Chapter Discussion: Chapter Sixteen, Goblet of Fire: The Goblet of Fire

[Geoff]

No: HPFGUIDX 192247

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:
 
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff" <geoffbannister123@> wrote: <SNIP summary>
> .> Questions.
> > 
> >> 4. What do you make of Ludo Bagman and Bartemius Crouch as
> > personalities?

Alla:
 
> As Pippin says we do not see real Bartermius, but regardless, I do remember not liking them both. Bartemius felt like annoying control freak, Ludo felt kind of empty if that makes sense. I would have liked to get to know Bartemius and see if he indeed had the kind of tragic depth some list members argued he did.

Geoff:
On the other hand, when we see Crouch in Dumbledore's Pensieve much later, 
he is still the same brusque, matter of fact civil servant that we have seen 
previously when, at the World Cup, it was suggested that he could have passed 
as a bank manager. I would surmise that, although a person is being controlled
by Imperius, unless instructed to the contrary, their normal attitudes and 
mannerisms would be the same. So, here in the case of Crouch, we are seeing 
his normal buttoned-up, 'everything done straight down the line of the rules'. 
unbending self.

Before I went to college, I first went out to work when I was 18 for a year in 
an office five minutes walk from Buckingham Palace (name dropping!). Reading 
about Crouch, I can visualise a guy in the office who completely matched up; 
he was close to retirement and had come through the pin-striped suit, bowler 
hat era but was just as stiff and formal as Crouch is portrayed to be.