Back to Baggy (was Think about Neville)

[carolynwhite2]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Magda Grantwich 
<mgrantwich at y...> wrote:
> --- Barry Arrowsmith <arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> 
> Magda (miffed because no one commented on her long Ludo Bagman
> response to Kneasy's post last week)
> 

Magda:
I don't see Bagman as a terribly pro-active person. He's basically a
lazy, what's-in-it-for-me?, reactive guy, moving when he has to move,
trading on cheap charm because it costs him nothing.

I think he did for Voldemort what he did best: charm bright and
upcoming young wizards in the MOM, dazzling them with his sporting
background and then doing little favours to make them feel special,
maybe getting them low-level jobs at the MoM, then introducing them
to DE recruiters and not looking back. I doubt if Bagman ever went
DE-ing himself; he was a procurer, not a foot-soldier in the war.


Carolyn (who thinks Neville is just can(n)on fodder), remembers what 
she meant to say last week about Baggy:

The Bagman subplot has always seemed to me to be about high level 
corruption in sport, with allusions to our British footballing 
obsession. I think someone, such as Lucius, will have turned out to 
have nobbled Bagman by encouraging him to gamble, getting him into 
debt so he has been hopelessly compromised and a pawn in the DEs 
hands. 

I can't decide whether he is a DE or not - he would seem too stupid 
and risky to take on, but then look at Goyle & Crabbe Srs.. if their 
sons resemble them, then clearly Voldy was scraping the barrel a bit 
on the recruitment front a while back. But then again, how can you 
possibly have a MoM minister with a dark mark on his arm? Really 
risky that, with people as rabid and suspicious as Moody and Crouch 
Sr pacing the corridors.

So what's the point of the DEs corrupting Quidditch? Well, any 
terrorist movement needs funding, and one way of getting funds is 
match fixing. Impossible ? Look at Mustafa, the referee at the QWC - 
shouldn't think it would be difficult for a few Veela to lead him 
astray; a threesome, and a few photos, and there you go..

And the sporting mafia inside the MoM might be even more sinister. 
The history of Quidditch is clearly exceptionally bloody, and who 
would know more about that than Brutus Scrimgeour, author of 'The 
Beater's Bible'. The first rule in his book is 'take out the Seeker' 
(see QTTA). Now, he wouldn't be the same Scrimgeour who'd been asking 
Kingsley and Tonks funny questions, would he - or his brother or his 
son, maybe? Sport, after all, is only sanitised war.

Carolyn