Who?

[Barry Arrowsmith]

One of the more obvious properties of the HP series  is how little 
change there has been in characters attitudes. After 5 years the 
staunch are still staunch,  the dodgy are still untrustworthy and Snape 
is still Snape. And no, I don't  think Percy has changed at  all; nor 
Seamus come to that.

Those that were Voldy supporters have remained so - even if they hid 
the dagger behind a  smile and a cloak for maximum effect. And if there 
are any traitors in the Order then they've been so since about the time 
of Harry's birth.  Not many new recruits on the horizon, though Voldy  
stands a chance of attracting a few of the Slytherin persuasion - but 
not old DD, the Order is a *secret* order, almost nobody knows it 
exists, so how can anyone with a yen to fight for truth and justice 
join up?

It's a further indication that there'll be no  big battles in HP; it's 
not a war of numbers but of skirmish and ambuscade, more along the 
lines of street gangs than the strategic  glories of Clauswitz. Some 
fans expect (or hope) that the House Elves will  rise up en masse to 
assert their freedom. Unlikely IMO. They are firmly attached to their 
households and will lean the way their masters lean; that is their 
nature after all. As many, perhaps more, will be like Kreacher than 
will be like the Hogwarts housekeeping crew, since it's the old rich 
families, i.e. the likes of the Malfoys, that'll have House Elves 
anyway.

You can forget the Giants, a double handful of remnants sliding back 
into savagery. Centaurs - no chance. They'll remain in their bosky 
glades muttering of the iniquities of wizards. Goblins - be nice if 
they turned nasty, if you get my meaning, though from what Bill says at 
the beginning of OoP they're more likely to remain in the background  
as a potential problem than to launch ravening hordes sounding their 
chilling war cry of "Pay off your Mortgage or Die!" on the innocent 
house-holders of Harpenden.

What of the Wizarding World?
They're much like the general population in the real world - when 
there's a problem, a danger, it's somebody else that's supposed to fix 
it. They seem quite happy to swamp the newspapers and the Ministry with 
owls but actually *doing* something, that never seems to occur to them. 
Which is odd, since every adult witch and wizard has the magical 
equivalent of an AK47 stuffed in his pocket. Come next Halloween and 
the DEs are banging on the door - "Trick or treat!" and spells start 
zapping out of the letterbox, well, it could make Voldy's mob pause for 
thought.

So in reality the whole 'war' boils down to Voldy and maybe 50 DEs 
against DD and whoever is the Order, and with the Ministry bods faffing 
about on the sidelines. And at the moment it seems pretty much 
dead-locked, which brings me back to my original point; the best way to 
break the deadlock is for somebody to switch. Somebody or some bodies 
are going to change their minds for the first time in the books.
Any bets on who and why?

Kneasy