[the_old_crowd] Re: Truth or consequences

[GulPlum]

At 23:49 17/04/05 , Neri wrote:

<snip quote from my previous>

>Crouch!Moody is extremely difficult to catch in a lie (unless it's 
>something we already know to be untruth, which according to your rule 
>doesn't count).

I'm not sure what you mean.

First, I haven't insisted on any kind of "rule" that lies in circumstances 
in which we know them to be a lie "don't count" (morally or in plot terms); 
I was merely observing that when the Good Guys lie, we know it's a lie, and 
we're given some kind of extenuating information to make the lie the lesser 
of two evils either from the character's perspective, or from a perspective 
of general ethics.

Secondly, I've just looked through GoF again and have been unable to find 
an example of either of the Crouches coming up with an untruth whether or 
not we know it to be a lie. You seem to be implying that there are 
circumstances in which "Crouch" [which one? :-)] *is* lying, but we know 
this to be the case.

The only dissembling on Barty Snr.'s part is his illness, but we never 
actually have a scene with him explaining his absence directly: it's all 
third-hand information and supposition. And I can't see any dissembling on 
Barty Jnr.'s part at all.

Unless you're talking about the Pensieve trial, and his protestations of 
innocence? I have my own explanation of that (completely independently of 
my theories about honesty) which hinges on the trial's being specifically 
about the attack on the Longbottoms. It is possible that Barty Crouch Jnr., 
for all his sins, was actually innocent of that particular one, and thus 
his protestations would have been perfectly truthful. This would have made 
him doubly-embittered towards the Magical community in general and the 
anti-Voldemort faction in particular: being convicted of a crime one did 
not commit is particularly hard to bear (even if one is guilty of other, 
even more heinous, crimes).

>A nice example of his (or JKR's) sneakiness is this sentence:
>
>GoF, Ch.25 p.476 US:
>"Put it this way. Potter, they say old Mad-Eye's obsessed with
>catching Dark wizards... but I'm nothing - nothing - compared to Barty
>Crouch."
>
>Had he said "they say *I'm* obsessed with catching Dark wizards..." it
>would have been a lie. This one certainly was a "close shave" as
>Crouch!Moody himself would put it.

The whole point, however, is that JKR has him phrase his comment very 
specifically so that he doesn't have to lie. Here's another wonderful one, 
a paragraph earlier (after Harry says he saw Crouch's name inside Snape's 
office on the Map):

"Well, he's not there anymore," said Moody, his eye still whizzing over the 
map.  "Crouch . .. that's very - very interesting... ."

Note that he says "not THERE" rather than "not on the Map" (which 
presumably would have been a lie)!

>The clearest untruth I could come up with for him is rather weak. It's 
>these words he says to Ron:
>
>GoF, Ch.14 p.211 US:
>"Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago"
>
>In the end we discover that Crouch!Moody barely had time to drink the
>Polyjuice when Arthur came to find out what was the commotion about.

So, again, he was in fact telling the truth...

Actually, the greatest (indeed, by my count, *only*) liar in GoF is the 
omniscient Narrator, seeing as Crouch!Moody is regularly referred to as 
Moody. Of course, it is difficult in any book to represent characters 
impersonating one another, and doubly so in mystery stories when the 
denouement revolves around the concept. Although JKR did her best to keep 
narrative references to his name to a bare minimum, there remain instances 
of the reader being lied to, which by my own personal standards is the 
gravest sin in story-telling (and another of the reasons why I'm not keen 
on GoF).

>Pettigrew lies several times in the Shack, but that hardly counts, as
>by then he was already exposed and none of us would believe him (well,
>except for a few conspiracy theorists).

If I do have a "rule" (see above), it is that I always assume that 
characters throughout the saga are telling the truth unless we have 
*immediate* (or prior) evidence to the contrary. Hence my disagreement with 
several theories which assume that one character or another is being 
deliberately dishonest with their statements. JKR is far too careful with 
the way her characters speak and what they say to have the over-all plot 
hinge on a lie (or, in this case, someone we are led to believe is lying 
whist - as the theorists would have it - he is telling the truth).

>This can't be a coincidence. JKR must put a considerable effort into
>the statements of her suspects. And as Richard wrote, this is highly
>unusual for a mystery book. I have two possible explanations: in the
>plot level, it could be that there is indeed a magical penalty to pay
>for uttering an untruth, and this is going to be a plot point in Book
>6 or 7. In the meta level, maybe JKR is trying to compensate us for
>the fact that her mystery plot takes place in a world that we as
>readers don't know very well.

My own view (and I had meant to say this in my previous post, but forgot) 
is that this is part of the "thematic" morality of the books: truthfulness 
is not a virtue in itself (for a childish example, we have an 
"anti-snitching" message in PS/SS). Whilst, as Dumbledore points out, 
"honesty is generally preferable" (I think that's the quote; sorry if I got 
it wrong), there are circumstances in which keeping silent, or even telling 
a small lie, in furtherance of a greater good, is preferable to honesty in 
furtherance of evil.

Oh, and for the record, I don't buy the "Magical penalty for lying" 
explanation: it's too pat, and Harry would certainly have felt the effects 
of this penalty by now if it were true. And please don't try to limit it by 
claiming that it only affects adults. :-)

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, hoping not to fall back into posting at 3am :-(