OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

On her way to deal with the problems inherent in overloading a four-man kayak, Elkins encounters an aggrieved Porphyria, who asks Imperiously:

And why is my loyalty being impugned?!?!?

Porphyria! Porphyria, forgive me! Forgive us all!

I offer my most abject apologies. I just...well, it's just that you're ordinarily so...oh, you know. That you give the impression of being so, er, so...so...

<Elkins looks away, blushing madly>

So canonically pure.

<Now a truly extraordinary shade of scarlet, she begins to babble>

So incorruptible, don't you know, I mean, I really didn't think that you could possibly want anything to do with something this subversive, far less allow yourself to be seen in public with a motley crew like us, but I mean, of course there's room for you, always room for you, more than enough room for you, Porphyria, it's just that I honestly never imagined, I mean I never even dared to hope—

All this time I have been happily imagining Avery slaving under Mrs. Lestrange's imperio, forced to polish her boots over and over and over...

Oh, lord yes. Boots. Leather boots. Shiny shiny leather boo...

::deep breath::

Um. Yes. Right. Well. I think that there's, um, something else that I have to take care of right now. Please do excuse me.

<Deeply flustered, Elkins stumbles her way across the beach and back to the Fourth Man kayak, where she notices Avery watching her with a commiserating—if also rather unpleasantly knowing—expression.

"What are you staring at?" she snaps. He quickly looks away.>

Eloise complained:

And besides a kayak's so....well, little...and a bit wet and uncomfortable. Now, if only you could upgrade a little.....

Eileen hastens to explain:

Ah, but Cindy prizes toughness. The kayak, I think, is supposed to build our characters. Unfortunately, us sycophants aren't benefitting from the situation.

No. We really aren't. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm freezing my character right off in this wretched thing. And I don't know that anyone else is entirely happy with the situation, either. I mean, poor Avery's already nearly drowned once, and Jake's been underwater for months trying to waterski, and just think of Dicentra's chiropracty bills! I'm tired of it, and because I'm a sycophant, I don't mind whining piteously about it to anyone who will listen. I am tired of getting splashed all the time, and I'm tired of being wet and cold and exposed to all of the elements, and I'm tired of getting blisters on my hands from these rotten paddles, and I'm tired of having nowhere to mount the few measly little canons that we possess, and I'm particularly tired of having no bar on board.

The 8-person inflatable raft was a nice idea—especially since it came with those icy mimosas—but according to my last roster, we've now actually got nine people trying to fit themselves into this little kayak, and that's not even counting Avery or Dicentra, who I think may be that soft lump that I can feel wedged underneath my left foot somewhere.

So I say that we forget all about the inflatable raft and go straight on up to adopting Jake's suggestion of getting ourselves a sporty new hovercraft. A hovercraft seems perfectly appropriate to me, as it (a) is amphibious, thus representing our optional SHIP status and (b) skims along the top of the water, thus providing a homage of sorts to Mr. Avery's own perpetually cold feet.

And I've got a great idea as to how we can finance it, too. All we really need to do is to sell off Avery's ancestral home...

Oh, come now, Mr. Avery. You know full well that you aren't going to need it for very much longer anyway. And besides, I've already spoken to the local council, they're very excited about the deal, the fellow I spoke to on the phone said something about tearing down that big draughty house of yours and all of those gloomy old yew trees, and instead putting up an entire row of nice new Council flats, with everything all updated and clean and modern...

Marlys, since you're a kindly sort of Fourth Man with Remorse person, do you think that maybe you could pass Mr. Avery a tissue? He seems to have something in his eye. That's super, thanks.

---------

You see, the problems with overcrowding become evident right here:

Eileen:

As Elkins has noted, I'm a Fourth Man with Remorse. Frankly, I don't get the point of Imperius AND Remorse. Don't they cancel each other out? Or is Avery one of those sensitive souls who worries about everything? Lupin without EDGE?

Cindy:

I'm not using this Big paddle to help row the Fourth Man kayak or anything. No, no. I plan on picking a serious fight with the other Fourth Man passengers, and I need this Big paddle to defend myself. You see, Fourth Man with Remorse is just, well . . .forgive me, but . . . it's kinda lame...

and then, later:

Fourth Man with Innocence is crashing against the rocks, too.

Eileen (to Cindy, about Avery):

And don't you dare touch him again. We actually LIKE him!

<Elkins interposes herself between Eileen and Cindy, flinching away from Cindy's Very Big Paddle>

Whoah! WHOAH!

People, people! Let's not quarrel, shall we? Not with the space so tight, and not with everyone holding paddles, all right? I mean, you know that kayaks aren't the most stable of vessels to begin with. You're going to have us all in the water, if you keep this up.

Now. There is plenty of room...well, okay. So there's no room at all right now. But once we get our shiny new hovercraft, there will be plenty of room for everyone, regardless of their favored Fourth Man variations. In the meantime, let's all try to play nice, okay?

So. First off, Fourth Man with Imperius and Remorse.

Eileen objected:

Frankly, I don't get the point of Imperius AND Remorse. Don't they cancel each other out?

Only if you believe that he was under the Imperius Curse from start to finish, and that he really did try to struggle against it. Then remorse would certainly seem an unnecessary (if not, IMO, at all unlikely or unexpected) emotional response.

As I've argued elsewhere, though, I don't believe for a second that anyone became a Death Eater under the control of the Imperius Curse. Voldemort and his Death Eaters are mystically linked in some fashion, as are all of the Death Eaters to each other. Voldemort can use Pettigrew's Dark Mark to affect all of the DEs; he can summon the DEs to apparate to his side without giving them explicit directions to his spatial location; either by simple virtue of his state of being or by an extension of his will, he can cause the mark to become visible. In the graveyard, he reminds the DEs that they swore eternal loyalty to him.

That all sounds to me like a serious magical compact, not the sort of thing that you enter into under the influence of Imperius, or hypnosis, or anything else of that sort. To my mind, canon strongly suggests that anyone bearing that mark chose to enter into a binding relationship with Voldemort with their volition more or less intact at the time.

In my version of Fourth Man With Imperius, though, Avery was put under the curse after he had already signed up, by his friends, to help him out with his little squeamishness problem. This is a relative of Cindy's "In Over His Head Fourth Man" approach: it suggests that while Avery was indeed at that point in his life perfectly willing to engage in the uglier aspects of being a member of a terrorist organization, he just plain didn't have the stomach for it. The spirit was willing, but the viscera was weak. You know, kind of like the opposite of how I prefer to interpret Snape? ;-)

I also tend to perceive Avery as a somewhat, er...

::quick glance at Porphyria::

A somewhat submissive personality. I think that it gave him a secret sick thrill to allow more dominant types to "force" him to do Things No Decent Person Would Ever Do. I don't think that he fought very hard against it at all. I think that he kinda liked it.

This, to my mind, is perfectly in keeping with the character we see in the graveyard. Surely Avery must have known, don't you think, that whoever cracked first was going to get nailed? I mean, as readers, we all certainly knew that, didn't we? And Avery had worked for Voldemort before. He must have known that the Cruciatus was coming. Why else would he have been shaking so violently?

I'm convinced that he wanted to be punished. To my mind, this is consistent with Fourth Man With Remorse. It's also consistent with the personality type of someone who would have submitted himself semi-voluntarily to the Imperius Curse.

And if Avery really had been under the Imperius Curse at some point in his DE career, then that might well have contributed to his ability to wrangle an acquittal or a pardon later on, thus allowing this entire far-fetched theory to stay afloat, no?

On the subject of Fourth Man With Remorse, Cindy wrote:

You see, Fourth Man with Remorse is just, well . . . forgive me, but . . . it's kinda lame. I mean, how can Avery possibly have remorse? He apparated to the graveyard, for heaven's sake.

Well, let's take a look and see what his options were, shall we?

1) Not apparating to the graveyard when the Dark Mark burned, but instead staying home and reading a nice book.

"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it? And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"

I think it safe to assume that any of the DEs who didn't apparate to the graveyard that night, and who don't manage to provide some very compelling excuse for their absence, are very likely going to wind up as walking targets. They're dead men. And while Avery may be remorseful, he is certainly not courageous. If he were a courageous individual, then he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place, now, would he?

Everyone who thinks that the Death Eaters are in the habit of granting their traitors clean and painless deaths, raise your hands!

No. I don't think so either.

2) Not apparating to the graveyard and instead fleeing into hiding.

The Karkaroff approach. But at least Karkaroff has an Unplottable school that he might try to hide in. Where's Avery going to go? He's mystically linked to both Voldemort and to his fellow DEs. I think that if they really wanted to find him, they'd find him.

3) Turning himself in to the Ministry at once, explaining the situation, and hoping that Azkaban might protect him from Voldemort's wrath.

Even assuming that it did, he'd still be dead of the dementors in a matter of years. If he's truly remorseful, as Fourth Man With Remorse claims, then make that a matter of months. Does Fourth Man With Remorse really want to spend his very last wretched months on this earth reliving the torture of the Longbottoms in vivid color and Sensaround Sound? Oh, I don't think so.

4) Drawing himself a nice hot bath and slitting his wrists.

A very tempting option, I suspect, but it does bring us right back to that pesky little "too cowardly to die" problem.

5) Going to the graveyard and taking his chances.

Yeah. So Avery went for option (5). It doesn't mean that he doesn't feel Remorse. It just means that he's a coward. But surely we were all already agreed on that point, weren't we?

And as I established above, no one in the wizarding world has any idea what proper remorse is. Remorse is not returning to the side of Evil the first time you get a Dark Mark hot flash, throwing yourself to the ground to beg forgiveness for not being Evil enough for the last decade, tolerating a few seconds of Crucio, and then continuing right along in your Evil old ways.

Remorse isn't the same thing as "atonement." One can certainly feel genuine remorse and yet prove too weak or too frightened to act upon it. Taking heroic action to redeem oneself would indeed be the admirable response, but Fourth Man With Remorse isn'tadmirable. He's just remorseful.

Eileen wrote:

Remorse is not incompatible with ending up with Voldemort again. In fact, if you believe us "Remorse" people, that's Avery's defining characteristic. He keeps getting out of it, and then being pulled back in. He probably hates himself, and keeps quavering between continuing his evil ways and turning himself in. And he does seem guilty when he's talking to Voldemort, no?

He sure does! Voldemort starts talking ideological impurity, and Avery just goes all to pieces. If he were genuinely loyal to the DE cause, then why would he have chosen that very moment to Crack? He snaps, you will recall, right after Voldemort suggests that perhaps some of his DEs "now pay allegiance to another." Why would that have got to him so much, if he hadn't at least internally changed his allegiance at some point over the past decade?

It Just Makes Sense, Cindy! Fourth Man With Remorse Just Makes Sense!

And Eileen's right about the Big Bangs too, you know. Fourth Man With Remorse really does offer better opportunities for Big Banginess than No-Frills Fourth Man does. Just think of the weeping! (Or do you only enjoy weeping when you can manage to force Snape to indulge in it?)

But I guess that I'm willing to allow all you No-Frills people to balk at attributing Remorse to the Fourth Man, if you really want to.

(Incidentally, has anyone but me noticed that all of the No-Frills people are also members in good standing of the Order of the Flying Hedgehog? Just as the SYCOPHANTS all favor their Fourth Man with some side-helping of Remorse? It's just disgusting, isn't it? I mean, we're all so grotesquely predictable!)

Cindy:

Although I'm always willing to be persuaded that Fourth Man with Remorse can be spared from walking the plank. Do kayaks even have planks?

Kayaks don't. But do hovercraft?

Um, let's not install a plank, shall we?

<Elkins glances nervously out at the Good Ship LOLLIPOPS>

I've some very bad memories involving planks.

About Fourth Man With Innocence, Cindy wrote:

I beg your pardon? Do you mean that Avery is innocent because he couldn't muster the strength to actually aim his own wand directly at Frank Longbottom? Avery's Crucio curses were pinging off the walls or something, so that makes it OK?

No, no, no! (Although that would be pretty funny, in a sick FEATHERBOASish sort of way.) But according to Fourth Man With Innocence, Avery wasn't even in on the plot to restore Voldemort to power! He wasn't anywhere near the place, he knew nothing about it until after his arrest, he would have been horrified if he had known anything about it, and the only reason that he was apprehended by the Aurors in the first place was an assumption of guilt based on his association with the Lestranges. He was unjustly accused, and since he never received a fair trial, unjustly convicted as well — and so the eventual reversal of his sentence did indeed represent a triumph of legal fairness over prejudicial conviction.

Alas, not one person has yet expressed the slightest inclination to pick up one of the Fourth Man With Innocence paddles we've got lying around here in this kayak, so perhaps Cindy's got a point about it after all. Still, I am loathe to chuck out Fourth Man With Innocence altogether. The possibility still exists that someone—perhaps someone with an even more badly hemorrhaging heart than I myself possess—will someday want to espouse it, and when that person comes along, we'll have a Fourth Man With Innocence paddle all ready and waiting for them.

Not, of course, that we're going to need paddles, once we get ourselves a hovercraft. But I'm tired of badges. And the paddles can double as a means of self-defense...

<Elkins notices Avery's hand creeping towards a Fourth Man With Innocence paddle and slaps it away irritably.>

No, Avery. Some of us here may sympathize with your plight, but I'm afraid that not a one of us really believes a single word of that story of yours. Sorry.

—Elkins, hoping that once we've got a hovercraft, Jake will indeed bring the refreshments, as while she may indeed be a bit of an offender in the OT department, she has yet to develop a taste for Spam.