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(continued from part one)
Two
Where Three Roads Meet
"So," says Eileen, rearranging her small cups of CRAB CUSTARD with an ill-concealed air of insufferably smug self-satisfaction. "Now that you've conceded that Crouch Sr. was indeed Dead Sexy, what next?"
"I have conceded no such thing," protests Elkins. "I have merely conceded that the text does indeed facilitate such a reading. For those Sick and Twisted and Warped and Bent enough to take the text up on its offer, that is."
Eileen sighs. "You know, Elkins," she comments. "I really am growing inured to your habit of calling me Sick and Twisted and Warped and Bent. I hardly even notice it anymore. I hope that doesn't disappoint you too terribly much."
"It elates me," says Elkins coldly. She drops her reins to allow her very high horse to nibble at the tough sea grasses lining the promenade along Theory Bay and pulls her yellowed old copy of the CRAB CUSTARD manifesto out of her pocket. She unrolls it carefully and reads for a few moments. She frowns.
"Eileen," she says. "I'm afraid, you know, that I really must take umbrage at this...insinuation of yours that poor dear Bartemius Junior was the one responsible for the graying of his beastly father's wretched hair. I simply can't allow that to pass any longer. It really is the most vile slander imaginable, and—"
"You think that's the most vile slander imaginable?" Cindy pushes up her hat and stares at Elkins. "Wow. You must have a really limited imagination. I can think up viler slander than that standing on my head! Hey, have I ever told you about why I think Snape really left the DEs? Or about how Arthur Weasley used to cast the Imperius Curse on people? Or about how—"
"Have you really been dwelling on that throw-away comment ever since early in April?" Eileen asks, bemused.
"It's completely unjust!" Elkins says crossly. "And totally contradicted by the text. Just look!"
*************************************
On April 5, in message #37476, Eileen wrote:
How come Crouch Sr. doesn't have a cool acronym, I wondered? He had grey hair in GoF, for sure, but a kid like Bartemius Jr. would give anyone grey hair.
Heh. Well. Maybe so. Maybe so.
However. While it is indeed possible to lay many dark, dire and dreadful things at Crouch Jr's feet, his father's transition from dark-haired to gray is not, alas, one of them.
It's described as dark beforehand.
Well, now, let's be fair, shall we? Crouch's hair would seem to have started going grey somewhere around the time of Rookwood's arrest. During Karkaroff's testimony, "Crouch's hair was dark." At Bagman's trial, "Mr. Crouch looked more tired and somehow fiercer, gaunter..." By the time we get to the sentencing of young Crouch and his co-defendents, "Harry looked up at Crouch and saw that he looked gaunter and grayer than ever before."
Now, if Harry thought Crouch looked "grayer than ever before" at his son's trial, yet his hair was still "dark" at Karkaroff's hearing, then that must mean that it started to show the first signs of grey at Bagman's trial, which in turn indicates that Crouch's hair started to turn before the Longbottom Incident.
So. While I am sure that his son's arrest did indeed greatly accelerate the process, you can't go laying the blame for Crouch's evident aging all at young Barty's feet. I'm tempted to suggest that the combined stress of revelations of moles in the ministry, political intrigue in the wake of Voldemort's fall, his wife's terminal illness, and his own loss of personal political autonomy were all likely contributing factors to Crouch's gaunting and greying. His son's arrest would merely have been the icing on the cake.
******************************************
"More Crouch Jr. apologetics, Elkins?"
"I simply couldn't allow that slander to go unaddressed any longer, Eileen."
"Elkins," says Cindy. "You do realize that you've just gone to all the trouble to man the canons simply in order to provide a timeline for the greying of Crouch Sr's hair, don't you?"
"Well, I—"
"What's next, pray tell? A stirring defense of the notion that Snape's hair isn't really unwashed, just naturally oily?"
Elkins flushes. "Look," she says. "Do you have any idea what it is like being young Crouch's defender? Do you, Cindy? Do you? It. Is. A. NIGHTMARE! Okay? He's guilty of just about everything under the sun. And more than a few things that lurk in the darkness as well. He's a Death Eater. He's a sadist. He's a weakling. He's a patricide. He's dissociative. He letches after Parvati. He makes poor widdle Neville cry. He—"
"He tortured the Longbottoms," contributes Cindy helpfully.
"Allegedly tortured the Longbottoms," snaps Elkins. "Be careful."
"Oh, Elkins. Please."
"Well, he really could have been innocent of that one, you know. It's extremely unlikely, but it is possible. But my point here is that when you speak for young Crouch, you find yourself spending an awful lot of your time pleading 'guilty as charged.' So you can hardly blame me if I get a little bit excited when somebody finally hurls an unfounded allegation against the poor lad, can you? And besides," she adds defensively. "Crouch's Graying Hair Timeline is highly significant!"
"Significant? As significant as the question of whether or not Crouch Sr. was Dead Sexy, I suppose. Face it, Elkins. You have nothing to say here. All of this stuff is just useless trivia!"
"Yes?" Elkins smiles faintly. "It's interesting that you should have used that particular word, Cindy. Do you know the derivation of the word 'trivia?' It comes from the Latin. From _trivium._ Meaning 'crossroads.'
"Specifically," she adds, with a meaningful glance over to Eileen. "A very particular type of crossroads. Originally it referred to a place where three roads meet."
Eileen looks up sharply from her cups of CRAB CUSTARD. Elkins smiles unpleasantly at her.
"The Devil's in the details," she says softly. "Isn't it, Eileen."
"What?" Cindy looks between the two of them them, puzzled. "What are you—"
"The Crouch's Greying Hair Timeline," Elkins says, still smiling rather predatorily over at Eileen. "Is relevant because it speaks to Crouch's political situation in the years following Voldemort's fall. Which in turn speaks to his state of mind at the time of his son's arrest. Which in turn speaks to his motivations in regard to his son's trial. Which in turn," she concludes. "Has direct bearing on the nature of his _hamartia._"
"His what?" asks Cindy.
"His fault, his failing. The error that leads to his destruction."
"His tragic flaw," explains Eileen.
"Oh."
"And that, in turn, has direct bearing on Eileen's reading of Crouch as Tragic Hero."
"So you did read my Crouch As Tragic Hero post," exclaims Eileen. "I'd wondered."
"Yes, I did. I liked it very much. Although..." Elkins hesitates. "Well, it's rather a curious structure for a tragedy, isn't it? One in which the cathartic recognition of wrong-doing happens before the nature of that wrong-doing has yet been revealed to the audience? I mean, structurally speaking, it doesn't really hold together all that well as a tragedy, does it? We get Crouch's redemption scene before we've even learned what his hamartia is. Kind of weakens the catharsis, don't you think?"
"Well, none of those secondary meanings that you like so much in Crouch Jr's dialogue are visible on first reading either," retorts Eileen, with spirit.
"Oh, true enough. True enough. And really, I have no problem at all with readings that are only discernable on a second go-round. They're my favorite ones. But Crouch as Tragic Hero just doesn't hold together for me, because...well..."
Elkins' smirk quivers. She shifts uncomfortably in her saddle.
"Eileen," she says slowly. "Do you remember back in message #44636, when you told me:
Let me confess that I like nothing better than seeing you attack Crouch Sr. It makes me feel beleaguered and under pressure
"Yeeees," says Eileen cautiously. "I do seem to remember saying something like that to you once. Despiadado Denethor, wasn't it?"
"Yes. Well, uh, look. You really did mean that, didn't you? I mean, you weren't just saying that? You really meant it?"
"Uh-oh," mutters Cindy.
"Well, I don't know," says Eileen. "There isn't going to be vituperative language involved here, is there?"
"Almost certainly," Elkins assures her. "Vituperative language galore. Also stridency, hostility, and bile. Possibly even some spitting. I did tell you that I hadn't even begun to touch on Mr. Crouch's iniquities, didn't I? And you know how I feel about the man. I just couldn't believe that he wasn't included as an option on that 'who do you hate the most?' poll on OTC. I mean, the pathetic Cornelius Fudge? The sad sad Dursleys? That mild-mannered fellow Voldemort? And yet no Barty Crouch Sr.? Really! What on earth is wrong with people?"
Eileen opens her mouth to speak, then seems to think better of it.
"So yes," Elkins concludes. "There will likely be vituperative language. No Cruciatus this time, though. I promise. Although there may be a little bit of politics. But you don't mind a little bit of politics, do you, Eileen?"
"UH-oh," Cindy says again. "These are going to be Potterverse politics, Elkins. Aren't they?"
"But of course," replies Elkins, her eyes very wide. "What on earth could real world politics possibly have to do with Crouch's plotline?"
"Well," says Eileen after a second's pause. "I'm game. Really, there's so much to talk about here. Has anyone ever tried to sort out what was going on with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement? Too much speculation about James, Lily, Peter, Dumbledore and such things. Not enough speculation about Crouch's strategies."
"I quite agree," says Elkins, rather grimly. "So let's take a look at those strategies, shall we? Have you noticed, by the way, that the Crouch's Greying Hair Timeline contradicts Sirius' accounting of events?"
"It does?" Cindy frowns. "How does it do that?"
"Well, Sirius implies that young Crouch's arrest was a catastrophic event, doesn't he? A sudden stroke of fate, descending from the heavens to strike poor old Crouch down just when his life seemed to be going perfectly? He says:
'So old Crouch lost it all, just when he thought he had it made.... One moment, a hero, poised to become Minister of Magic...next, his son dead, his wife dead, the family name dishonored, and, so I've heard since I escaped, a big drop in popularity.'
"Yeah? So?"
"So the evidence of the Pensieve contradicts this. It shows us that the revelation of his son's involvement with the Death Eaters wasn't actually a catastrophic occurrence for Crouch at all. It was calamitous for him, to be sure. But it wasn't actually catastrophic. It wasn't a sudden blow of fate that struck him from out of the blue just when everything was going his way, as Sirius seems to imply. It wasn't anything like that. It was a last straw, not a first cause. Crouch's hold on his political power was slipping even before the Longbottom affair happened."
"You're getting all of this from the state of the man's hair?"
"No. Also from Ludo Bagman's trial. Look."
*******************************************
'When Voldemort disappeared, it looked like only a matter of time until Crouch got the top job. But then something rather unfortunate happened...' Sirius smiled grimly. 'Crouch's own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who'd managed to talk their way out of Azkaban.'
The impression of Crouch that we get from Sirius in "Padfoot Returns" is that of a man who had the public wrapped around his little finger in the wake of Voldemort's fall. He could send a man to prison for life without even giving him a trial. He could authorize his Aurors to summarily execute those who had never been formally accused of any crime. He could authorize the use of torture, and of mind control.
And the public was behind him. Sirius says that Crouch had popular support. He claims that the people were 'clamoring' for Crouch to become the next Minister of Magic, and he suggests that what changed this state of affairs was Crouch's son's implication in the assault on the Longbottoms.
The scenes that we see in the Pensieve, however, tell a very different story. What they show us is that Crouch's popularity, as well as his hold on his power, had begun to slip even before his son's arrest.
In the first of the Pensieve scenes, Karkaroff's hearing, an eleven year war that was clearly deeply traumatic for the WW has just come to an end. Not much time seems to have passed since Voldemort's fall: there is still talk of rounding up the "last of the Death Eaters," and the Azkaban grape-vine, which will later enable Sirius to learn about the imprisoned Death Eaters' thoughts on both Karkaroff and Pettigrew, does not seem to have yet been established. Karkaroff is sorely ignorant of what has been happening in the outside world since his imprisonment: he has not learned of Rosier's death; he does not know of Dolohov's arrest.
The war doesn't seem to have been over for very long at all in this first scene, and Crouch is looking great. He is "fit and alert," his face is comparatively unlined, his hair is dark. Moody describes the decision to cut a deal with Karakaroff as if it had been Crouch's own, a decision which it is very hard to believe the head of the DMLE would still be permitted to make unilaterally in the current time period of the canon. Crouch's command over the situation at Karkaroff's hearing never falters. He comes across as a man in full control of his situation.
The next scene we see, however, shows us rather a dramatic change in Crouch's status. At Ludo Bagman's trial, the public turns against Crouch. They cut him off with angry murmers before he can even finish delivering his recommendation to the jury, and they cheer the defendent he is trying to prosecute. In the end, they effectively overturn his verdict: Ludo Bagman walks free. Furthermore, when Crouch tries to intervene:
....there was an angry outcry from the surrounding benches. Several of the witches and wizards around the walls stood up, shaking their heads, and even their fists, at Mr. Crouch.
Shaking their fists at him?
Unsurprisingly, it is also at Bagman's trial that Harry first notices Crouch's signs of age. It is here, not at his son's trial, that he first begins to be described with terms like "gaunt," and it is here, not at his son's trial, that his hair is first beginning to go grey.
This does not look to me like a man who is at the ascendant of his political career, considered a 'hero,' poised to be swept into office as the next Minister of Magic by a groundswell of popular support, as Sirius' account would lead us to believe.
This looks to me like a man who has already begun to lose the good will of the populace.
This looks to me like a man whose political star is already beginning to fall.
**************************************
"I don't think that it was his son's arrest that destroyed Crouch's political career at all," says Elkins firmly. "I think that it was peace."
"Peace?"
Elkins nods. "Crouch rose to power during the war, and apparently he did so rather...precipitously. Sirius says that 'he rose quickly through the Ministry.' Now, Crouch may not be quite as elderly as Harry initially thinks that he is, but I don't think that he was exactly a young man either. So what we are looking at here is a man whose rise to power was itself a by-product of the war. We are looking at a man who was made by the war."
"Times like that bring out the best in some people," offers Eileen.
"And the worst in others. Crouch owed his rise to power to the war, and the war seems to have treated him well. When we first see him in the Pensieve, he hardly looks worn down by all of his heroic efforts to stem the tide of Dark Wizardry, does he? He doesn't look worn down at all. He looks great. Really, Voldemort's rise would seem to have been very good to Crouch. It enabled him to seize far more power for himself than he would ordinarily have been entitled to. It allowed him to relax the restrictions on the Aurors, men who seem to have been accountable to him personally in his role as the Head of the DMLE. By the end of the conflict, it seems that he had even managed to wrest for himself somehow the right to make unilateral decisions regarding the disposition of prisoners. He is the one who gives the 'authorization' to send Sirius Black to prison without trial. He is the one who cuts a deal with Karkaroff and allows him to walk free.
"That's an extraordinary amount of power for one man to hold," Elkins concludes grimly. "Especially in a society which, as we see from the Pensieve trials, ordinarily adheres to a system of trial by jury."
"Well, you know, Elkins," Cindy says. "There was a war on."
"Yes. There was a war on. The Romans had a word for people who were granted extraordinary powers during times of war. They called them dictators. Is it just me, or is there something just a little bit...suggestive about the way that Sirius describes Crouch's popularity in 'Padfoot Returns?'"
"He says Crouch was a popular politician," Cindy says, shrugging. "And that he was a favorite to become the next Minister of Magic. What's wrong with that?"
"Not a thing. But that's not precisely what he says."
Eileen ducks under her CRAB CUSTARD table, emerging a few moments later with a copy of _GoF._ She opens it to a well worn spot and begins to read.
'He had his supporters, mind you -- plenty of people thought he was going about things the right way, and there were a lot of witches and wizards clamoring for him to take over as Minister of Magic.'
"Yes," says Elkins. "'Supporters.' 'Clamoring.' 'Clamoring for him to take over.' What does that sound like to you?"
Cindy's eyes light up. "A coup!" she cries. "It sounds like a bloody coup!"
"Elkins," says Eileen reprovingly. "Now look what you've done."
"Bloody Coup! Bloody Coup! Bloody Coup!"
"You just had to set her off, didn't you? Elkins, you know perfectly well that you're exaggerating again. Crouch wasn't Stalin, and he wasn't planning a bloody coup either."
"No," agrees Elkins. "He wasn't planning a bloody coup. If he'd really been planning a bloody coup, then he would have had his Aurors march right into Bagman's trial and arrest that pesky jury."
Cindy, her Big Paddle clutched in her hands and a wild gleam in her eyes, opens her mouth as if to speak.
"Which he did not." Elkins adds firmly. "He didn't even have them standing around looking menacing. I'm not claiming that Crouch was planning a bloody coup."
"No bloody coup?" Cindy asks, looking heart-broken.
"No. However, I do think that there are some elements of that dynamic implied by the text. He does seem to have seized for himself quite a few unilateral powers by the end of the war. People are always talking about what Crouch did. Crouch sent Sirius Black and others to prison without trial. Crouch cut a deal with Karkaroff. Crouch authorized harsh measures. It's just...well, let me just ask you this. Who was the Minister of Magic while Crouch was the head of the DMLE?"
Eileen blinks. "The what?" she asks.
"The Minister of Magic. At the time of Voldemort's fall. You know, the man in charge? The fellow Crouch was supposedly all poised to replace? Who was he? What was his name?"
There is silence.
"We could always check the Lexicon..." suggests Eileen.
"It's probably in one of the schoolbooks somewhere..." says Cindy.
"Uh-huh. Right. Okay, let's try this one, then. In Harry's day, in the time period of the canon, who is the person we see authorizing all extraordinary legal measures? Who decides to place Hagrid into custody? Who authorizes the Dementor's Kiss to be used on Sirius Black? Who gives Harry a pass on his violations of the Restriction on Underage Wizardry? Who is the person we consistently see making those decisions?"
There is another brief silence.
"Cornelius Fudge," Eileen answers, at length.
"Yes. Cornelius Fudge. Who is the Minister of Magic. And the current head of the DMLE is...?"
Cindy mumbles something about the schoolbooks.
"I'd say that the war treated Crouch pretty well," Elkins says softly. "Wouldn't you?
"But it ended. Voldemort fell, the war ended, and once that happened, Crouch started to lose his influence. We see it happening, right there in the Pensieve. We see the public turn against him at Bagman's trial. We see them shake their fists at him, and cheer on the defendent. We see his signs of exhaustion, his evident signs of aging. All of that happened before the arrest of the Pensieve Four. Sirius' account of the timeline is the account of history, but we all know that history tends to telescope events. Events get telescoped in retrospect. The Pensieve scenes show us how those events actually played out at the time, and what they show is that Crouch's career was already in trouble. It was in trouble even before the assault on the Longbottoms took place."
"Because the war had ended," murmers Eileen.
"Because the war had ended. And also because...well, JOdel touched on something rather significant, I thought, when she wrote:
Heaven only knows what Crouch's plans are for a peacetime government, but it seems fairly safe to say that no former DE likes the idea.
"I should say that they wouldn't!" exclaims Eileen.
"Well, I don't think that anyone liked the idea very much, frankly," says Elkins. "I think that the Pensieve scenes show us that even perfectly law-abiding citizens were already beginning to have some serious qualms about Crouch even by the time of Bagman's trial. People always talk about Bagman's trial as if it is just an illustration of the jury's bias in favor of a popular celebrity, you know, but I've always read it as a bit more than that myself."
"You also read it as an expression of public hostility towards Crouch?" asks Eileen.
"Something like that. Or at the very least, as a good hard yank on his choke chain. I'm sure that the jury idolized Bagman, but I also think that it was sending a message to Crouch. I don't believe that Crouch was planning a coup, but I think that his political ambitions did rather incline him in that direction, and the people in that courtroom knew it. I read their behavior at Bagman's trial as more than just an expression of celebrity worship. I also read it as a check. A jerk on the choke-chain. Maybe even as something akin to a warning."
"I've said myself that Bagman's case should never have come to trial," says Eileen slowly. "So you think the jury was warning Crouch that they weren't going to stand for any more shaky convictions?"
"Yes. I think they were conveying the message that the time for witch-hunts was over. As was the time for dictatorial unilateral powers. That they weren't going to put up with Crouch pulling those sorts of stunts anymore and that if he tried it, they weren't going to follow his lead. That instead, they would go out of their way to obstruct him."
"So you don't think that Crouch was really a popular politician at all then?" asks Cindy.
"No, I'm sure that he was immensely popular -- during the war. People love politicians like Crouch in times of war, because when people are frightened, they are willing to accept an unusually high degree of tyranny. In fact, if only they become frightened enough, then they actually embrace it. They want to submit themselves to a strong authoritarian figure. It makes them feel safe. Protected. You might even say," Elkins adds, with a small smile. "That they go all Barty Jr. in the Pensieve."
"Daddy, save me?" suggests Eileen.
"'Father, save me! Control me, dominate me, coerce me, break me, enslave me. Use your Unforgivable Curses on me. Do whatever you like with me, just don't let the scary dementors get me!'"
Elkins takes a deep breath.
"Crouch's relationship with his son," she states. "Reiterates on the personal level his political relationship with the wizarding world as a whole."
"Elkins!" objects Cindy. "Voldemort and his Death Eaters were a very real and serious threat to the wizarding world!"
"The Dementors were a very real and serious threat to young Crouch. They'd nearly killed him within the year."
"But—"
"It's a funny thing, though, you know," continues Elkins, "the way that dynamic tends to work. Once the immediate danger is past, then people do often start to feel rather differently about those they allowed to strip them of their liberties 'for their own good' while the threat was still active. They sometimes get a wee bit resentful about that. Especially if they come to suspect that their protector's motives were perhaps never really all that pure to begin with. We see that with Crouch Jr., I think. And I'd say that at Bagman's trial, we see it with the wizarding world as a body politic."
"Ungrateful little brats," mutters Eileen.
"Hating tyranny is not ingratitude, Eileen," snaps Elkins. "Hating tyranny is a moral imperative!"
Elkins' hobby horse starts violently. She clutches at its mane to keep her balance, then leans forward to whisper soothingly into its ear. After a few moments, the horse settles. Elkins straightens slowly.
"You know," she says, far more calmly now. "We've talked a bit in the past about the ways in which Crouch resembles Livius Junius Brutus, the one who sentenced his sons to death for treason. But I've always been rather partial to the other Brutus myself."
"The one who assassinated Julius Caesar?" asks Cindy.
"Yes. And...well, and actually, I think that Eileen knows precisely where this train of thought is leading me. In fact, I have a funny feeling that she's been trying to get me to follow her there for months now. Go on, Eileen. You sat an exam on the Julio-Claudians a while back, didn't you?"
Eileen nods, smiling slightly. "Brutus," she tells Cindy. "Was rumoured to be Julius Caesar's own son."
Elkins grins mirthlessly.
"Sic semper tyrannis," she spits.
Eileen eyes Elkins' hobby horse's wild eyes and bared teeth with due caution.
"Now, why am I beginning to suspect, Elkins," she says. "That you and that horse of yours came here today not to praise Crouch, but to bury him?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Eileen," Elkins replies lazily. "Why on earth would I want to do a silly thing like that? We both know how dangerous buried things can be. Don't we?"
Cindy shakes her head. "There are times when people need to submit themselves to a bit of tyranny."
"There are," agrees Elkins. "And then there are other times when they had really better not. Not if they know what's best for them. 'Harry, obedience is a virtue I need to teach you before you die.' Voldemort presents as a father figure in the graveyard, doesn't he? There's a reason that it pleased people to believe that Brutus must have been Caesar's natural son, you know. Tyrannicide and patricide are very closely conceptually linked. It seems to me that the parricide motif cuts both ways in GoF. Sometimes a little bit of parricide is a necessary thing."
"In moderation," cautions Eileen.
"In moderation. In principle. I think that the parricide motif of GoF is actually quite a bit like the immortality motif of the series as a whole. So long as it remains in the realms of the spiritual, or of the symbolic, or of the thematic, or of the abstract, then it's a good thing. It's only when you try to literalize it, to make it manifest in the physical world, that it becomes unremittingly negative."
"So you're, uh, saying that you should never try to literalize your metaphors then?" asks Cindy, glancing uneasily about the Bay.
"Not if you're in the Potterverse, no. Which we, fortunately enough, are not. But the question of tyranny and obedience in the books really brings us right back to that old question of rule-breaking in the series, doesn't it? In the HP books, the virtue of obedience is largely dependent upon the intentions of those giving the orders. Were Crouch's motives pure?"
"Yes," answers Eileen instantly.
Elkins closes her eyes.
"That was a rhetorical question, Eileen," she says. "Obviously I don't think that Crouch's motives were pure. And that's my real problem with Crouch as Tragic Hero, you know. I'm not seeing any purity of motive there."
"Why does that matter?" asks Cindy.
Eileen sighs. "Because of Nobility of Stature," she explains. "Tragic heroes possess nobility of stature, and properly that ought to apply to virtue as well as to social standing. It's the very first question on the Tragic Hero Quiz."
"And there's good reason for that," says Elkins. "It's really the question on which all the others devolve, because if you don't have nobility of stature, then it doesn't matter how many of the other criteria get filled. It still won't give you a tragic hero. So it's actually a very important question: do Crouch's choices reveal nobility of stature? Does he display any true nobility or purity of motive at all? Do you remember back in April, Eileen, when Talon DG suggested that when examining Crouch's character, we would be much better off looking at motivation than at action? He suggested that our interpretation of Crouch's character largely devolves on how we evaluate his motives in regard to his son's trial."
Eileen nods. "I remember that. It was message #37574. He made a Gulf War parallel, which I'd really better not reproduce here..."
"No, best not," Elkins agrees quickly. "Not a good time for it."
"...and then he wrote: 'some motives are more noble than others.'"
"Yes. And that's true. Some motives really are more noble than others. And if your means are bad, then your intentions had better be pretty darned pure. So what can we deduce about Crouch's motives, in light of what we have deduced about his political situation in the wake of Voldemort's fall? What was Point Five of your CRAB CUSTARD manifesto again?"
"Point Five?"
"Yes."
Eileen pulls out her own yellowed copy of message #37476 and reads aloud:
5. If Crouch had survived GoF, he would very likely have finally been made Minister of Magic. With Voldemort back, he would not have stayed silent, and people would have rallied behind him.
"Yes," says Elkins. "You know, I think you're absolutely right about that? And I think that Crouch himself knew it, too. Remember when Sirius claimed that he had developed a mania for catching one last Dark Wizard? Because if only he could do that, then it might restore his lost popularity?"
"This is turning into a 'Crouch sacrificed his son to his career ambition' argument, isn't it?" says Eileen gloomily. "Elkins, you know that's just a red herring in the plot!"
"I know that you think it is. That was Point Four of the CRAB CUSTARD manifesto, wasn't it?
4. Crouch did not sacrifice his son to his career ambition. This seems to be a red herring in the plot.
"But I am not so sure," says Elkins quietly. "I see plenty of indications in the text that Crouch was indeed in the habit of sacrificing people to his political ambitions, and that the Pensieve Four, guilty though they may have been, were indeed among the people so sacrificed, just like Sirius Black was. That his son happened to be among their number certainly did complicate things for him on the personal level -- and it also complicates things for us on the thematic level. But I think that we fall into error if we ignore what the Pensieve sequences are trying to show us about Crouch's political situation in the years following Voldemort's fall."
"Your Crouch's Graying Hair Timeline," says Cindy flatly.
"Yes, among other things. The Devil's in the details, Cindy. Important things happen at places where three roads meet. The Pensieve sequences suggest that Crouch was a war-time leader, one whose popularity was largely dependent upon the fear and paranoia of a war-time mentality. Absent that mentality, his grasp on the affection of the public begins to slip. Really, after Rookwood, he doesn't seem to have had much left in the way of big game, does he? He's been reduced to trying to prosecute hapless morons like Ludo Bagman, who are guilty of things like passing on information to old family friends. It's just sad, really. Not at all advantageous to Crouch. Not at all good for his career. Politicians like Crouch can only maintain their power for as long as they have an Enemy. Preferably one with a Capital E.
"I think that the assault on the Longbottoms must have seemed like a golden opportunity for Crouch," says Elkins. "His department was under pressure to make an arrest. People were outraged. They were out for blood. The event put them right back into a war-time mentality. We see that at the sentencing, that angry hissing mob. If Ludo Bagman's trial had taken place in that atmosphere, do you really think that the jury would have dared thwart Crouch's recommendation? Sports celebrity or no, even if all he'd been doing was innocently passing along a few papers, I think that they would have been right behind Crouch in putting him away. The text even invites the reader to come to that conclusion by pointing out that the crowd applauds Crouch's sentence upon the Longbottom defendents just as it had applauded Bagman's acquittal in the previous scene. The Longbottom case put the public right back under Crouch's thumb, didn't it? It made them want him back. And he was right there for them when they did. Just look at the performance he gave them at his son's sentencing!"
"Performance?" repeats Cindy incredulously. "You mean that eye bulging, spitting, ranting apoplectic fit that destroyed the poor man's career? He was furious, Elkins! Beside himself. He lost his temper. You're calling that a performance?"
"Are you saying that was all an act?" asks Eileen doubtfully.
"All an act?" Elkins shakes her head. "No. Not all. But—"
"I think that Elkins just wants everyone in the Pensieve to have been putting on an act," Cindy snickers. "The Crouch family pageant."
"Well, I do think that they were all putting on an act, to some extent," admits Elkins. "It was a bit of a Crouch family pageant, I'd say. Or maybe more like a Crouch family psychodrama. Charis said something quite like that once, when she wrote:
What the whole scene reminds me of more than anything else is a really bad family row blown way out of proportion and set up for public display.
"And I absolutely agree with her. But I don't think that it was all an act, not on any of their parts. I'm sure that Mrs. Crouch was genuinely distraught. I'm sure that Crouch Jr. was genuinely terrified. And I'm sure that Crouch Sr. was genuinely furious with his son, as well as genuinely conflicted, and probably also feeling rather angry with the crowd for putting him in such an awful situation. I also agree with Charis that he was 'acting to himself' to a certain extent: psyching himself up, steeling his nerve, trying to divorce his feelings from what he felt that he had to be doing..."
"That 'You Are Not My Son...'" Eileen begins.
"Sure. Absolutely. But he was playing to his audience as well. He wasn't just 'acting to himself.' Crouch was playing the crowd."
"You're just saying that because you don't like him," says Cindy.
"No, I'm not," snaps Elkins irritably. "Look. That particular expression of rage, with all of the bellowing, and the eye bulging, and...well, doesn't that entire routine strike the reader as awfully familiar? Hadn't we seen all that somewhere before? Somewhere else, long before the Pensieve chapter came along?"
Eileen nods. She flips through her copy of GoF, finds the page, and begins to read:
'And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long career, that I despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them?' Mr. Crouch shouted, his eyes bulging again.
"Yes. It's interesting, that, isn't it? You know, Eric Oppen once suggested that Crouch's plan to rescue his son from prison was already forming in his mind even at the time of the trial."
"Eric Oppen is a mad subversive!"
"True, but there's usually more than a touch of method to his madness, very much like there's more than a touch of method to the Crouch family's acting skills. I don't myself believe that Crouch had already planned to spring his son from Azkaban by the time of the trial, but I can certainly see how Eric might have come by that notion. The connection between that Pensieve scene and Crouch's scene with Winky at the QWC is indeed very suggestive."
"His behavior throughout that scene is similar to his behavior at his son's sentencing," agrees Eileen. "It repeats quite a number of descriptive phrases. It's a parallel scene."
"Yes. I'd say that it's quite clearly written as a parallel scene. So what do we make of that? Mr. Crouch is really not being altogether honest there at the QWC, is he? He's being quite devious, actually. And rather blackly ironic, too, with that 'despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them' speech. After all, he's scrambling all over himself to deflect attention from his Death Eater son. The one he knows perfectly well is an unrepentent fanatical devotee of Voldemort. The one he has been harboring in his own home for the past ten years. The one who has just shot the Dark Mark into the sky. The one who is lying invisible and unconscious only a few feet away, while Crouch himself does everything in his power to cover for him. You said yourself that the scene at the QWC showcases Crouch's manipulative talents, Eileen."
"I did say that," admits Eileen. "But—"
"Just look at all of the other parallels as well. Crouch looks down at Winky with 'no pity in his gaze,' exactly as he will look at his son in the dock 'with pure hatred in his face.' In 'Padfoot Returns,' the text will beg us to compare the two situations, by having Sirius Black comment that Crouch Jr. could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time 'just like the house-elf.'"
"Well, they're both scenes of denunciation, aren't they?" Cindy points out. "In both cases, Crouch is renouncing a member of his household who has disobeyed him."
"Yes, but given that the two scenes are so obviously and blatantly parallel, doesn't that almost beg us to take a closer look at what is really happening in each of them? In both cases, Crouch is not just renouncing a disobedient member of his household. He is very specifically doing so for the benefit of an audience. And in a situation in which it is very much to his own personal advantage to put on a good show of hard-line severity to protect himself: his reputation, his position, his standing, his freedom, his fugitive son. At the QWC, he's ostensibly renouncing Winky because she disobeyed him but in actuality, his motives are quite a bit more complicated than that, aren't they? We know that his motives aren't nearly as simple as they first appear, because the author later provides us with the details which enable us to recognize the extent to which Crouch was manipulating that entire situation for his own personal advantage. The extent to which he was playing the crowd. The extent to which he was acting. You yourself cited this scene as proof that 'Barty Jr. inherited his talent for acting from his father,' Eileen."
"I know," sighs Eileen. "I know that I did."
"The author provides us with the information which enables us to recognize in retrospect the extent to which Crouch's act at the QWC was just that: an act. A strategy of misdirection. And also," adds Elkins meaningfully. "The extent to which it was a sacrifice."
Eileen opens her mouth.
"As well as an attempted exorcism," Elkins adds quickly, looking at her. "I'll be getting to that in part six, Eileen, okay? Just bear with me here."
Eileen closes her mouth and sighs.
"So why does Crouch preside over a kangaroo court in the case of the Longbottoms' assailants?" asks Elkins. "Why does he allow violation of due process, conviction in the face of no evidence? Why does he behave precisely as he does at the trial? Just because he's furious with his son? Just because he can't brook disobedience from members of his household? Because he's outraged? Because he is convinced of the defendents' guilt? Because he hates dark wizardry?"
She shakes her head firmly. "No," she says. "I don't think so. That's the superficial reading, but by drawing such a strong parallel between Crouch Jr's sentencing and Winky's denunciation at the QWC, I think that the text urges us to consider Crouch's more Slytherinesque and self-interested motives as well.
"I can't agree that 'Crouch sacrificed his son to his career ambition' is a red herring," continues Elkins. "That's a gross over- simplification of a rather thematically-complex plotline, to be sure. It's hardly the whole story. But I can't see it as precisely a red herring because in fact, Crouch did have very strong political reasons to behave exactly as he did in regard to the Longbottom Affair, and the text itself encourages us to consider them: by showing us the trajectory of his post-war career in the Pensieve scenes, by drawing such a strong parallel between the scene at the sentencing and the scene at the QWC, and by giving us Sirius' comment about Crouch's 'mania' for catching just one last Dark Wizard -- to restore his lost popularity.
"That witch-hunt atmosphere we see at the trial of the Pensieve Four was exactly what Crouch needed. It was what he thrived on. His political power depended on it. The Longbottom Incident was Crouch's one great chance to regain what he had lost when Voldemort fell. And he seized it. He exploited the opportunity. At his son's sentencing, we see him encouraging that atmosphere. He's really not doing a thing to combat the mob mentality in that courtroom, is he? On the contrary, he is actively fostering it, with all of his 'crime so heinous we've never seen the like,' and his 'resume the lives of violence you had led' talk. Really, he's spurring the crowd on, isn't he? He's whipping them up. He is pandering, pandering to all of their very worst instincts, and he is doing it deliberately, because that sort of mass hysteria was the source of Crouch's personal power. That atmosphere of hatred and anger and paranoia is precisely what the likes of Crouch batten upon. That witch hunt atmosphere was exactly what he needed."
Elkins pauses for breath.
"But he overstepped," she concludes, with a kind of grim relish. "He overstepped, he miscalculated, he misjudged. And because his own son was involved, it all backfired on him. Evil oft will evil mar. Hoist by his own petard. Sic. Semper. Tyrannis."
Elkins' pale hobby horse lays back its ears and whickers unpleasantly. Eileen glances at its bared teeth and narrowed eyes, and then up at Elkins, who bears very much the same expression. She takes a few wary steps backwards.
"And Brutus was an honorable man," she says cautiously. "But so was Bartemius Crouch. You said so yourself, you know, Elkins. You did."
"Did I? Did I say that? Did I really?" Elkins thinks for a moment, then sighs. "Yes," she admits. "I suppose that I did say that once, didn't I. Well, you know, Eileen, your Crouch Sr. Apologetics are really very persuasive. Dangerously so, at times, with all of those Tough and Steely Livian parallels that I find so hard to resist, and all of that lovely meta-thinking that you do so well. They're positively fiendish, they really are. Imperius-like, in fact. And I am vulnerable to Imperius, you know. I'm even worse than the Weasleys that way."
"I sense a 'but' coming here," murmers Cindy.
"Oh," Eileen whispers back, "you sense one of those coming too?"
"But. There's one thing that they always seem to overlook. One absolutely vital aspect of Crouch's character that they never seem to touch upon, or even to acknowledge somehow. And it's a very curious omission, too, because it's a thing that strikes me as quite possibly Crouch Sr's most notable characteristic. I also feel that it is absolutely vital to the question of whether or not we can read him as a tragic hero."
"Oh?" asks Eileen. "What's that?"
Elkins smiles at her gently, almost pityingly.
"Why," she says. "That he was the most appalling hypocrite, of course."
*************
Elkins
**************************************************
REFERENCES:
Oedipus committed his act of parridice at a "trivium," a place where three roads meet.
The CRAB CUSTARD Manifesto: message #37476
Crouch as Tragic Hero: message #45402
Also referenced or cited: #37574, #37769, #37781, #43010 and many of its downthread responses, #43447, #44636, #45662, #45693.
One line of Eileen's dialogue swiped shamelessly from off-list correspondence.
JOdel's message #45662 outlines her pet "the Pensieve Four conspired to bring down Crouch" speculation. Although this theory is obviously incompatible with my own interpretation of the timeline of events, I am nonetheless exceptionally fond of it.
On How Dangerous Buried Things Can Be: for a discussion of the motif of burial (as well as parricide!) in GoF, see also message #38398.
Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on December 7, 2002 6:10 PM
1 comment (link leads to main site)
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