thoughts on canon, that was/is the rule on this list.

And you are quite right, this was written during the 3 year summer between GOF and OOTP.

Good luck in your search. :)

Mike, who doesn't necessarily agree with Elkin's positions on the Crouches, but finds them nevertheless facinating