(continued from part six)
Seven
Through A Glass, Darkly
Elkins sits at her computer, trying to think of how to construct the TBAY opening of part seven of her Crouch post. She tries to remember where she last left TBAY!Elkins, TBAY!Eileen, TBAY!Cindy.
She is finding it hard to concentrate. It is early morning, the time of day when it is most difficult for her to see the text on her computer monitor at all clearly. The morning sunlight casts the screen into shadow. When she looks at her computer, Elkins cannot see much of anything beyond her own reflection, her own face staring back at her from out the glass.
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"Elkins" is not Elkins' real name.
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"But this is also a misrecognition in another sense: I recognize the "miss", the gap between my self and my image, and, in doing so, I am alienated from myself. Once again, I create a self before the mirror: this time, in the sense that I stand before it, to create this uncanny double outside of myself, which is me."
—Jacques Lacan [1]
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"You see Barty Jr. as a mirror to his father," says Eileen, staring up at Elkins, who looks unusually drawn and haggard high upon her pale horse.
Elkins nods. She smiles strangely.
"Hypocrites," she says. "Really shouldn't go messing around with mirrors."
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Hypocrites should not mess with mirrors.
I see Barty Jr. as a mirror to his father, a relationship which is emphasized by their shared name. He is his father's negative: light to his dark, youth to his age, weak to his strong, reactive to his active, submissive to his dominant, receptive to his projective. To the extent that he physically resembles his mother, and to the extent that he so often seems to be playing a kind of dark rendition of the Sleeping Beauty myth—always waiting in bondage or otherwise dormant for some powerful male icon to come along to release him, to "awaken" him—we might also say that he is feminine to his father's masculine. He is his father's reflection, moon to his sun. He is Crouch's shadow self, who expresses and makes manifest those desires to which Crouch himself cannot admit.
On one level, Barty Junior is a disobedient son. On another, however, he is anything but. He is dutiful, in that he reflects his father's suppressed desires.
Crouch Sr. upholds himself as an enemy of Dark Wizardry. On the conscious level he does not want Voldemort to return. But on another level, he would like nothing better, because his political fortunes are invested in the atmosphere of hatred, fear and paranoia that Voldemort represents. Crouch's hidden desire for Voldemort's return is acted upon by his son, who consciously tries to restore Voldemort to power.
Crouch exerts his will to bend others to his own desires and to force them to subsume their identities into his own. He casts memory charms, he uses the Imperius Curse, he dominates his slaves and his children, he demands obedience. He gives orders.
His son cites as his greatest ambition the desire to serve. He subsumes his identity into that of other people: he adopts others' personae, he acts on other people's desires. He falls prey to Imperius, to dementor madness, to veritaserum. He follows orders.
Crouch used the Aurors as tools to facilitate his own rise to power.
His son impersonates an Auror in order to become a tool to facilitate another's rise to power.
Crouch authorized others to use the Unforgivable Curses; he also used them himself, but only in secret.
His son first uses them illegally, and then, as Moody, openly, with the authorization of another.
When faced with an unbearable situation, Crouch retreats into an idealized fantasy of a vanished past.
His son retreats into an idealized fantasy of a vanished future.
Crouch professes his desire to bring Dark Wizards to justice, while privately allowing them to escape the consequences of their own actions.
His son escapes the consequences of his own actions, while professing his desire to see others forced to pay for their misdeeds.
Crouch served the evil that Voldemort represents, while claiming himself to be opposed to it; eventually he is forced unwittingly to serve.
His son swore his loyalty to Voldemort, yet by unwittingly thwarting his father's political schemes, saved the wizarding world from a restoration of the evil that Voldemort stands to represent.
Crouch tells lies that he desperately tries to believe to be the truth.
His son never once accepts his own masquerade as the truth, yet even within it, remains peculiarly honest.
Crouch merely pretends to be a fanatic.
His son really is one
Crouch's son is his hypocrisy made manifest.
And Crouch himself cannot bear the sight of it. He tries to cut himself off from it at the sentencing, by denying his relationship to it. He tries to renounce it, he tries to shut it away. In the end, however, he cannot sever himself from his shadow self. Instead, he brings it back home, to keep it close yet hidden, in plain sight and yet obscured from view. Because he cannot rid himself of his other half, he tries instead to sublimate it. In his confession, Barty Jr. will say: "Then I had to be concealed. I had to be controlled." The language is suggestive. It is how people speak of their darker impulses, their forbidden desires. They must be contained. They must be concealed. They must be controlled.
But in the end, Crouch's darker impulses cannot be concealed, and they cannot be controlled. Invisibility Cloak, Imperius Curse, locked indoors, guarded by Winky -- none of it suffices. Crouch's ugly secret is always on the verge of exposure. Bertha Jorkins discovers it. It escapes at the QWC. It is nearly uncovered by Amos Diggory and Arthur Weasley.
Eventually it breaks free altogether. Crouch and his son, image and reflection, trade places. Crouch passes through the looking glass to become himself the reflection, the moon to Voldemort's sun, the secret that must be concealed, controlled, hidden from view, ultimately buried. His son emerges from the mirror to become the active agent, the image; he walks out into the light and into the world, to act in his father's stead, carrying his father's name.
In the end, Crouch Jr. becomes what all sublimated shadow selves eventually become.
He becomes the law of the mirror.
He becomes Nemesis.
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"Crouch Sr. wanted to make the world his mirror," Elkins says. "Or perhaps his hall of mirrors, an endless corridor of looking glasses that would reflect nothing but his own wishes and desires right back at him. He wanted to make the world his Mirror of Erised, showing him nothing but what he most wanted to be. But there was something very important that he forgot. Something about the nature of mirrors."
"That the mirror always reverses that which it reflects," whispers Eileen.
Elkins nods. "Mirrors are always dangerous. Broken mirrors most of all. But they are particularly dangerous for people who aren't honest with themselves. For people who try to live a lie. Who aren't what they pretend to be. They are particularly dangerous," she says. "For hypocrites. Hypocrites, and people whose motives are not pure. We learned that all the way back at the end of PS/SS, didn't we? That men with two faces would do well to stay away from mirrors?
"Oh," Elkins mutters to herself in a low rapid whisper. "Oh, Crouch should not have forgotten that. He should not have forgotten that. He really should not have forgotten that about mirrors."
Cindy and Eileen exchange worried glances.
"In fact," says Elkins. "Neither of them should have, should they? Neither of the Crouches should have forgotten about mirrors. Why didn't Barty Jr. think to look in that Foe-Glass of his? Was there something there that he couldn't face? Something that he was afraid he might see? There's a very fine line between a Mirror of Erised and a Foe-Glass, you know. Sometimes it's hard even to tell the difference between them."
"Elkins," whispers Eileen.
"'For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.'"
"Elkins, please stop this," says Eileen. "You're beginning to scare me."
Elkins blinks. "Am I?" she asks.
Eileen nods. "A little bit," she says. "Just a little."
Elkins looks down at her. "Do you want to know what scares me, Eileen?"
"I—"
"Bulging eyes. Bulging eyes scare me."
"Bulging eyes?" repeats Cindy blankly.
Elkins nods. She reaches into her satchel and pulls out her copy of GoF. She hands it down to Cindy.
"Read it," she says. "The passage is marked."
Cindy opens the book to the marked page. She looks down at it. She begins to read:
'I will be his dearest, his closest supporter....closer than a son....'
Moody's normal eye was bulging, the magical eye fixed upon Harry. The door was barred, and Harry knew he would never reach his own wand in time....
Cindy looks up at Elkins, who nods sickly.
"That's the only place in the entire novel where Moody's eye is ever described as 'bulging,'" she says. "Either of his two eyes. Ever. I know." She looks down at Cindy and Eileen, her eyes large and troubled behind her glasses. "I know," she says, in a small voice. "I checked."
There is a short silence.
"Twice," she adds, in an even smaller voice.
"Elkins—" Cindy begins.
Elkins shakes herself, then continues rapidly: "It's not a word that JKR uses to describe eyes all that often. She hardly ever uses it at all, in fact. Once to refer to Filch. Once to refer to a dragon's eye. No place else. Except, of course, when they belong to Crouch."
"Or to his son," points out Eileen.
"Except when they belong to Bartemius Crouch. Why didn't he look in the Foe-Glass? What was he afraid that he might see in there? 'I'm not really in trouble until I see the whites of their eyes,' he told Harry. And he was right about that, wasn't he? The eyes were what he should have watched out for. That's when he was really in trouble.
"'You did not conquer him - and now - I conquer you!' That's the last thing that Crouch Jr. says under his own volition, you know. In a sense, those are his last words. Conquest," Elkins repeats despairingly. "Conquest, and the law of the mirror. Crouch through the looking glass. Reversal complete. In the end, you know," she says. "In the end, he truly was his father's son. Do you know what the best thing about being adopted is?"
Eileen blinks. "The, uh. The what?" she asks.
"The best thing about being adopted," Elkins tells her. "Is that you can make it to the age of thirty, and still be able to look in the mirror without flinching."
There is a short silence.
"Well...sometimes," amends Elkins. "Sometimes you can. But that's what scares me, Eileen. Bulging eyes. Bulging eyes...and mirrors. And people who try to make other people into their mirrors. They scare me the most of all."
"And that's how you view Crouch?"
"And that's how I view Crouch."
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"If you accuse my elf, you accuse me, Diggory!"
I read Crouch as solipsist, or perhaps a narcissist: as someone who only recognizes other people as extensions of himself. I see that as his hamartia, and that also as his primary thematic role in the text. He stands for the denial of individuality and the negation of the volition of others. He stands as the agent of identity loss, the ultimate antithesis of choice. In this respect, I see Crouch as thematically tied to the House Elf subplot, to Harry's separation from his parental protections, and also to the running motif of the Unforgivable Curses, those spells which exist to strip an individual of the capacity for personal volition. Ultimately, Crouch Sr. is a personification of soul murder: he is the Dementor's Kiss.
This aspect of Crouch's character manifests itself in a number of different ways. We see it in his insistence on naming his son after himself. We see it in his apparent inability to remember Percy's name. We see it in his denial of human rights, in his fondness for the UCs, and in his penchant for casting magics of mental domination on others. He places Bertha Jorkins under a memory charm. He places his son under the Imperius Curse. He renounces both Winky and his son for the same crime: the crime of disobedience. And I think that we see it also in his obsession with his public image, his obsession with how he is perceived by others, with how he is reflected.
Crouch views other people as mirrors to himself; he looks to his reflection in their eyes to know what he truly is. When the reflection that he sees there does not match what he wants to be, he becomes angry and lashes out. He tries to banish the faulty mirror from his sight or alternatively, to force the mirror to show him as he wants so very badly to be seen.
I think that we see this in his treatment of both Winky and Bertha Jorkins. But most of all, I'd say that we see it in his appalling treatment of his son.
=======================================
"You're always going on about that," objects Eileen. "About how Crouch treated his son. What on earth was so appalling about the way he treated Barty Jr.?"
Elkins stares at her.
"Are you joking?" she asks.
"No, I'm not joking! He saved his son's life, didn't he? What's so terrible about that?"
"I'd like to know too, Elkins," says Cindy. "You said something like this all the way back in February, and I didn't get it then, either. I have to admit that being imprisoned for over a decade by your dad and a house elf isn't exactly a walk on the beach, but I also didn't hear Crouch Jr. complaining about it."
"Didn't you?" demands Elkins. "I did. In his confession, he tells Dumbledore that his father left his mother to die in his place in solitary confinement in a cell in Azkaban, reliving the worst memories of her life, and then to be buried on the prison grounds by Dementors. And his editorial comment on that? 'He loved her as he had never loved me.' What does that tell you about how young Bartemius himself must have viewed his treatment at his father's hands?"
"Crouch Jr. should be thanking his dad for bailing him out of Azkaban," says Cindy angrily. "Crouch Sr. risked what was left of his tattered reputation to sneak Crouch Jr. out of Azkaban. And how does Crouch Jr. repay the favor? By killing his dad."
"No less than Crouch deserved," snarls Elkins.
"Elkins!" Eileen cries. "How can you say that? Crouch got more than anyone deserves. The punishment exceeded the crime."
"The punishment did not exceed the crime!" yells Elkins. "It didn't even come close! It was a slap on the wrist! Parole! A furlong! A... a... a... a... a parking ticket!"
"What? What is wrong with you? Just look at what happened to the poor man, will you? To start off tamely, he lost his power and reputation. He lost his family, in different manners, his wife, his son, Winky. I mean, he just lost everything. And then—"
"Everything?" Elkins shakes her head. "No, Eileen," she says, dangerously quietly. "No. Not everything. That. Was his son. His son was the one who lost everything. What Crouch himself lost? What Crouch lost was nothing that the world would greatly miss."
Eileen stares at her. "This isn't like you," she says.
"Crouch got what he had coming to him."
"This isn't like you. This—"
"Really, Elkins," Cindy says, frowning. "What did Crouch Sr. do to deserve his unfortunate transfiguration into a bone, other than show mercy to his no-account, good-for-nothing, disgrace-to-the-family-name offspring?"
"What did he do?" Elkins repeats, her voice rising. "What did he DO? Are you serious? Did we even read the same book here? He—"
"Being under Imperius curse was a heap nicer than Azkaban," says Eileen, reading directly from her CRAB CUSTARD manifesto. "Especially since he was guilty."
"Was it? You think so? You think so, do you? Well. For one thing," Elkins tells her furiously. "Crouch Jr. wouldn't have been suffering in Azkaban for very much longer, would he? He would have been dead. Which given what eventually happened to him, would have been a mercy. But even assuming that the choice there really had been one between suffering further in prison or accepting subjugation to his father's will..."
"Yes?"
"Well." Elkins says tightly. "Voldemort gives Harry that very same choice in the graveyard, doesn't he? He tortures him, and then he tries to use Imperius to force Harry to beg him for surcease. To ask to be spared further suffering. We see Harry offered that choice: the pleasant blissful surrendering to another's hostile will, or torment and death on his own terms. And with his own volition still intact. What is easy. Or what is right. Harry chooses the latter. No, Eileen," Elkins spits. "No. What Crouch did to his son was not 'heaps nicer than Azkaban.' It was not 'heaps nicer' than anything. It was not nice at all. It was Unforgivable."
"Barty Jr.," Eileen begins crossly. "Was an ungrateful—"
"UNGRATEFUL?!" Elkins screams. She kicks savagely at her hobby horse, which snorts and charges right for Eileen's CRAB CUSTARD table. Eileen yelps and throws herself to one side, dodging the flying paper cups and plastic spoons which fly into the air as the table crashes to one side.
"UNGRATEFUL?" Elkins shrieks, reaching down as her horse thunders past to grab Eileen by her featherboas. "UNGRATEFUL?"
"Ecki..." gasps Eileen, clutching at her neck as she is dragged along behind Elkins' horse. "Elki..."
"Elkins!" Cindy says sharply. "No dragging!"
Elkins snarls something incoherent and pulls her horse to an abrupt halt. She looks down at Eileen, who is scrambling to get her legs under her and clawing wildly at her featherboas.
"No dragging, no drawing, and absolutely no throttling!" says Cindy sternly. "It's all right here in the rulebook." She waves her TBAY Rulebook menacingly in the air. Elkins narrows her eyes, then drops the end of Eileen's featherboa. Eileen falls to the ground, gasping.
"Ungrateful," Elkins repeats, glaring down at her. "Ungrateful. Have you ever given any thought to the precise manner in which Crouch chose to imprison his son, Eileen? Have you? Have you?"
Eileen coughs weakly.
"No trampling either, Elkins," cautions Cindy. "Just so you know."
"Crouch Jr. was always with Winky," Elkins says, ignoring her. "He was permitted to speak to no one else. He was to remain under an Invisibility Cloak night and day. Night. And. Day. In other words, he was compelled to sleep in it. But he was also kept in public areas of the house, wasn't he? Right out in the open, where visitors like Bertha Jorkins could hear him, where he could be on hand to witness Voldemort and Pettigrew's arrival at the front door. Public areas of the house. In full view, and yet invisible. Capable of standing at the door, but never of opening it. Allowed to hang around right in front of the windows, right in the public areas of the house in his Invisibility Cloak, but actually permitted out of doors rarely enough that it had been years since he had been outside when he was taken to the QWC. Years."
"I—" Eileen gasps, then starts coughing again.
"He was occasionally granted rewards for good behavior," continues Elkins. "Except that actually, 'rewards' isn't the word that he first thinks to use to describe them, now, is it? The first word that he uses in his confession is 'treats.' Treats," she spits. "Sometimes a single word really can speak volumes, can't it? 'Treats.' Infantalizing. Degrading. Dehumanizing, even: treats are what you give to dogs, aren't they? What you give to dogs as a reward when they sit up and beg. Even under the veritaserum, Crouch himself seems to realize that the word is far too revelatory. Too humiliating. He corrects himself almost instantly, changing it to 'rewards for good behavior.' Far more dignified, that. Rewards for good behavior are what prisoners get, after all. But it's not the first word that he thinks to use, now, is it? That word," she snarls. "Is treats."
"Well, really, Elkins," begins Cindy. "He—"
"And then," Elkins continues, now literally shaking with rage. "And then, of course, and then, and then there's that Imperius Curse. Weren't we talking a while back, Eileen, about the closest real life analogue to the Imperius Curse? I seem to remember that we thought that it would probably be drugs, didn't we? Drugs that sap the will? Drugs that render people unusually pliable? Unusually suggestible? Hypnotic agents?"
Eileen, still gulping air, nods weakly.
"For heaven's sake, doesn't this combination of factors suggest anything to anyone other than me?" demands Elkins furiously. "Am I really the only person in the entire universe who read the book this way? Presumed dead. Social isolation. Denied sunlight. 24 hour surveillance. Infantilizing language. Degrading treatment. In plain sight, but made invisible. Rewards granted for compliance -- and presumably, by the same token, withheld in response to defiance. Hypnotic agents.
"What does that combination of factors remind you of?" she yells down at Eileen, who flinches. "What does it suggest to you, O fellow lover of Solzenitsyn?"
Eileen stares at her.
"ANSWER ME!" screams Elkins, now looking quite mad. "What. Does. That. SOUND like to you?"
"It sounds like brainwashing," says Cindy quietly, from behind her.
Elkins whirls around in her saddle.
"YES!" she screams. "Thank you! Yes! That's precisely what it sounds like! Crouch wasn't just keeping his son a prisoner. He was attempting indoctrination."
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From the instant that Crouch Jr. described his treatment as his father's prisoner in the veritaserum scene, I instinctively read it as an attempt at indoctrination. Every single thing that we learn about how Crouch saw fit to keep his son seems to me to point unerringly in that direction. Imperius. Invisibility Cloak, yet kept in public view. Presumed dead. Permitted to speak to no one. Watched night and day. Denied sunlight. Denied solitude. Given rewards for good behavior, rewards which went by the degrading name of 'treats.' Encouraged to view his two captors in the dual roles of Merciful Intercessor and Strict Disciplinarian. Frankly, I'm surprised that Crouch didn't think to shave his son's head. It would have been in keeping with everything else that we hear about how he chose to treat his son after he learned that he was unrepentent, all of which reads to me like a textbook case of a direct and deliberate assault on a captive's sense of identity, on his sense of self.
Crouch kept his son in a public part of the house, in full sight and yet unseen, a circumstance that necessitated that Crouch Jr remain covered by an Invisibility Cloak at all times. "Night and day," which means that he must also have been forced to sleep in it. Why? For that matter, why was he kept in a public part of the house at all? The house elves can teleport. Winky could have helped to care for young Crouch no matter where he had been stationed, and it would have been far safer to keep him in a locked and warded room or wing, not somewhere where any visitor to the house, like Bertha Jorkins, could have stumbled across him. Crouch had a house elf. House elves come with manors and mansions, large houses. Are we to believe that he couldn't have found someplace else for his son to live, or at the very least to sleep nights? A suite without windows? A cellar? An attic?
Why was it necessary for Crouch Jr. to wear an Invisibility Cloak "night and day?" Why have him sleep in the thing? Why keep him in public areas of the house?
Crouch kept his son in a public part of the house, in full sight and yet unseen, even while he slept, in order to make him not only be invisible, but also feel invisible. To turn him into an Unperson. To erode his sense of self. To subvert his sense of identity. To break his will. To turn him into an empty shell, a receptacle ready and waiting to be filled up with whatever it pleased his father to pour back into him.
The dissociated young Crouch that we see in canon is in large part a creation of his father. The reason that he is able to assume another's identity well enough to fool even Dumbledore is because he has precious little left of his own. His father spent over a decade systematically stripping him of his own identity, trying to empty him, to make him hollow, in the hopes of filling him back up with his own essence, of turning his son into a different kind of mirror: a mirror that for once would not reverse that which it reflected, a mirror that Crouch himself would not flinch to look upon.
But he only partially succeeded. The Crouch Jr. that we see in canon is a reflective surface, and he is hollow. But the father that he has invited into himself to fill the void of his raped personal identity is not Barty Senior. Instead, it is Voldemort.
In the end, the metaphor reaches its full completion. Barty Jr. is dementor-kissed. He becomes fully hollow; he loses his very soul.
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"Don't ask me to pity Crouch, Eileen," Elkins says in a low shaking voice. "I don't pity him. The man set out to destroy his son's sense of self. Ruthlessly. Deliberately. Methodically. He forged the blade that killed him. He did it with his own two hands. It took him ten years, but he did it. He managed it in the end."
There is silence.
"But Elkins," Eileen says quietly. "He repents."
Elkins stares at her for a long, long moment, then turns away.
"I don't care," she mutters.
"He repents. He sees his sin, and he—"
"I don't care! That man tried to destroy another person's capacity for volition, Eileen! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"But he gets a redemption scene!" wails Eileen. "You can't deny that the text invites us to sympathize with him there, can you? Just look at what David wrote, back in Message 38368! He said:
However, I would suggest that Crouch Sr's final attempts to reach Dumbledore are a textbook case of redemption. The word originally related to buying freedom from slavery, either for yourself or for another, and then came to be applied religiously. He has seen the error of his ways and strives to make restitution. He struggles against the bondage that his own actions have placed him in, and begins to break free. If this were a Christian allegory (I don't believe it is), the angels would be rejoicing in heaven.
"Angels?" Elkins repeats incredulously. "Angels rejoicing in heaven? Oh, no." She shakes her head. "No, no, no, no, no. Some things are just not that cheaply paid for, Eileen."
"But...but...but Elkins, you love redemption scenarios. You adore Snape, you plump for RedeemedInDeath!Pettigrew, you invented Redeemable!Avery. You've even taken Redeemable!Draco out for a waltz a few times. I've seen you do it. And now you have a character who actually gets a redemption scene, right there in the canon, and you remain utterly unmoved? I just can't believe that. It's—"
"What part. Of Unforgivable. Do you not understand?" yells Elkins. "Crouch set out to destroy another person's individuality. He set out to destroy someone else's personhood. And he did it on purpose. For no other reason than the desire to make somebody else into his mirror. That is not something that I forgive. That is not something that anyone should forgive. Ever. That is simply foul. It is unspeakable. It is Anathema. It. Is. Abomination."
Cindy and Eileen both stare at her.
"And when Barty Jr catches up to his father there in the Forbidden Forest," Elkins continues, a febrile light in her eyes. "Do you think what happens next is murder? Do you think that Crouch Jr. is a parricide? He is not. He is not. He has become something more than that. Something far greater. Not murder. Not parricide. Not vengeance. Not justice. Not even dramatic irony. Something related to all of those things, but older, much older. Something older, something colder, something ancient, possibly even something sacred. The law of the mirror. Nemesis. He has become Nemesis."
"This isn't like you at all," whispers Eileen.
"Nemesis. What you get when you sow the wind. And Mr. Crouch certainly did sow it, didn't he. He sowed it well."
"But—"
"But in the end," Elkins says bitterly. "He still wins. Doesn't he. Old Crouch strikes from beyond the grave. Because you can't really kill Barty Crouch, just like you can't really kill Voldemort. How can you kill the lust for dominion? How can you kill the desire to force other people to be what you want them to be? How can you kill disregard for others? How can you kill narcissism? How can you kill the powers of coercion? How can you kill Evil itself? You can't, can you? It just keeps right on coming back. Crouch wanted to suck his son's soul right out of his body. That's precisely what he wanted to do to him. He didn't live long enough to manage it completely, but that didn't matter in the end, did it, because his literary double Cornelius Fudge just stepped right up to take his place. Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss. Crouch's literary double steps right in with his dementor in the end to finish the job that Crouch had begun. So really, in the end, Crouch won. In the end, he got exactly what he wanted for his son. Identity loss. Soul murder. Worse. Than. Death."
Elkins sits back in her saddle, breathing hard.
"Don't ask me to pity Crouch," she spits. "Don't ask me to sympathize with him. Don't ask me to like him. And don't talk to me about angels. Not unless you mean avenging angels. Don't tell me that the text invites our sympathies with him. There is nothing to sympathize with when it comes to Barty Crouch Sr. He is identity loss personified. He is soul murder. He is the Dementor's Kiss. He is Evil Incarnate."
There is a very long silence.
"Elkins," says Cindy quietly. "What is that horse that you're riding?"
Elkins blinks. "What?" she asks.
"Your horse, Elkins. What is its name?"
"It..." Elkins shifts uneasily. "It doesn't have a—"
"I could have sworn that I saw her up on that high horse during the Twins thread this past summer as well," says Eileen, frowning.
"And during a Prank discussion shortly after her delurk," says Cindy grimly. She strides towards the horse. "It has a name tag..." Elkins lunges forward, throwing herself across her horse's neck.
"No!" she cries, trying to cover up the name tag with her hands. "No! It doesn't have a name. It doesn't...Ow!" she cries, as Cindy starts slapping her hands irritably away. "Ow! Ow, Cindy! Stop that! It's—"
"HAH!" cries Cindy savagely. "I KNEW it!" She turns the name tag around so that Eileen can read it.
AFFECTIVE FALLACY
is what it says.
"Elkins!" gasps Eileen, shocked. "Get down from there!"
"No!" screams Elkins, wrapping both her arms and her legs around her Affective Fallacy. "No! No! No!"
"Elkins, how could you? You know that's one of the three Unforgivable Fallacies!" [2]
"Only in the New Criticism!" cries Elkins. "It's perfectly legal in Reader Response! Nooo!" she screams, as Cindy grabs her by the collar and begins hauling her out of her saddle. "No! No! No! No!"
Cindy tosses her roughly to the ground, then slaps Affective Fallacy on the rump.
"Go on," she tells it. "Get out of here."
The horse snorts, and then lopes off down to the beach, where a group of shippers instantly get into a shoving match over who will get to ride it next.
Cindy shakes her head and looks down at Elkins, who is curled in fetal position on the promenade, sobbing weakly.
"Hope that helps," she says.
Eileen sighs and rubs wearily at one temple. "Elkins," she says reprovingly. "You know that the Affective Fallacy Is Not Fair Play."
"But nobody can separate their autobiographical experiences from their reading of the text, Eileen," wails Elkins. "Nobody can divorce their emotional responses from their discussion of the narrative! Nobody can! It's just not possible! We all view the text through the lenses of our own personal experience. It's the only way that we can view it. Whenever we read, we're always seeing the text that way. We can see it only through a glass. Through a glass, darkly."
"Oh, I know," sighs Eileen. "I know that, Elkins. But it's generally considered good form to warn the reader about your Affective Fallacy, you know, so that—"
Elkins stares up at her pointedly, her eyes rimmed with red. Eileen blinks.
"Oh," she says.
"Left it a little late, didn't you?" asks Cindy, glancing up to the subject line blazoned across the sky.
"Not to anyone who's really been paying attention." Elkins sniffs and wipes her nose on her sleeve. "I did put the CRABCUSTARD part first, didn't I? I told you there was bias. I told you there was emotion. I told you there was personal identification. I told you there was autobiographical congruence. I played it fair. I did!"
"Well, okay, Elkins," says Eileen. "Okay. But now that you're down off of that fallacy of yours, you can't honestly deny that the text invites our sympathies with Crouch, can you? I mean..."
"Oh, of COURSE the text invites our sympathies with him!" screams Elkins. "Man gets a redemption scene, doesn't he?"
Eileen rocks back on her heels and smirks unbecomingly at Cindy.
"Told you," she says.
Cindy mutters something under her breath.
"Cindy said it wasn't a real redemption scene," Eileen tells Elkins.
"What?" Elkins shakes her head. "Oh, don't be silly. Of course it is. Althooough..." She looks up, a somewhat cruel smile on her face.
"Although," she says softly. "I could argue against Redeemed In Death Crouch, you know. If I wanted to. I could make that argument. I seriously considered it once. Back in September. I did think about it."
"Yes," says Eileen quietly. "I thought that you might have. You see, I've noticed that Affective Fallacy of yours before."
"Have you? Yes. Well. You see, if I wanted to argue against Crouch's redemption, then I suppose that I would ask you just this one little thing. Just one simple question." Elkins narrows her eyes. "Does he see his sin?" she asks. "Does Crouch ever see his sin?"
"Well, of course he—"
"Does he? Does he really? Does he comprehend its nature? Does he understand where he went wrong? Does he ever actually repent? You cited Crouch's hamartia as his refusal to recognize the autonomy of others, didn't you, Eileen? His disrespect for their independence. His refusal to treat them as people first and foremost. His belief that others should do as he disposed them."
"Yes," says Eileen. "I—"
"All right. Well, then. Are there any indications that he's actually repented of any of that in his last scene? Any indications at all? He knows that he's in trouble, certainly. He knows that the world is in peril, and that it's in some sense his fault. But does he actually comprehend the nature of his crimes? Has he come to any real recognition of where he went wrong? Has he really? All that he actually says is that he has done a 'stupid thing.' Not wicked. Not evil. Not wrong. Just 'stupid.'"
Elkins chuckles softly. "Why, Mr. Crouch still just doesn't get it, does he?" she asks. "He thinks that all that he's committed is a tactical error! There's absolutely no sign of any real recognition of the nature of his wrong-doing there at all, is there? Nope. None. Just recognition of a strategic oversight. That's not repentence. That's the equivalent of only regretting that you committed a crime because you happened to get caught.
"And then," she continues, now really warming to her topic. "And then, when you look at the words that he actually uses, at his phrasing, they reveal that even in the midst of his passion, Mr. Crouch has not truly changed. He's still speaking of people in terms that deny their individuality. He speaks of them as possessions. He asks Harry: 'You're not...his?' And then he asks if Harry is 'Dumbledore's.' And he keeps giving orders. 'Don't leave me.' 'Go get Dumbledore.' He clutches onto Harry's robes so tightly that Harry can't even pry him free. If his hamartia is the belief that people should do as he disposes them, that he doesn't have to treat them as people first and foremost, then what does his behavior actually tell us about his spiritual condition? There's actually no sign of any new-found respect for individuality there at all, is there? No sign of any new-found recognition of others' autonomy. No sign that he's given up on expecting others to 'do as he disposes them.' Really, he doesn't seem to appreciate the nature of his sin at all, does he? No recognition at all of where he went wrong. No genuine repentence. Nope," Elkins concludes, with undeniable relish. "No, Crouch died in his sin, if you ask me. Oh, he was just mired in it, Eileen. Up to his very neck in hamartia. Absolutely steeped in moral error. Positively choking on perdition."
Elkins leans back with a satisfied smile on her face and lights a cigarette. She takes a long slow drag, exhales contentedly, then looks up to notice both Eileen and Cindy staring at her. Her smile falters. She sighs.
"Nah," she mutters. "Forget it. Crouch is okay. The angels can have him."
Eileen sidles up close to Cindy. "Do you think that Elkins is aware that she's not the one who gets to make those decisions?" she asks, in a low whisper.
Cindy shakes her head. "You know, I've often wondered that myself?" she whispers back.
"Besides," Elkins adds, ignoring them. "He really is heroic there at the end, isn't he? Even I can't quite help but admire him there. From the description of his condition, the implication seems to be that he's made his way all the way to Hogwarts on foot. Fighting the Imperius Curse every step of the way. Have you ever walked from England to Scotland? I have, and I can tell you: there are stretches of Northumbria that would break anyone's spirit. Even without the Imperius Curse to contend with. And he comes so close, doesn't he? He tries so hard, and he comes so close, just to get nailed right when his end is finally in sight. I mean, it's just terrible. The poor man."
"So you do sympathize with him!" cries Eileen.
"What, at the end there?" Elkins laughs. "You mean, when he's clutching Harry's knees and begging him 'Don't leave me?' When he's slipping into memories of days when his wife was still alive and he was proud of his son? When he keeps repeating over and over again that it's all his fault? When he's staggering and drooling all over himself in his effort to deliver his warning to Dumbledore? And then when, after all of that, he still fails? Oh, for heaven's sake, Eileen! What do you think? Of course I sympathize with him! Do you think that I have no soul, woman?"
Eileen opens her mouth, then closes it.
"I truly do hate Crouch, you know," Elkins tells her earnestly. "I think that in some ways he's the most convincing portrayal of human evil, of human monstrosity, that we've yet seen in the canon. He comes across to me as real evil, not just cartoon evil, like his nutty son, or like Voldemort. But at the end there? Well, come on. You know what an appalling bleeding heart I am. I even felt a little bit sorry for Voldemort in the graveyard, you know. When he was telling his Death Eaters that his disincorporated exile had been painful?"
"You felt sorry for him there," Cindy repeats flatly.
"Yeah, I did. I know, I know. It's just pathetic, isn't it? In the end, you know." Elkins pulls herself slowly to her feet. She shrugs helplessly. "In the end," she says. "I always feel sorry for everyone."
"Even Barty Crouch?"
"Yeah, even Crouch. But I still can't quite bring myself to like him, Eileen. I'm sorry. I just can't. He has the misfortune of being associated with all of the things that I happen to hate the very most in the world. Tyranny. Torture. Brainwashing. Coercion. Narcissism. The negation of volition. Ugh. Ugh. He's just horrible. He really is. And—"
"And he reminds you of your father," says Eileen.
"Well...of both my parents, really. But, yes. That too."
Eileen shakes her head. "Elkins," she says. "Is there something that you want to share with us about your parents?"
Elkins considers the question for a long moment.
"Eileen," she says finally. "Do you remember ages and ages ago, all the way back in January, when Cindy offered me that brandy and invited me to sit back and tell her all about exactly why I hate the Imperius Curse so much?"
Eileen nods. "Yes, I remember that," she says. "You started to tell some anecdote about your parents, and then you caught yourself and made that little joke about the brandy having been—"
She blinks.
"Having been, er," she finishes slowly. "Having been laced with veritaserum..."
"I thought the brandy made people bloodthirsty," says Cindy, frowning.
"No. Not at first," Eileen says. "That came later. In fact," she continues, now staring at Elkins as if she has never seen her before. "In fact, I'm pretty sure that it was Elkins who first shifted its meaning in that direction. Just like it was Elkins who first started harping on misdirection as being..." She blinks, then ducks down beneath her CRAB CUSTARD table, emerging a moment later with an old yellowed scroll. She unrolls it gingerly. "'Misdirection,' she quotes. 'The favored pasttime of so many notable SYCOPHANTS.'"
Elkins shrugs and looks away.
"Indirect means of expression," says Eileen, still staring at her. "Sly, sidelong, allusive..."
"Yet ultimately honest," Elkins reminds her. "If also...er." She glances down to the beach, where a group of Sirius and Snape fans are now clustered around Affective Fallacy, shoving at each other while Prank runs circles around them, barking hysterically. She sighs.
"If also often notably self-sabotaging," she concludes. No," she says. "No, you know what? I really don't want to tell you about my parents. Not even under a pseudonym. Not in front of the 5000 lurkers. And not in front of God. But I really do have a serious, uh, Affective Fallacy problem, let's just say, when it comes to Crouch. Not to mention the Imperius Curse. I just hate that Imperius Curse, you know. I really do. Just hate it. I'd rather take a tango with the Cruciatus."
"Would you really, Elkins?" asks Eileen.
"I, uh..." Elkins blinks at her. "What," she says. "You mean really? You mean, uh, like really really? Like, if somebody actually offered me the choice?" She laughs uneasily. "Aw, come on, Eileen. Cut me some slack here, will you? We can't all be sorted Gryffindor, you know. And besides," she adds. "The Crouch that I identify with is the son, remember? Not the father. And he failed that test. He failed it at his sentencing. He failed it when he begged his parents to save him."
"Well," says Cindy. "He didn't actually know that he was asking for the Imperius Curse, did he?"
"Literally? No. But symbolically? Metaphorically? Thematically?" Elkins sighs. "Yeah," she says. "Actually, I'd say that was exactly what he was doing. He was asking to be spared the consequences of his actions, wasn't he? He was pleading for parental intercession, like a child. And he wasn't just behaving like a child, either; he was also asking to be treated like a child. Like someone who isn't to be held fully accountable. Children get absolved of responsibility for many of their actions, but they're also denied full freedom of choice. And isn't that the Imperius Curse right there?
"So yeah," she concludes. "On the literal level, obviously Barty Jr. wasn't actually asking to be put under the Imperius Curse. But on the metaphoric level, I'd say that was exactly what he was asking for."
"And he got it," says Eileen.
"Well, of course he did." Elkins smiles. "Dramatic irony is a double-edged sword, isn't it? Nemesis cuts both ways. It's not the wishes that go unanswered that you really have to watch out for, you know. It's the wishes that get granted. That's part of what makes mirrors so very dangerous."
"Man!" exclaims Cindy. "Mirrors really do freak you out, don't they?"
"Yes," says Elkins shortly. "They do." She takes off her glasses and begins slowly polishing them on her sleeve. "You know," she says. "Barty Jr. in the Pensieve reminds me a great deal of Peter Pettigrew in the Shack, actually. When he finally breaks down completely, and suddenly the narrative voice starts quite explicitly marking him as regressed. As infantile. He's described as an overgrown baby. Or like Lockhart, stripped of his memories and reduced to a child-like state at the end of CoS. Or like all those DEs in the graveyard..."
"...who are Voldemort's erring sons," Eileen finishes for her.
Elkins nods. "It seems to be a common affliction among the series' secondary villains, doesn't it? To fail the test of maturity? I really don't think that's at all accidental. We talk a lot on the list, you know, about the extent to which the series is a 'genre soup,' but when push comes to shove..."
"It's a bildungsroman."
"Yeah. At heart, I'd say it's a bildungsroman. And Book Four is its midpoint. It's the turning point of the entire series. It ends with the chapter title 'the beginning.' It's the point at which Harry is fourteen years old. It's the point at which we first start to see his hormones really kicking in, the point at which romance subplots begin to take on some real importance. It's—"
"Adolescence," says Cindy.
"Yes. Adolescence. Harry's parental protections fail him one by one in Book Four. His legacy items consistently fail him. His godfather Sirius has no idea what's going on, and doesn't even manage to advise him on the First Task. His enemy can see through his Invisibility Cloak. The Marauder's Map leads him astray, and eventually lends aid to his enemy as well. At the end he loses even his mother's mystical protection against evil. It's also the first book in the series which does not end with some degree of emphasis on Harry's assumption of his parental legacy. No 'only a true Gryffindor...' No 'you are truly your father's son.' No 'James would have done the same.' None of that. Instead, Dumbledore congratulates him on having acquitted himself like an adult.
"And that's why I think that the parricide motif is so vitally important in GoF," explains Elkins. "It's why I view the entire Crouch subplot as so very important, really. Because as I see it, the Crouch family subplot focuses on developmental issues that are absolutely central to adolescence, as well as to GoF as a whole. They're just everywhere in GoF, down to the detail of having a sphinx standing in as the guardian at the end of the Third Task. It's why I think that the dangers facing Harry in Book Four seem to focus so very strongly on assaults not just on his life, but also on his very identity. The Unforgivable Curses are all about identity loss, really, aren't they? Ali said something like that a month or so ago, and I agree with her. She pointed out that the UCs all deny others the right of self-determination. The Imperius quite blatantly so, the AK quite terminally so—you don't get much less in the way of self-determination than you do when you're dead—and the Cruciatus..."
"Yes," says Cindy. "What about the Cruciatus?"
"Well, I think that the way that the Cruciatus Curse is actually presented, it does as well. It seems to me that what the text really emphasizes about the Cruciatus isn't that it causes pain, but that it has the capacity to strip its victims of their freedom of volition. We hear about it being used quite specifically for purposes of interrogation. We see Voldemort use it to try to break Harry's will. The true horror of the Cruciatus as it is presented, I'd say, resides in its ability to tempt people to say or do things that they would never ordinarily say or do, things like revealing secret information, things like begging their worst enemy for death. At its most extreme, as with the Longbottoms, it seems to cause madness and amnesia. In other words, identity loss. It seems to me that the text strongly emphasizes that as the real horror of the Cruciatus Curse. Not that it causes pain, but that it subverts human volition."
"So how does that relate to—"
"To adolescence? Well, isn't self-determination the test of adolescence? Standing on your own two feet? Accepting responsibility for your actions? Forging an independent sense of self? Individuation. All of which is tied to separation from your parents. Which in turn is thematically linked to...well, to parricide. Parricide is the unhealthy version of the healthy and necessary separation of adulthood. If there's a lesson to be learned from Crouch Jr, maybe it's that when it comes to parricide, an ounce of prevention really is worth a ton of cure. I did tell you, didn't I," Elkins asks, smiling. "That a little bit of parricide was a necessary thing?"
"In moderation," Eileen reminds her.
"In moderation. In principle. So long as you keep it in the realm of the symbolic. Or...you know." Elkins grins wickedly. "Or the vicarious."
"So you read Crouch Jr. as a cautionary tale of sorts then?" asks Eileen.
"If you had my Affective Fallacy," Elkins assures her gravely. "You'd be tempted to read him as a cautionary tale too. Trust me. But yes, I do think that he plays that role in the text, to some extent. He shows what can happen to you if you fail the test of adolescence, the test of individuation. The test that Harry passes in the graveyard. Because, you know, Crouch Jr. isn't just a double to Voldemort. And he's not just a double to his father. And he's not just..."
"A double to Neville Longbottom?" Eileen smiles. "Your Prince Renunciates?"
"And he's not just a double to Neville. Ultimately, I think that he really has to serve as a double to Harry. Because you know..."
"It's all about Harry."
"Well. Penultimately. Ultimately, it's all about us, really. It's all about the reader. Fiction is a reflective surface. But to the extent that the reader is Harry, yeah. It's all about Harry. And as for Crouch Sr..."
"Yes?"
"Well, he stands for the threat to individuation, doesn't he? In large part, he represents the challenge that Harry needs to learn to overcome. So really, in some ways, he's the Enemy of Book Four.
"And that's why I feel that while the text certainly does invite us to sympathize with Crouch there at the very end, while he's manfully trying to undo the damage that he has wrought, on another level I think that the text militates against sympathy with him. Because while Crouch the man is ultimately pitiable, and perhaps even in his own way admirable, Crouch's role in the text is to serve as the representative of the forces offering the temptation that Harry must learn to resist. Crouch offers the temptation of what is easy over what is right. It is easy to surrender your will to an authoritarian political leader. It is easy to allow yourself to be dominated by the desire to serve a charismatic master, or to impress a demanding employer, or to please a strong father figure. It is easy to let your parents protect and harbour and control you. It is easy to give way to the Imperius Curse.
"But it's not right," Elkins concludes. "The text invites our sympathy for those who have to face those choices. But it doesn't generally invite too much sympathy for those who offer the easy choices, I don't think. It seems to me that in these books, the powers that actually offer the easy choices are...well, they're usually the powers of Evil."
"Speak of the Devil," murmers Cindy.
"Speak of the Devil. Both of the Bartemii Crouch are really pretty diabolical, when it comes right down to it. But somehow in the end I just can't help but sympathize far more with the son than with the father."
"Yes," says Eileen, a bit crossly. "Well. Youth will be served, I suppose."
"All too often with a side of fries," agrees Elkins grimly. "And that's the other reason. In the end, I can never seem to keep from reading Crouch Sr. as so closely allied to the Dementors. Oral aggression. The Devouring Parent. Destruction that masquerades as affection. Soul murder that calls itself a 'Kiss.' The other alternative answer to the Third Task Sphinx's riddle."
She glances up at the CRAB CUSTARD banner and shudders helplessly.
"Which brings us back to those bulging eyes," she says.
"What is your deal with those eyes?" asks Cindy.
"You said that you'd tell us about them," Eileen reminds her.
"Did I?" Elkins sighs. "Well," she says. "I found it interesting when Eileen provided a .gif to a painting in her 'Crouch as Tragic Hero' post. Because Crouch Sr. has always reminded me of a painting, too. A completely different painting. A very specific painting. And it disturbs me. It really disturbs me a great deal."
Eileen frowns. "What painting?" she asks.
Elkins shakes her head from side to side. "Oh," she mutters, as if to herself. "Oh, but it's just coincidence, surely. It couldn't possibly have been intentional, could it? I doubt anyone else sees it there. It's just me, probably. It's just..."
Down on the beach, Affective Fallacy raises its head and pricks up its ears. It shakes its mane, dodges the die-hard opponent of Redeemable!Draco who has been trying to catch it, and begins loping up the slope to the promenade.
"Elkins," prompts Cindy. "What painting?"
"The very second time I read GoF," Elkins says. "My very first re-reading, I just kept flashing on it. Every time that JKR did that thing with Crouch and his bulging eyes. And now I can't seem to rid myself of it. It's become completely intrinsic to the way that I read that plotline. It's become completely intrinsic to the way that I read the entire novel, for that matter. It's..." She blinks, then looks down at the promenade from high up on the back of her Affective Fallacy.
"Oh." She frowns. "How did I get back up here?"
"Elkins. What painting?"
Elkins sighs.
"Goya," she says. "Saturn Devouring His Son."
**************
Elkins
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REFERENCES:
This post is continued from Part Six. It is primarily a response to messages #37476 (the "CRABCUSTARD Manifesto") and #45402 ("Crouch Sr as Tragic Hero"), but also cites or references message numbers 34232, 34496, 34519, 34579, 38368, 38398, 43326, 44258, 44636
[1] This Lacan quotation (and footnote) comes to you courtesy of Amy Z., who once signed off with the following:
Amy, who has a deliciously grim feeling that this thing is going to appear on the main list next week, grown to 48k and with footnotes and references to Lacan, courtesy of certain FAQers Who Must Not Be Named.
Happy to oblige, my dear. I actually know virtually nothing about Lacan, but I am always happy to yank a quotation completely out of context and then run with it. [back]
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[2] The Unforgivable Fallacies of the New Criticism
The 'New Criticism' was a highly influential school of formalist literary criticism that flourished in the early to middle 20th century. The New Critics posited that the text ought be viewed as an autonomous entity, and that historical, biographical, or sociological factors should not be considered relevant to its interpretion. New Criticism encourages a very strong focus on the text itself and frowns upon all which diverges from that focus.
The New Critics took particular issue with three violations of this philosophy. The "Three Unforgivable Fallacies" of the New Criticism are:
THE INTENTIONAL FALLACY
Confusing the author's relationship with the text, and particularly the dread "authorial intent," with the text itself.
(Gave critics a lot of trouble at one time, the Intentional Fallacy. Some job for the reader, trying to sort out what the author had really written, and what the author only meant to have written...)
THE AFFECTIVE FALLACY
Confusing the reader's relationship with the text, and particularly the emotional effect that the text has on an individual reader, with the text itself.
(You don't need the tools of literary analysis to wrest meaning from a text if you've got an Affective Fallacy.)
THE HERESY OF PARAPHRASE
The last and worst. Spoken of only in hushed whispers. Precisely what it sounds like.
(And yes. Believe it or not, they really did call it 'the Heresy of Paraphrase.')
Then, of course, the New Criticism has been dead for very nearly as long as the Author herself has. ;-) [back]
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