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(continued from part three)
[Note: Even for a TBAY post, this one puts an unusually large number of words into Eileen's mouth for the purposes of facilitating the fictional debate. While I have at least tried to base my TBAY!Eileen's opinions in the, er, well, in the canon of her past posts, so to speak, I may well have ascribed to her here some arguments and beliefs which are not in fact really her own. If so, then I offer my most sincere and Averyesque apologies.]
Four
Midnight In the Golden Wood
An unexpected spate of winter sunlight has drawn a number of visitors to Theory Bay. Cindy has moved down the promenade to set up her own booth, where she has been doing a very brisk business in Rookwood thongs. Still no one has stopped by Eileen's table to try a bite of her CRAB CUSTARD, though, and Eileen is beginning to look decidedly put out. She pulls her Lucky Kari helmet off of her head and runs her fingers irritably through her hair.
"I really don't see how you can claim that none of Crouch Sr's actions were motivated by noble concerns, Elkins," she says, glaring at a passing couple strolling hand in hand down the promenade dressed in matching BABEMEISTER t-shirts. "That's just not fair. It's not even defensible! It's completely unjust!"
"Is it?" Elkins yanks at her reins in a futile attempt to keep her high pale hobby horse from nibbling at the bottommost edge of the CRAB CUSTARD banner. "Where do we ever see Crouch falling into error while acting out of concern for the protection of the wizarding world? Actually, he's usually putting the wizarding world at risk, isn't he? When he's not actually doing it outright harm. And he does so to serve himself."
"How can you say that?"
"Well, because it's true. Let's just take a look at his errors, shall we? Why did Crouch rescue his son from Azkaban?"
"Oh, now, come on!" protests Eileen. "Play fair, will you? I've already admitted that it wasn't very noble of Barty to rescue his son from prison. That was why I called it dramatic irony: it was an exception to the general rule. I said as much to Cindy. I told her:
I said that he never let love define his relationships. But I was wrong. Just this one time, he did. And look where that got him.
"So I've already acknowledged that he wasn't acting in the public interest there. And he wasn't acting in accordance with his usual Livian principles, either. He was acting out of love for his wife. But surely with a Bleeding Heart like yours, you can sympathize with that, can't you, Elkins?"
"Oh, that one was an exception to the rule, was it?" asks Elkins, pointedly ignoring the question. "I see. Well, all right then. How about the others? He kept his son prisoner in his own home under the Imperius Curse for ten years, even though he knew that his son was both unrepentant and dangerous. That was self-serving, and it put the entire wizarding world at risk. Why did he dismiss Winky? Well, we've a host of motives to choose from there, but every last one them is self-serving, and it was a decision that left him without the resources to continue to keep a close guard on his son. Hence, it put the entire wizrding world at risk. Then there's that nasty Obliviate charm he cast on Bertha Jorkins. An utterly self-serving action, and one that put the entire wizarding world at risk. And then—"
"But all of those errors arise organically out of his initial error of rescuing his son," objects Eileen. "Which I've already admitted hadn't anything to do with the common good."
"But those are the vast majority of his fatal errors, Eileen."
"Yes, but I'm not altogether certain that they're really his most serious ones. How about his political errors? His political errors were—"
"Motivated by self-interest," says Elkins flatly.
"Only if you insist on ascribing the worst possible motives to him! Only if you refuse to give him any benefit of the doubt! I think that Crouch's political errors were well-motivated. Even Sirius suggested as much, and Sirius really hated Barty!"
"Sirius suggested that Crouch might have been well-motivated," Elkins corrects her. "At first. Like maybe when he was still working in the mail room or something. But all right. Let's take a look at what we know about Crouch's political behavior."
Elkins takes a deep breath.
"During a time of war," she begins. "Crouch rose 'quickly' through the ranks of the Ministry until he had become the head of the DMLE. In that position, he then changed the rules to allow the Aurors, a body of enforcers who seem to have been answerable to him personally in his role as the head of the DMLE, to kill at their discretion and to use torture and mind control against the citizenry. He seized unilateral powers for himself, many of them functions which would seem ordinarily to be reserved for the Minister of Magic. These actions made him popular. He had 'supporters' who were 'clamoring for him to take over.'"
She takes another deep breath, and then continues:
"He pandered to mob mentality when it served his own political ends, as in the Longbottom case, yet he tried to counteract it when it did not, as in the Bagman case. He encouraged the public in just the kind of paranoiac and vindictive mass hysteria which also, by amazing coincidence, tends to cause people to favor leaders who happen to fit Crouch's exact political profile. He authorized 'very harsh measures' to be used against people Sirius defines as 'Voldemort's supporters...'"
Elkins pauses, frowning. "What the hell is a 'supporter,' anyway?" she demands. "We all know what a Death Eater is, but precisely what qualifies someone as a 'supporter?' Really, a 'supporter' can be just about anyone you want it to be, can't it?"
She shakes her head. "Gee, I don't know, Eileen," she says. "Now why don't I find myself believing that Crouch's motives were pure, or that he really did have the protection of the populace as his chief concern? I have no idea. I must just be a mean nasty old cynic, I guess."
"You've already conceded that he wasn't Stalin, Elkins," Eileen reminds her.
"Well, he wasn't Stalin. I'm not saying that he was Stalin. His measures never seem to have reached the level of dekulakization. Nor am I saying that he was totally power-mad. He didn't actually try to stage a coup. When his bid for power failed, he stepped down gracefully enough. But you don't have to be either a Stalin or an insurrectionist to be a seriously Evil wizard, do you? You don't have to be either a Stalin or an insurrectionist to be motivated by self-interest, or to be all too willing to harm the public that you're supposed to be serving in order to cement your own personal political control."
"But you're only assuming that he was self-interested!"
"Well, of course I'm assuming that he was self-interested! Why on earth shouldn't I? Honestly, now, Eileen, if all of the things listed above were just about all you knew about some real world politician, then would you assume that the protection of the populace was his driving motivation? That he was 'employing the ethic of ends over means for the forces of good?' That he was truly well-intended, if possibly a little misguided? That he was self-sacrificing, rather than self-serving? Really? Honestly? Because I have to say that I wouldn't. Not without some very compelling evidence pointing in that direction, at any rate. And I'm just not seeing that evidence anywhere when it comes to Mr. Crouch."
"But Elkins," says Eileen. "Crouch isn't a real world politician. He's a fictional politician in a fantasy novel. He exists in a world in which the blacks are a whole lot blacker, and the lines far more brightly drawn, than they are in our own. Just think of what he was up against!"
"'Desperate times call for desperate measures,' Eileen?" Elkins shakes her head. "But that's just what politicians always claim when they first start authorizing their enforcers to use torture and other such 'measures' against the populace, isn't it? They always say that they're doing it to stem the tide of a terrorist or an insurrectionist threat. That's just the Usual Wicked Rationalization. It's like 'the Devil made me do it!' or 'I was just obeying orders,' or 'But look at how she was dressed!' It's a total cliche. And it's also a myth: those sorts of measures are utterly ineffective against terrorist or insurrectionist threats. You don't really think that the politicians themselves believe that when they say it, do you? They don't. They know full well that those measures are ineffective. That's not why they're authorizing them. When politicians authorize things like torture, summary execution without formal charge, and detention without trial, it's never really about protecting the populace at all. That's not the real function of those things. Their function is to cement the political power of those who control their use."
"Maybe in reality," Eileen concedes. "But the Potterverse isn't reality. Do you remember what I said about the Death Eaters, back in September? I said:
You know what first strikes me about the whole set-up. The Death Eaters are every dictator's dream conspiracy. They're ordinary citizens who have infiltrated every branch of the government. They can strike anywhere at anyone. They remind me very much of the sort of conspiracies Stalin liked to pretend he was facing. Except for once, it's real. So, I really don't know who to compare Crouch to. That sort of thing doesn't really exist in real life.
"With the Death Eaters, Rowling asks us to believe in a situation that is in our world impossible. So it may not make all that much sense to try to read Crouch as a real world politician. He's not one. He was facing down a situation that one doesn't face in real life. Can you blame him if he went a little overboard?"
Elkins frowns. "Whatever happened to the Golden Wood?" she demands. "Whatever happened to 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men?'"
"That applies to real world ethics," Eileen explains patiently. "But not necessarily to real world motives, or even to real world efficiency. I've already conceded that Crouch made the wrong decisions. I did list his authorization of the UCs as the most serious of his fatal errors, didn't I? I'm just saying that you can't necessarily look to real world precedent to defend the notion that in the Potterverse, his measures might not actually have been effective, and that he couldn't therefore have sincerely believed that he was doing some good with them.
"After all," she continues. "This is a world in which magic is real. In which Phoenix tears can heal fatal wounds. In which the power of maternal sacrifice can deflect the killing curse. Things in the Potterverse are fabulous, mythic. Larger than life. So I think that we may not be expected to read too much realpolitik into Crouch's political actions. It's a moral dilemma—ends and means—drawn in broad strokes. To privilege the ends over the means to the extent that Crouch did is still morally wrong, even in the Golden Wood. But I think that we might want to consider the possibility that in the Golden Wood, at least, his means really could have genuinely facilitated those ends to which they were being applied. Barty Crouch Sr. certainly did go overboard, but I think that he had at least booked passage on the right ship."
"Well...okay," says Elkins. "But where's the canon?"
Eileen blinks at her. "What?"
"The canon. Where's the canon? I mean, if I'm understanding your reading correctly, then I can't help but feel that it is asking me to overlook an awful lot of things. First, it asks me to overlook the way that things work in real life. Generally speaking, I prefer not to throw out my real world expectations in favor of fantastical ones unless I see some evidence that it's appropriate, evidence like a pattern of genre convention, for example. But the pattern in the HP books tells me that I probably shouldn't be doing that when it comes to the Ministry and its attendent plotlines."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, much of the Potterverse is indeed fabulous, mythic. But it doesn't seem to me that the Ministry and its attendant plotlines are generally portrayed that way at all. As I read them, the Ministry plotlines are simplified, but they don't strike me as at all fabulous or politically naive. In fact, they're generally rather stunningly hard-nosed, which I suspect is one of the main reasons that the series' adult readers enjoy discussing them so much. Nothing else about the Ministry plotlines reflects political naivete on the part of the authorial voice, and that makes it really difficult for me to read Crouch's 'harsh measures' in quite as ingenuous or as allegorical a light as you suggest."
"Well..."
"And then it asks me to overlook Crouch's thematic associations."
"His thematic associations?"
"Yes. In GoF, Crouch isn't associated with motifs and subplots that deal with protection or with self-sacrifice. Rather, he seems to be associated with all of the motifs and subplots that focus thematically on issues of coercion, control, domination, and the negation of volition."
"That's meta-thinking," points out Eileen.
"Damn straight it is!" declares Elkins proudly. "And it's some right fine meta-thinking, too! Do you have a problem with meta-thinking, Eileen?"
"Me?" Eileen laughs. "Are you kidding?"
"Good. Just checking. So there are all of these thematic indications that I need to overlook as well. And then, there's also the fact that the text so firmly establishes Crouch as a hypocrite. When you look back on the story in retrospect, you see that his ostensible motives always turn out to be in some way deceptive. His ostensible motives aren't the same as his real ones. So it's hard not to draw from that the conclusion that his purported political motives, just like all of his other purported motives, were not actually what they on the surface appeared to be.
"So," Elkins concludes decisively. "I think that if we want to propose a reading that goes against all of these indications, we really need to find some evidence for it in the text. Evidence sufficiently weighty to override all of the things that are pushing against a reading of Crouch as genuinely motivated by the desire to protect the wizarding world and to serve the populace. So. Is there any?"
"Any..."
"Any evidence. Anything in the text to indicate that this time around, Crouch's purported motives and his actual ones actually did synch up? Any evidence that his political actions weren't just a case of The Usual Wicked Rationalization, but instead were sincerely well-intended means-to-achieve-ends decisions?"
There is a long silence.
"What does the text actually tell us about Crouch and his harsh measures?" Elkins prompts. "Is there any evidence that Crouch's measures were actually effective means to his purported end? That they actually worked? That they did the slightest bit of good against Voldemort and his Death Eaters?"
Eileen thinks this over.
"Well, what about Moody?" she asks. "He brought more Death Eaters to justice than any other Auror."
"Yes, and is also said to have avoided the use of the Unforgivable Curses," Elkins reminds her. "Now why would the text have gone to all the trouble to point that out, unless it wanted to lead the reader to the understanding that 'harsh' and 'effective' are not necessarily synonymous?"
There is another long silence.
"Dumbledore seems to have cared about Crouch," says Eileen. "He showed concern for him at the beginning of Book Four, after Harry's name came out of the Goblet, when poor Barty was looking so ill. His concern was only 'mild' and therefore not linked to some idea in his head that that this might be linked to Voldemort. He was worried about Crouch, the same way I feel he is worried abut Harry, Snape, and others."
"Yes, well." Elkins smiles. "Dumbledore. We can't all be Dumbledore, can we? Dumbledore seems to like Fudge well enough too, on the purely personal level. Even at the end of Book Four, when he's talking Tough to him, he still does so with a good deal of compassion. I'm sure that if Fudge were looking poorly, Dumbledore would exhibit similar concern. But we know that he doesn't approve of Fudge's political decisions. We also know that he considers Fudge to be self-interested. Blinded by the love of the office he holds, right? That Dumbledore can feel concern for Crouch as a human being doesn't mean that he ever believed Crouch's political decisions to be either effective or even necessarily all that well-intended.
"And besides," she adds, as an afterthought. "Dumbledore didn't trust Crouch."
"How do you know that?"
"He maintained his own network of spies during the war. He vouched for Snape to the tribunal only after the war had ended. So he obviously wasn't cutting Crouch into his plans during the conflict itself, which does seem to indicate that he didn't trust him very much. In fact, it's just what he seems to be planning on doing with Fudge now, isn't it? He doesn't seem to be planning on trying to get the man out of office, or anything like that. He's just going to try to work around him. Very much like he seems to have worked around Crouch during the war."
There is another long silence.
"Actually," Elkins says. "We don't have the slightest bit of evidence for the supposition that Crouch's measures ever served a single living soul other than Crouch himself, or even that he ever believed that they would. Do we."
"If it hadn't been for Crouch's measures..." Eileen begins.
"...we have no idea what would have happened. There's no evidence either way. Maybe Crouch's measures really did do some good. Or maybe they only served to exacerbate the conflict. Remember when Pip suggested that her Ever-So-Evil Death Eating Mrs. Crouch was likely the person to talk her husband into encouraging the use of the UCs in the first place? She said:
If you want your side to fight to the death...then encouraging the other side to kill/torture upon capture is a really good plan.
"Really, when you think about it, Crouch's measures could well have prolonged the conflict."
"Or they could have been the only thing staving Voldemort off for eleven years," says Eileen.
"Could be," admits Elkins. "The text doesn't tell us either way. But while we are not given the slightest indication in the text that Crouch's measures were at all useful or effective when it came to fighting dark wizardry, there is something for which we are told that they were effective. Something else. Something very important."
Elkins looks at Eileen.
"We are told," she says meaningfully. "That they made Crouch popular."
"Sirius says that! And he had a grudge against Crouch!"
"Yes, yes, Sirius had a grudge against Crouch. Who doesn't? Even I have a grudge against Crouch, and I haven't even had twelve years in Azkaban to dwell on his iniquities. But do you really doubt Sirius when he says that Crouch's harsh measures made him popular with a substantial portion of the populace? I see no reason to doubt him when he says that. 'Desperate measures' rhetoric usually does prove popular with a frightened populace, doesn't it?"
Eileen thinks about this, then slowly shakes her head.
"Oh, I don't know, Elkins," she says. "I think that Crouch's political errors really did originate from his desire to protect the world from Voldemort. He went overboard in privileging the ends over the means, but his ends were basically good. He just got carried away because—"
"Because he despised and detested the Dark Arts and those who practiced them." Elkins rolls her eyes. "Yes, yes. We know. Crouch tells us so himself, after all. At the QWC. In a public place. In front of many witnesses. When he is feeling personally threatened. And while he is busily engaged in doing everything within his power to deflect attention away from his mad, dangerous Death Eater son. His son, on whom he himself had been practicing Dark Arts for over a decade."
"Are you saying that Crouch didn't hate Dark Wizardry?"
"Well, I think that he very badly wanted to believe that he hated dark wizardry. Although for someone with such an apparent lack of scruple about the Unforgivable Curses to claim status as a despiser of Dark Arts is...well, let's just say that Crouch's self-professed hatred of the Dark Arts has always struck me as a classic case of protesting too much. I do think that Crouch wanted to believe that he hated Dark Wizardry. I think that he wanted that very badly. I'd say that he was absolutely desperate to believe that about himself. But I don't think that his primary motivations had anything to do with protecting the wizarding world from Voldemort, or from dark wizards."
"That's just because you're biased against him," says Eileen. "It's because you're a Dove, and you don't like Hawks. That's all this really comes down to, Elkins."
"No," sighs Elkins. "It's not, you know. It's really not. I do have some bias against Hawks, it's true, but that's not what this is about. Like I said before, I'm really not crazy about the way that JKR uses Crouch in regard to the ends/means question. I think that it's cheating. I'd much rather have seen him portrayed as a truly sincere and honorable proponent of ends over means. But I just can't accept him as such, partly because of all of the factors I mentioned before, but also because when I look at his political actions, I see some very troubling discrepancies. Discrepancies between how Crouch behaves when he is in the public eye, and how he behaves when he is not. And this part isn't meta-thinking. Just look at what the man does!"
==================================================
Barty Crouch, Fanatical Hard-Liner?
That's certainly Crouch's public persona. It's his reputation. It's the face that he shows to the world, and it is how Sirius, who only knew Crouch as a public figure, chooses to characterize him in "Padfoot Returns." But I see some rather interesting incongruities between the way that Crouch behaves when the public spotlight is on him, and the way he behaves when it is not.
Take Karkaroff's hearing, for example. This hearing would seem to have been closed to the general public. The cameras, so to speak, were off.
Now, Karkaroff is a Dark Wizard. He is a Death Eater. He is professing repentence, but only after some months spent in Azkaban suffering under the dementors. There's duress involved, to say the least, and his contrition does not come across as terribly sincere. Furthermore, if Moody is to be believed, Karkaroff's crimes include torture, and torture not only of Muggles, but of wizards as well. Karkaroff says of Dolohov that "I saw him torture countless Muggles and -- and non-supporters of the Dark Lord." Moody's dissatisfied mutter ("And helped him do it") strongly implies that Karkarov was not merely an accessory or a witness to these crimes. He was an active participant.
In short, Karkaroff's crimes are very similar to those which will apparently drive Crouch to righteous fury when confronted with the Longbottoms' assailants: serving the Dark Lord, torturing wizards. Karkaroff's crimes are hardly any different from the crime which Crouch will later describe as "so heinous. . . .that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court," the crime that will apparently inspire him to bug-eyed fury, to regard the defendents with "pure hatred" in his face, and to condemn them to life imprisonment with the editorial comment "Take them away, and may they rot there!"
We don't see any of that righteous fury at Karkaroff's hearing, though. Crouch cuts a deal with Karkaroff and allows him to walk free, even though by doing so he offends at least one of his Aurors, who believes that he is being too lenient. Crouch does speak to Karkaroff coldly, at times contemptuously, but he remains perfectly civil. Nor does he resort to any excessive measures in order to get what he wants out of Karkaroff. As Eileen has asked before, if Crouch were truly so prone to ends-over-means excess, then why not force Karkaroff to reveal the names of his previous confederates by means of torture? Crouch has authorized the use of the Unforgivables. Yet he does not resort to the Cruciatus Curse to wrest Karkaroff's information from him. He chooses the carrot, not the stick.
Why? If Crouch is such a fanatic, if he hates Dark Wizardry all that passionately, and if he is such a rabid proponent of the ends over the means, then why would he behave in such a civilized fashion? And if he were really so concerned with the safety of the wizarding world, concerned enough about it that he allows it to lead him into all types of moral error, then how could he allow someone guilty of Karkaroff's crimes to walk free?
Because nobody is watching him, that's why. Karkaroff's hearing is a closed hearing. The eye of the public is not upon him.
Then let's look at Crouch's relationship with Ludo Bagman. Crouch did think that Bagman was guilty of worse than stupidity. He spoke of it to Winky. Bagman's trial may even have been the turning point in Crouch's political downfall. Yet he is perfectly capable of maintaining a courteous professional relationship with Bagman and of working alongside him in planning the Triwizard Tournament. Crouch shows occasional traces of irritation and exasperation in his dealings with Bagman, but no sign at all of hatred, bitterness or rancour.
Now, if Crouch were really such a fanatic, then how could he manage this? Contrast his behavior with that of Arthur Weasley, whose loathing of Lucius Malfoy is so intense that even a childish schoolboy taunt is enough to drive him to attack Malfoy physically. Arthur Weasley is an idealogue. Bartemius Crouch is not.
Whenever we see Crouch out in the public eye, then he does indeed give the impression of being the very model of a fanatical hard-liner. But in private? When the public is not watching him? He cuts a deal with Karkaroff and lets him walk free, he accepts Dumbledore's testimony in regard to Snape (unlike Moody, who remains suspicious), and he behaves professionally and cordially towards a colleague whom he himself believes to have knowingly and voluntarily colluded with Death Eaters.
And then there are all of those people who got off on the Imperius defense.
==========================================
"Lucius Malfoy," Elkins says, ticking them off on her fingers. "Acquitted. Crabbe, Nott, Goyle, McNair—"
"Avery," Eileen reminds her.
"Yes, poor Avery," agrees Elkins. "Acquitted. Crouch Jr.'s co-defendents: the Lestranges, if indeed they be, and Fourth Man. Crouch Jr. was caught with people Sirius Black would have bet his life were Death Eaters, but who had 'talked their way out of Azkaban' the first time around, remember? So. Given a trial. And acquitted."
She pauses, then looks down at Eileen.
"You do realize, of course," she says. "That you're the one who got me started on this? Remember message #44636, when you asked me why Crouch didn't use the Cruciatus to wrest Karkaroff's names from him? And then asked me how Lucius Malfoy got off?"
"But those were supposed to be Crouch apologetics!" wails Eileen. "I was trying to praise Crouch, not to bury him! I was just trying to prove that he wasn't—"
"Wasn't Stalin. I know. But that does rather beg the question of what precisely he was, doesn't it? I notice a very interesting pattern when it comes to Crouch's violations of due process."
"That they don't exist?"
"Oh, heavens no! They absolutely do exist! But they exist specifically when it comes to cases that are notorious. They seem to happen primarily when the public is watching him. And even more specifically, they happen when the public is out for blood."
================================
When we look at the canonical examples that we have been given of the times when Crouch does violate due process, I think that we see a distinct pattern emerging.
Sirius Black.
Alleged betrayer of the parents of the Wizarding World's savior, the famous Harry Potter, to whom the entire wizarding world is out on the streets singing jubilations. Sirius Black, who even by Harry's day is still capable of inspiring all sorts of frightened sounding rumors from ordinary citizens like Stan and Ern of the Knight Bus.
Prison without trial.
The Pensieve Four.
Alleged torturers of the "very popular" Longbottoms, a crime which Dumbledore says "caused a wave of fury such as I have never known," a crime which placed the Ministry "under great pressure to catch those who had done it." All four of them seemingly young. Three of the four of them already once accused of Dark activities.
Sentenced to life imprisonment on the basis of no real evidence, after a trial held in what even the Wizarding World seems to consider to have been a kangaroo court.
Crouch's legal behavior would seem to be primarily determined by the desires of the public. When no one is watching him, he does not exhibit fanaticism or excess in his treatment of prisoners. When he misjudges the mood of the populace—as happens at Ludo Bagman's trial—he backs down without much demur. But when people are clamoring for blood, that is when he panders to them by playing the role of Bartemius Crouch, Fanatical Hard-Liner, and by throwing them sacrificial blood offerings, like Sirius Black and the Pensieve Four.
This is in keeping with his behavior overall. Everything that Crouch does is dictated by his public image.
In public, Crouch ignores his weeping wife, seems to take no notice of her even when she faints dead away right beside him, and denounces Winky with "no pity in his gaze."
In private, he cooperates with his wife's plan to save their son and accedes to Winky's pleas for clemency on his son's behalf.
In public, Crouch denounces his son, glares at him with pure hatred in his face, and howls "may they rot there!" as he and his co-defendents are being dragged off by the dementors.
In private, he rescues his son from Azkaban, even though doing so involves abandoning his wife to die in a cell and be buried on the prison grounds by dementors. He then keeps his son alive, in good health, and free from physical restraint, even after it has become clear that his son is capable of breaking free from the Imperius Curse, still able to practice magic, and still fanatically loyal to Voldemort; and even after Crouch has dismissed Winky and therefore has no one at all to help him keep watch over or control his captive.
In cases which are highly notorious or highly publicized, Crouch sends men to prison without trial (Black), brings cases before the court which probably ought never have come to trial in the first place (Bagman), and pushes for conviction on the basis of little to no evidence (the Longbottom assailants).
In cases which are not in the public spotlight, he conducts plea bargains, exonerates Death Eaters like Snape on the basis of Dumbledore's word, and presides over mass acquittals.
To the public, Crouch portrays himself as a hard-liner, Tough On Crime.
In his actual practice, he cuts deals with convicted criminals, works alongside wizards whom he believes to have served the forces of evil, and allows Death Eaters to walk free.
========================================
"Crouch wasn't a fanatic," Elkins concludes wearily. "He wasn't even an idealogue. He was a self-interested politician. He had his eye on the polls and his finger on the pulse. His hard-line Hawk persona was his public act, but he wasn't really like that at all. He wasn't a True Believer. Moody was more of a True Believer than Crouch was.
"Crouch was certainly passionate when it came to enforcing his will on others, but he wasn't nearly so passionate when it came to protecting the wizarding world. He didn't place the commonweal above his selfish interests. He wasn't concerned with the safety of others. He wasn't a devoted public servant. He wasn't even all that vehement an opponent of Dark Wizardry. That was just his persona. It was the story he told, both to himself and to others. But it wasn't a true story."
Elkins shakes her head.
"Parents need to be careful of the stories they tell," she says. "They really do. Because the person who really was a fanatic? Who really did devote himself body and soul to service to his cause? Who really did privilege it above his regard for his family ties? Who really never once allowed love—any of the four loves—to dictate his actions? The Bartemius Crouch who really was a True Believer? The Barty Crouch who played that game for keeps?"
Elkins' hobby horse snorts. She pats it absently.
"That," she says quietly. "Was his son."
There is a very long silence.
"Careful the things you wish for," Eileen murmers.
"Wishes are children. Yes. I do think that Crouch was a bad influence on his son, you know. But not because he spent too much time at the office."
"That line has always struck me as hilarious," agrees Eileen. "Considering that for almost 10 months of the year, Crouch Sr. could have got home early from the office any day, and then what? Barty Jr. was at Hogwarts, for heaven's sakes!"
"I quite agree. That really is stupid, isn't it? I've always figured that comment had a lot more to do with Sirius himself and his own feelings of regret over not being able to spend any quality time with Harry than it did with the Crouch family. I mean, honestly! Did Crouch act like a disinterested father? Does a disinterested father scream denunciations at his son? Does a disinterested father know precisely how many O.W.L.s his son has taken? Does a disinterested father risk being sent off to Azkaban himself in order to rescue a son he probably really did believe to be guilty from prison, and then keep him captive in his own home under the Imperius Curse for over ten years?"
"Disinterested parents really don't do things like that, do they?" says Eileen.
"No. They don't. If Crouch was anything," says Elkins. "I'd say that he was too interested in his son. Way too interested in him. Unhealthily interested in him. Over-involved. Over-identified. I do think that Crouch was a terrible parental influence, but not because he was disinterested. Because he was over-identified. And also because of the falsehoods that he projected about himself. Falsehoods that his son took far too seriously."
"Charis Julia says that Crouch probably never bothered to explain right and wrong to Barty Jr," says Eileen. "She suggests that he simply delivered orders and expected his son to obey them without ever explaining his rationale for them. In the ever-so-brilliant Message 37769, she wrote:
Unfortunately however this left Barty Jr not only resentful of his father's iron fist but also sadly susceptible to Voldemort's "There is no good and evil/only power and those too weak to seek it" persuasive little speech."
"Mmmmmm." Elkins shakes her head slowly. "I don't really think that I agree with that precisely," she says. "Not that I don't think that Crouch was a pretty tyrannical father, mind. I'm sure that he was. But I'm not sure that I see the same relationship that Charis does between Crouch's parenting style and his son's terrible decisions. For one thing, I don't see why we should assume that Voldemort used the exact same seduction speech with all of his followers. Was Barty Jr. really a 'power and the will to seek it' sort of person, do you think? I don't think that's quite the way his mind worked. After all, he told us what his greatest ambition was, didn't he? He told us when he was under the veritaserum. He said that his greatest ambition was to serve. To serve, and to prove himself worthy of service. In other words," she says. "He wanted to be as truly devoted to the service of some cause as his father, the supposed public servant, merely pretended to be."
"You aren't really trying to blame Barty Crouch Sr. for his son's decision to become a Death Eater," asks Eileen. "Are you, Elkins?"
"No, of course not. People have to make their own choices in the end, don't they? Not that Crouch Sr. believed in that, of course. I'm just pointing out the extent to which the falsehoods that Crouch projected about himself influenced his son's behavior, and in ways that really weren't healthy. It doesn't excuse Crouch Jr. for his bad decisions. He should have found a worthier cause to devote himself to. Much like Percy should have, actually. Or Winky, for that matter, although Winky didn't really have as much choice in the matter. Crouch Sr. didn't deserve the kind of loyalty that he inspired in others, and he didn't have a very salutory effect on those who were drawn in by his charisma, or by the lies that he told. Really, he seems to have corrupted or damaged or destroyed just about everyone that his life touched in one way or another. His son. His Aurors. Percy. Winky. Not to mention Bertha Jorkins! But most of all, the Wizarding World as a whole. Do you remember what I was saying before, about Crouch's relationship with his son?"
"You said that you thought that it reiterated on the personal level his political relationship with the wizarding world," answers Eileen.
"Right. Well, the reason that parricide and tyrannicide are so closely conceptually linked is because fathers and leaders are closely conceptually linked. Crouch had very much the same effect on his public as he did on his son, I'd say. He told lies that people believed, and the lies that he told were really very bad for them. We keep being told about how fearful and paranoid everyone was during the war, don't we? Sirius mentions it. Hagrid mentions it. Well, how do you think that they got that way?"
"Because Voldemort and his DEs were conducting a war of terror?"
"In part. But also because they were being encouraged to react that way by their own leaders. Paranoia like that is never a one-way street. The Catlady has said that the feeling she gets from accounts of the days of the war is one of ordinary people being trapped in the middle. She wrote:
Does it help to think of the Death Eaters as BEING the government? Like right-wing paramilitary death squads of RL 1980s? The situation gives me a feel for the ordinary person's caught-in-the-middle-ness, altho' in RL they were between the paramilitaries and the guerrillas, not between the military governmment's secret police and the hypothetical equally deadly agents of the few honest judges left.
"And that's how you get paranoia of the sort that Sirius and Hagrid describe," says Elkins. "Not just from a terrorist threat. It really does take two for that particular tango. And it's a harmful tango, too. A corrupting tango. We're shown the effects that Crouch's favored atmosphere of paranoia and terror had on the populace. We see it in that Pensieve scene, and we also get a nice taste of it in _PoA._ We get a real mouthful there. Paranoia. Betrayal. Old school friends suspecting each other..."
"But they were right to suspect each other, Elkins! They just weren't suspecting the right old school friend, that's all."
"Well, all right, then. Fine," says Elkins crossly. "What about Pettigrew? You want to hear what mass hysteria does to people? 'He was taking over everywhere! What was there to be gained by refusing him?'"
"Elkins!" objects Eileen. "Pettigrew is a liar!"
"Yeah, Pettigrew is a liar, and his real motivations are still a bit of a black box. But I still think it's fair to assume that he wasn't being utterly deceitful there, don't you? No halfway decent dissembler would ever have attempted to provide that as a defense. It was a perfectly suicidal statement, which leads me to believe that there must have been some degree of truth to it."
"You can't blame Crouch for Pettigrew's treachery," objects Eileen. "That's completely unfair. That's even worse than blaming Crouch for his son becoming a Death Eater."
"I'm not," sighs Elkins. "I'm not blaming Crouch for Pettigrew's treachery. Pettigrew can bear the responsibility for his own sins..."
"No he can't," says Eileen bluntly.
"I...um." Elkins laughs. "Well, er, no," she agrees. "Okay. I guess he really can't, can he? That's just his problem. But he should do. I'm not blaming Crouch for Pettigrew's act of treachery. Not completely. But I do think that in that statement of his in the Shack we are being shown some evidence of just the sort of effect that Crouch's political approach had on the populace, and particularly on people who were weak. People who were already vulnerable. Vulnerable to fear. Vulnerable to despair. Pettigrew is ultimately responsible for his own actions, just like Crouch Jr. was. But political leaders have responsibilities too, you know. Just like parents do. Especially in times of war.
"And that's one of my big sticking points with Crouch," concludes Elkins. "It's not that he was a hypocrite. I wouldn't mind that so much, honestly. And it's not that he was a Hawk, either. That's a perfectly honorable political position, even if it is not my own. No, my problem with him is that he was a war profiteer. One whose profit came in the form of political capital and personal power, and at the expense of the populace that he was supposed to serve. Not a Hawk, but a Storm Crow, someone who battened on fear and hatred and paranoia, and on public hysteria, and who stirred it up not out of honorable motives, but to serve his own selfish ends. That's something that I find really hard to forgive. Not only do I personally find it profoundly unsympathetic, but the text itself also links it quite explicitly to Voldemort. It does so repeatedly, in fact. Harry identifies the hatred exhibited by that jeering Pensieve mob as every bit as much Voldemort's handiwork as the torture of the Longbottoms. Voldemort is explicitly defined as operating by fostering hatred and suspicion between people: 'Lord Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great.' In the HP series, the things that Crouch stood to represent are marked quite clearly as the forces of evil.
"And that's why I feel that Crouch's political errors are thematically linked to his eventual fate," Elkins explains. "That Crouch ends up in thrall to Voldemort, secretly working in his service, is dramatic irony, isn't it? Because that's not a new role for him at all. It's merely the literal expression of the role that he had always played.
"Crouch claimed to hate the Dark Arts, yet he both facilitated their use and practiced them himself. He claimed to stand to protect the wizarding world, yet he actually placed it very much at risk. He claimed to serve his people, yet he exploited, harmed and corrupted them. He claimed to oppose Voldemort, yet he actually worked to foster precisely the evils that Voldemort stands to represent.
"In GoF, Crouch's service to Voldemort just makes its final transition from the symbolic level to the literal one," Elkins concludes. "Secretly serving as a tool of evil wasn't a new role for Crouch. It was the fruition of his entire political career. He had been serving the forces of evil his entire life."
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Elkins
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REFERENCES:
This post is continued from part three. It is primarily a response to Messages #44636 ("Despiadado Denethor") and #45402 ("Crouch Sr as Tragic Hero"), but also cites or references message numbers 37769, 39573, 43010 and downthread responses, 44643, 45693, and 46935.
Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on December 7, 2002 6:30 PM
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