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(continued from part five)
[Apologies in advance to Eileen. This one got just a mite bit cruel in places.]
Six
Last Orders
"I think that in the end," Elkins concludes, putting 'Sympathy For the Devil: Veritaserum, a Close Reading' back in her satchel, "Crouch saved his son because he wanted to. I'm not buying that 'last orders' story. I just don't believe it. It sounds to me far more like Barty Jr's heavily biased speculation about what happened than it does like an accurate description of how that decision was actually reached."
"But you said yourself that you thought that Mrs. Crouch was putting on a performance at her son's sentencing!" Eileen objects. "You suggested that she faked that fainting spell. You implied that she was deliberately trying to manipulate her husband's emotions."
"Oh, I know," sighs Elkins. "I know. And I really do think that she was, too. But at the same time, I've always found myself wondering just how hard Mrs. Crouch really had to work on her husband to get him to agree to her plan. I find it very difficult to believe that Crouch Sr. was nearly as reluctant as his son implies."
"But Elkins," asks Eileen. "Why?"
"Well, because does Crouch Sr. really act like someone who doesn't value his son's life? For someone who was supposedly pressured into saving his son so very much against his own will and his own inclinations, he seems awfully invested in protecting him, don't you think? He seems to be willing to pay just about any price to keep him alive. And in the end," she adds grimly. "He pays it, too."
"Because he loved his wife," Cindy tells her. "And because remaining faithful to her dying wish by keeping her son alive was the only way that he had to remember her, or to honour her final sacrifice."
"And because even after his wife was gone," adds Eileen. "He still had Winky around to throw her memory in his face all the time."
Elkins thinks about this for a long moment. "Eileen," she says finally. "Tell me again about Crouch's dismissal of Winky, will you? About it being an expression of hostility against his late wife?"
"Well," says Eileen. "Winky and Mrs. Crouch both occupy the same role in the text, really, don't they? They're described in the same terms. They fill the same functions. Mrs. Crouch dies but she doesn't leave the story. The entire Crouch Sr./Mrs. Crouch dynamic is recreated between Crouch Sr. and Winky. After all, the whole 'Let him go to the QWC' is just a continuation of 'Let him switch places with me in Azkaban.' When Mrs. Crouch dies, Winky just takes over her role, doesn't she?"
"She certainly seems to. In some ways."
"Well, doesn't that suggest that in some way when he denounced Winky and released her from service, he was actually dismissing the shadow of his wife? He didn't let go of Winky because she embarassed him. He let go of her because she endangered him. Just as his wife endangered him. The two: Winky and Mrs. Crouch, pretty much killed him in the end. In dismissing Winky, Crouch is finally throwing off the control she had over his life (which is as real as the control he had over hers), and throwing off the control his wife had over him as well. So, yes, I think he was banishing his wife in some way when he let go of Winky. Not so pleasant."
"No," agrees Elkins quietly. "Not at all pleasant. Particularly when you consider how he's regarding Winky in that scene. 'As though she were something filthy and rotten that was contaminating his over-shined shoes.'"
"Ooooh, harsh," comments Cindy.
"Poor Barty," Eileen sighs.
"Yes, poor old Crouch, eh? What a life. So let me just see if I've got this straight. Crouch finally banishes this nasty disgusting feminine influence that has been endangering him all of this time. He wrests himself free from the control of these wife figures who keep exerting such a powerful and dangerous feminizing influence on him, luring him into showing mercy even when it is grossly irresponsible for him to do so, and who are also, in some sense, actively betraying him, as they take his son's side against his own. By dismissing Winky, he is striking out not only at Winky herself, but also at his late wife. In effect, he is banishing her shade. He is performing a kind of an exorcism. Is that more or less correct?"
Elkins looks questioningly over to Eileen, who nods tentatively.
"You know, I absolutely love this reading?" Elkins tells her.
Eileen looks startled. "You do?"
"Yes. I'm hopelessly enamoured of it. But only if I can tweak it a little bit. Because my main problem with it as it stands is...well, okay, so Crouch banishes Winky and with her, the shade of his late wife. He wrests himself free from their dangerous feminizing influence. So far so good. But what does he do then?"
Eileen frowns. "What do you mean?"
"Well, what's the outcome of that exorcism? See, this is my problem with this reading. It's the same problem that I have with the whole Last Orders story, actually. It's the problem that I have with 'my dying wife forced my hand!' For that matter, it's also my problem with your insistence that Winky and Mrs. Crouch were more careless and reckless when it came to Barty Jr. than Crouch himself was. You see, I just can't reconcile any of those claims with Crouch's actions after the QWC."
"His actions after the QWC?"
"Yes. Really, Crouch's decisions after the QWC are quite damning, don't you think? To my mind, they're far worse than either the decision to save Barty Jr. from prison in the first place or the decision to allow him to attend the World Cup. I can see plenty of mitigating factors for both of those decisions. But none of those factors are still in effect after the QWC. After the QWC, all of the mitigating factors are gone."
"I don't think that I'm quite seeing what you mean," says Eileen.
"Well, okay. Look here."
=============================================
People often cite Crouch's rescue of his son from Azkaban as the most serious of his errors, THE fatal error, so to speak, the action which leads unerringly and inexorably to his destruction.
While I certainly agree that hindsight reveals this act to have been a very bad mistake, I am always surprised that more people don't cite Crouch's behavior after the QWC as a far more damning example of his fatal carelessness when it came to his son.
Rescuing his son from prison was certainly a very hypocritical thing for Mr. Crouch to have done. Truly sickeningly so. I don't, however, necessarily see it as all that foolhardy. We don't actually know what Crouch and his wife were thinking when they conspired to save their son from death in Azkaban. It is possible that they might have believed that there was a chance that he really had been innocent. Young Crouch alone of the defendents in the Longbottom case had never before stood accused of any Dark activity. There seems to have been no real evidence against him, other than the circumstantial evidence of his having been caught in the company of the others. Even if he had been fingered by the testimony of his three co-defendents, this would hardly have been the most compelling evidence, given how we can imagine the Death Eaters as a group must have felt about elder Crouch, who had commanded his Aurors against them and sent so many of their number to prison. Both Dumbledore and Sirius expressed doubt about Crouch Jr's guilt. In the part of his trial that we see in the Pensieve, his co-defendents ignore his outbursts completely, while he himself insists upon his innocence to the very last.
Eileen has argued in the past that Crouch "knew" that his son was guilty, but I just don't see how he could possibly have known this. Nobody did. If Crouch "knew" that his son was guilty, then he knew it in precisely the same way that he "knew" that Sirius Black was guilty -- which is to say, he didn't. I do think that Crouch genuinely believed his son to be guilty, but he might also have been willing to concede the possibility that there was a chance that his son really could be innocent. This could have had some bearing on his decision to agree to his wife's plan to free Barty Jr. from Azkaban.
Alternatively (and, to my mind, far more likely), the Crouches could have believed that their son was, while technically guilty, not really a very hard case. Crouch Jr. was very young, after all. He was barely past the age of majority. His parents could have believed that he'd been led astray. That he'd been seduced. That he'd been an accessory, but not an accomplice. That he'd been an accomplice, but not an active participant. That all he really needed to straighten him out was one of those proverbial short sharp shocks (if one can really use that phrase to refer to a year of imprisonment in Azkaban that proved nearly fatal to young Barty and probably had a lot to do with driving him completely around the bend).
Judy Serenity once wrote:
My personal belief is that that Crouch Sr. believed his son was guilty and deserved harsh punishment, but had no idea just how devoted Jr. was to Voldemort. I don't think Crouch Sr. could possibly be expected to know that his son would help return Voldemort to power if released from Azkaban. Any parent would think "My son was under the bad influence of his friends" not "My son is the most evil creature on the face of this earth."
She also once suggested that Crouch might have envisioned sending Barty off to start a new life somewhere abroad under a new identity, before he realized that his son was completely unrepentant.
Indeed, I can see plenty of reasons why the Crouches might have thought that rescuing their son from Azkaban was not an action that would have had any terrible repercussions or placed anyone at any real risk. Crouch Jr's lack of repentence would seem to have come as an utter surprise to his father. His father did not put him under the Imperius Curse until he was fool enough to start shooting his mouth off about wanting to run off to seek Voldemort. The impression that I have always received is that until Crouch Jr. was idiotic enough to make his intentions known, his father had fully expected him to be abjectly grateful for having been liberated: duly chastened, repentent, dutiful, obedient. In short, harmless.
Crouch's decision to continue to keep his son a prisoner in his own home even after it became clear that he was both guilty and unrepentant was also unwise, but again, I can at least see how he might have managed to justify this decision to himself. His son was under the Imperius Curse. He was under guard. He wasn't going to break free. What difference does it really make, from the perspective of ensuring the safety of the populace, whether a criminal is kept prisoner in Azkaban or in his father's home? Either way, he is not capable of hurting anybody.
The decision to allow Crouch Jr. to attend the QWC doesn't strike me as all that foolhardy either, really. Crouch Jr. had been under the Imperius Curse for over ten years. Surely neither Winky nor Crouch expected that after all of that time, he was suddenly going to be able to break free of it. I imagine that they assumed that if Crouch Jr. hadn't been able to crack the Imperius as an angry young teenager, then he certainly wasn't going to be doing so ten years later, at the age of thirty, after over a decade of captivity, demoralizing treatment, and mental enslavement. There is such a thing as an institutional mentality, after all. Crouch may even have deluded himself into believing that he had finally succeeded in crushing his son's spirit, that Crouch Jr. had been cowed, broken, beaten into submission. Rendered harmless.
Crouch and Winky also probably assumed that Crouch Jr. didn't have any magical capabilities. One of the long-term effects of the dementors is supposed to be that they strip wizards of their magical powers, and the dementors had young Crouch right on the brink of death when he was saved from them. Furthermore, he hadn't been allowed access to a wand since prison. So really, how dangerous could he possibly be? What harm could letting him go watch a sporting event do to anyone?
As it turns out, none of these things was the case. But both Crouch and Winky can be forgiven for having assumed them. They were reasonable assumptions, even if they were incorrect.
But after the QWC?
After the QWC, Crouch had to have realized what kind of a threat his son represented. He must have. Crouch Jr. had proven himself strong enough to throw off his father's Imperius Curse, strong enough even to put up a bit of a fight against Winky's powerful elf magic. He had proven himself cagey enough to steal a wand from the most carefully guarded teenager in the entire wizarding world, and in front of an entire slew of witnesses -- still without getting caught. He had proven that even after near-death in Azkaban, even after over a decade of mental domination, even after a decade denied access to a wand, he was still magically capable enough to use somebody else's wand to fire the Dark Mark into the sky.
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Crouch could have known that their son would be dangerous once released from prison. Neither Winky nor Mr. Crouch could have known that he would be strong enough to break free of the Imperius Curse when they decided to bring him to the QWC.
But after the QWC, Crouch knows the truth of the matter. His son isn't crushed. He isn't cowed. He isn't beaten, he isn't broken, he isn't bowed. He isn't in the slightest bit repentent. He is still devoted to Voldemort's cause. He is still determined to fight his father. He is still in full possession of both his mental faculties and his magical capabilities. He can kick his father's Imperius Curse. And he's not playing with a full deck.
He. Is. Dangerous.
==========================================
"Dangerous," repeats Elkins. "He's dangerous. A danger to himself and others."
"A viper at his father's bosom," murmers Eileen. Elkins shakes her head.
"Oh no," she says pleasantly. "No, no, no. He's really much worse than that, you see, because he's not just a danger to his father. He is a danger to the public at large. And Crouch Sr. must have realized that. He may not have done before the QWC, but after the QWC, he must have. Furthermore, he had just dismissed Winky, which meant that he no longer had anyone to help him control or watch over his highly dangerous prisoner. And as for that Imperius Curse of his...well!" Elkins laughs savagely. "Little Barty kicked its ass, didn't he! No Stockholm Syndrome for little Barty. Ten years of mental domination, ten years of captivity, ten years of being treated like an Unperson, and he still kicked it."
Cindy stares at her. "Elkins," she says. "Do you actually admire that little psychopath?"
"Sometimes," admits Elkins. "Sometimes I do. So. This is now Crouch Sr's predicament. He has a prisoner on his hands. His prisoner is mad, strong, clever, dangerous, and very angry. And an unrepentent Death Eater. Crouch does not have the resources to keep his prisoner safely. He no longer has Winky's elf magic to call upon. He no longer has any allies at all, in fact. He works a job. With Winky gone, there is going to be no one at home during the day to keep an eye on his captive, against whose will his Imperius Curse has now been proven unreliable."
Elkins pauses to allow Cindy and Eileen to think about this.
"So," she says. "What does Crouch do, after putting his son back under the Imperius Curse? What does he do, now that he no longer has all of these womenfolk around to lure him into endangering both himself and the public by taking foolish risks with his son? What does he do, now that he has finally banished his wife's shade and by doing so, rid himself of her perniciously Soft influence?"
There is a long silence.
"Eileen," Elkins says softly. "What would Brutus have done?"
Eileen looks down at her shoes. "Which one?" she asks.
"Either one! Come on. What would the ruthlessly hubristic Tough and Steely proponent of ends over means, the tragic hero who is dedicated to the protection of the wizarding world even when it comes at immense personal sacrifice, the man who does not let love—any of the four loves—dictate his actions, except for that one little slip-up due to his dying wife's baleful influence—an influence which he has now supposedly banished—what does that man do in this situation?"
There is an even longer silence.
"It wouldn't have had to be cruel, you know," Elkins says gently. "He could have made it humane. Far more humane than death in Azkaban, that's for sure. He wouldn't even have had to do anything, er, Unforgivable, although we know that he didn't exactly balk at that. But it wouldn't have been necessary. His son was back under the Imperius Curse. He was totally helpless. Crouch could have given him something to drink. He could have slipped something into his food. He was a wizard from a fine old pure-blooded family who lived in a big old mansion; I'm sure that he had tons of lethal stuff lying around all over the place. If Crouch had just slipped something into his son's bedtime Ovril—with steely resolve, with sorrowful wisdom, with loving regret, what have you—then Barty Jr. wouldn't even have had to suffer the terror of anticipation. It could have been quick, it could have been clean, it could have been merciful, and it could have been over. For that matter..."
Elkins' voice trails off. Cindy looks up.
"What?" she asks.
Elkins shakes her head. "No," she says. "It's ugly."
"When has that ever stopped you before?"
"Well...oh, all right. If Crouch didn't even want to see it, if he just couldn't stand to watch his son die, if he didn't even want to get dirt on his hands directly, then he still had another option. And it's even one that the text goes out of its way to draw to our attention."
"Which is?"
"Last orders," Elkins says flatly. "Barty Jr. was under the Imperius Curse. His father could have commanded his suicide. And then just left the room, if he had to."
"Ew! Elkins!" Cindy stares at her. "And you're always calling Eileen Bent?"
"It's not her fault," says Eileen, smiling slightly. "She's just had one too many Julio-Claudians."
"I'm sure that it never would have crossed Crouch's mind to do such a thing," sniffs Cindy. "We Tough people just don't think like that, Elkins!"
"Well, I don't know if it ever crossed Crouch's mind or not," replies Elkins. "But it certainly did cross his son's mind. And it crossed the author's mind as well."
"What?" Eileen frowns. "Where on earth are you getting...oh. OH!" She nods and begins flipping rapidly through her copy of _GoF_. "Oh! I know! 'The Unforgivable Curses.'"
"Yeah, the DADA lesson. Crouch/Moody really doesn't like it at all when the class laughs at his Imperio'd spider, does he? That upsets him a great deal. It's one of the few places where we ever see him lose his cool. He doesn't lose it nearly as badly as he does with Draco Malfoy, admittedly, and not half so badly as he does in the end game, when he throws his villainous little bwah-hah-hah tantrum, but he does slip there, I'd say. He loses his temper. He's really stung by that laughter."
"The poor sensitive dear," comments Cindy drily.
"And the very first thing that he says after recovering his equilibrium is...?"
Eileen finds the right page and begins to read:
'Total control,' said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. 'I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats...'
She shuts the book with a faint shudder.
"Ugh," she says.
"Yeah. Ugh. It does make you wonder, though, doesn't it, just how stressed young Crouch might have been about that possibility? The passage implies to my mind that somewhere beneath his Imperius-induced haze, he had worried about that rather a lot. Especially after the QWC, I'd be willing to wager."
"He was inwardly flinching every time that voice in his head told him to draw himself a nice hot bath, you think?" asks Eileen, with a slightly twisted smile.
"I do. I really do. The specter of Imperius-induced suicide is never again raised in the novel, which makes it hard for me not to read that passage as in part a character touch. And am I the only person who reads a trace of remembered fear in Crouch Jr's line in his confession: 'Now it was just Father and I, alone in the house?' Winky was the mitigating influence in that dynamic, wasn't she?"
"That's just what I've been saying!" cries Eileen.
"I know, I know. But I just can't quite believe that Winky—or the woman whose role she usurps in the text, for that matter—could truly have been all that significant an influence on Crouch's behavior. Because what Crouch actually does after the QWC is this: he puts his son back under the Imperius Curse. And then he takes him home. And then the two of them continue on precisely as they were. Crouch doesn't even take the precaution of physically restraining his son, even though he no longer has Winky around to help watch over and control him, and even though he now knows that his son could break free from the Imperius at any second. He doesn't take the precaution of clapping him in chains. He doesn't put a body bind on him. He doesn't even lock him up in a room. He continues to allow him to roam freely through the house."
"Well, we don't really know that," Eileen points out. "Crouch might have locked him in a—"
"No, it really doesn't seem that he did, because when Crouch Jr. talks about his father opening the front door to Pettigrew and Voldemort that night, he gives the distinct impression of having been right there to witness it. He provides the detail of Voldemort showing up 'in the arms of his servant Wormtail.' He specifies that his father didn't have time to put up a struggle: 'It was very quick.' And when he talks about the event itself..." Elkins squirms a bit. "Well..."
"That sickening grin," says Eileen, with some distaste.
"Well, er, yes. I've never claimed that Crouch Jr. didn't have some pretty serious emotional problems, have I? He flashes that insane smile 'as though recalling the sweetest memory of his life,' which really does suggest quite strongly to my mind that he was an on-the-spot eye-witness to his father's being placed under the Imperius Curse. But that means that he must have been hanging around the foyer, doesn't it? Right next to the front door? In the middle of the night? Or maybe just trailing Father Dearest around the house, like a bored toddler. Or an imprinted gosling."
"An imprinted gosling..." Cindy muses. "Hey, Winky had bound Crouch Jr. to her physically, right? With her elf magic. So maybe Crouch Sr. had done something similar. To keep him close, you know. To keep him in sight. So you could read that as evidence that he was at least trying to minimize the danger."
"Minimize the danger? Crouch was still going into the office every day at that point in the story. Who was looking after his prisoner all day long while he was at work? He must have been leaving his son alone in the house all day long, just crossing his fingers and hoping that his Imperius Curse would continue to do the trick. His Imperius Curse that had already failed him once at the QWC." Elkins shakes her head. "If Crouch had really wanted to minimize the danger," she says. "Then he would have—"
"Oh, but come on now, Elkins," says Cindy. "You can't really expect a man to kill his own son, can you?"
"Brutus did it."
"Yes, but...with his own hands?"
"Oh, yes," spits Elkins. "Heaven forbid that Mr. Crouch should have to get blood on his own hands. That's what his Aurors are for, right? And his prison. And his dementors."
"Elkins," says Cindy quietly. "Calm down."
"I don't like hypocrites. Look, we are asked to believe that until his wife intervened, Crouch had been willing to allow his teenaged son to die of despair and self-induced starvation on the floor of a prison cell, after being driven slowly mad by dementors. That's certainly a far nastier way to go than anything that Crouch would have been likely to dish out in the privacy of his own home. Eileen has suggested that the only reason that he did not in the end allow this to happen was because his dying wife placed unbearable psychological pressure on him to convince him to relent. She has suggested that Crouch had come to believe that he had been totally wrong to give into that pressure. That he had realized that his wife had talked him into doing something that was not only wrong, but also recklessly endangering both his own safety and that of others. That he deeply regretted his decision to accede to her request, and that his resentment over this was underlying his rejection of Winky. She has suggested that by renouncing Winky, Crouch was banishing his dead wife's shade, and thus finally purging himself of her dangerously merciful influence."
Elkins takes a deep breath.
"So," she says. "If all of that were really the case, then why didn't he just get rid of the boy after the QWC? It would have been the prudent thing to do, and it also would have been the logical course of action for someone who was really Tough and Steely and self-sacrificing, and ruthlessly devoted to the protection of the Wizarding World against Dark Wizardry even at great personal cost. For heaven's sake, if he honestly couldn't bear the thought of outright filicide, then he could have turned his son over to the authorities!"
"Oh, but you can't really blame him for not wanting to take that option," objects Eileen. "He would have been facing life imprisonment himself if he'd done that."
"Yes, he might have had to face up to the consequences of his own actions. O horrors." Elkins shrugs irritably. "Oh, well. Like father, like son, I guess. And really, why on earth should we expect any better from Barty Crouch than we do from, say, Peter Pettigrew?"
"Oh, now you take that back!" cries Eileen.
Elkins smiles meanly.
"Shan't," she says.
"But you can't really expect—"
"Expect what? Expect for Crouch to behave responsibly? Expect for him to demonstate something other than criminal disregard for other human beings for a change? Well, no. No, I suppose that I really can't expect that of him, can I, because that's what Crouch was all about. Not the protection of the public. Not service to the common weal. Not opposition to Dark Wizardry. And certainly not self-sacrifice. Disregard for other people. Crouch was all about disregard for other people."
"But—"
"Disregard for other people, hypocrisy, and narcissism. This is a man who committed crimes against humanity for his own personal benefit and pretended that he was doing it because he was a ruthless opponent of dark wizardry, privileging the ends over the means, dedicating his entire life to the protection of the wizarding world and to the service of the commonweal even at immense personal sacrifice. But he won't risk prison for his crimes, he won't take the appropriate actions to protect the world from his son, and he won't even face up to his own undeniable pathology! Instead, he projects it onto the people around him. As if Winky had a thing to do with his son being able to throw off his Imperius Curse!"
"Yes, but whose stupid idea was it to bring Barty to the QWC in the first place?" demands Eileen.
Elkins shrugs. "Given how Crouch behaves after the QWC," she says. "It seems to me that he probably absolutely relied on Winky to 'talk him into' doing things like that. Just like he relied on his wife to 'talk him into' doing things like saving his son from prison. That was part of what he depended on them for, surely? To absolve him of responsibility for his own behavior? Really, saving Crouch Jr. from prison and taking him to the QWC both pale in comparison to what Crouch does after the QWC. Who was in denial about just how dangerous Barty Jr. was? Neither Mrs. Crouch nor Winky could possibly have known for sure just how strong or just how dangerous that boy was. Crouch did know. And yet he did nothing. Tell me something here," she demands. "What woman in Crouch's life was responsible for his actions after the QWC?"
There is a short silence.
"Dear, dear, dear." Elkins sniggers. "Poor old Mr. Crouch. Finally ran right out of wives, didn't he? No one left to blame. So sad."
"My God." Cindy stares at her. "You really do hate Crouch, don't you?"
"Yes," spits Elkins. "I do."
"This is beginning to remind me of Cindy's claim that Crouch wasn't truly repentent because his mission to warn Dumbledore had elements of self-interest," complains Eileen. "It's just not fair, Elkins. Crouch shouldn't have to resign himself to being murdered by Voldemort to be considered repentent. And he shouldn't have to resign himself either to life imprisonment or to filicide to be considered truly concerned about the safety of the wizarding world."
"And besides," says Cindy. "You can't really tell us that it would have made you like Crouch any better if he had been able to put his helpless Imperio'd son down like a rabid dog, can you? I mean, even leaving aside the fact that there would have been no plot if he'd done that, it's...well, it's just not like you, Elkins! You hate that sort of thing!"
Elkins blinks. She frowns.
"You're right, you know," she admits slowly. "I really do hate that sort of thing. I don't like murder. I don't like cold-bloodedness. I'm not a big fan of Toughness at all, really, or of callousness, or even of ruthless pragmatism. So ordinarily, yes, I suppose that I would find it rather sympathetic for someone to refuse either to hand his helpless captive over to be psychologically tortured to death in a hellish prison or to kill him in cold blood. But when that someone is Barty Crouch?"
Elkins' hobby horse lays back its ears and whinnies dangerously.
"When it is Crouch?" Elkins repeats. "When that someone is CROUCH? Crouch, who authorized his Aurors to use torture on suspects? Crouch, who allowed them to AK people instead of even bothering to arrest them? Crouch, who permitted his Aurors to coerce, torment and kill on the basis of nothing more than the merest suspicion of malfeasance? On their merest whim?"
"Okay, okay," laughs Cindy. "Calm down."
"When that someone is Crouch?" Elkins repeats, her voice now rising uncontrollably. "Crouch who sent people to prison for life on the basis of no evidence? Sometimes without even benefit of a trial? Who was supposedly willing to bind his son over to torment and death, so long as he didn't have to actually watch it? Because he was so very concerned about the safety of the wizarding world? So very devoted to the protection of the public? Even at great personal cost? So very self-sacrificing? You're trying to tell me that this man was squeamish?"
"Geez. Take deep breaths, will you? You're—"
"When it's Crouch?" shrieks Elkins. "When it's CROUCH? When it's Crouch, then it doesn't make me like him. It just sickens me! It is absolutely despicable!"
"Look, would you—"
"Gah! As if none of the people he sent to prison or let his Aurors torture and murder had relatives who loved them!"
"Calm down, okay? You're—"
"Men like Crouch don't have the right to be squeamish," snarls Elkins. "Men like Crouch should be getting blood under their fingernails. They should be wading in it. They should be armpit deep in viscera. They should learn how it smells."
"Okay, Elkins. Relax. It's all right. He's just a character in a children's book. A really really minor character in a—"
"CROUCH WAS JUST PLAIN EVIL!" screams Elkins, spit flying from the corners of her mouth. "I HATE HIM I HATE HIM I HATE HIM!"
There is a short shocked silence.
"Well, sure, Elkins," says Eileen reasonably. "But don't feel that you have to hold back on our account. Why don't you tell us all how you really feel about Barty Crouch Sr.?"
Elkins stares at her, her mouth opening and closing silently, then lets out a single strangled scream. Her horse screams as well and rears up onto its hind legs. Eileen yelps and dives for cover beneath her CRAB CUSTARD table. Cindy hunkers down, ducking flailing hooves, her hands tightened around her Big Paddle. Elkins spits out a word unsuitable for this list and pulls hard on her reins. Her horse screams once more, wheels, and then takes off down the promenade at a fast gallop.
Cindy straightens slowly. She stares down the promenade, watching the seagulls rise squawking out of the path of Elkins' horse.
"Was it something I said?" she asks.
Eileen peers out from beneath her table and shakes her head.
"I can't even begin to visualize that thing," Cindy mutters, still staring down the promenade at Elkins' madly galloping horse. "How can a hobby horse rear, anyway? And how can it carry its rider off like that? And surely hobby horses don't even have front hooves. Do they?"
"It's a runaway metaphor." Eileen crawls out from under the table and begins brushing herself off. "A runaway mixed metaphor. I'd just try not to visualize it at all, if I were you. It will only make your head hurt."
"Well, okay," Cindy begins. "But..." She trails off as Elkins comes cantering back up to the CRAB CUSTARD table, her high pale hobby horse now flecked with sweat and blowing hard. Elkins slows to a trot, then begins walking her horse in tight circles around the table. She drops the reins and begins rummaging through her pockets, sending stray odds and ends wafting down to the promenade below.
"Er...you all right there, Elkins?" asks Cindy.
Elkins' hand emerges from one pocket clutched tightly around a small medicine bottle. She fumbles with the child-proof cap, breathing hard, then snarls and raises it to her mouth, cracks it open with her teeth. She shakes three small yellow pills into one palm, tosses them down her throat, closes her eyes, and swallows. Hard.
Cindy and Eileen exchange glances.
"Elkins?"
Elkins raises one trembling hand to her throat. She opens her eyes and glances down to her wrist watch. Her mouth moves silently, counting, counting.
"Um." Cindy shifts from foot to foot. "Do you think maybe I should go and get Dr. George?" she whispers to Eileen.
"George? No!" hisses Eileen emphatically. "Not Dr. George, Cindy! For heaven's sake!"
"Oh." Cindy nods. "Oh, right. That. Well, in that case..."
"Have I mentioned," says Elkins calmly, one hand still at her throat, her eyes still fixed on her wrist watch. "That I really don't like Barty Crouch Sr.?"
"You've mentioned it a few times," answers Eileen politely. "Yes."
"That he infuriates me? That I absolutely despise him? That he is capable of rousing in me a sense of moral indignation unmatched by that inspired by any other character? Voldemort included? That I actually enjoyed watching him suffer while his son was tormenting him in that little room off the Great Hall right after Harry's name came out of the Goblet? That on rereading, it made me laugh out loud with pure malicious glee?"
"Yes, I believe that you have mentioned all of those things," says Cindy. "Also that he reminds you of your father."
"Yes." Elkins removes her hand from her throat. "Well," she says. "Just so we're clear on that." She looks up from her wrist watch. "At any rate...do I still have foam on my mouth?"
"A little."
Elkins nods absently and reaches up to wipe it off.
"At any rate," she says. "Crouch's actions after the QWC make it very difficult for me to believe that his wife ever had to put all that much pressure on him to get him to agree to rescue their son. He seems far too heavily invested in his son's life for me to believe that. He seems far too determined to keep him alive, and not only alive, but also free from physical restraint. No bonds. No body binds. No locked rooms. It's almost as if he secretly wants his son to escape, don't you think? It certainly doesn't reveal too much concern for the common weal, or for the public good. It's appallingly irresponsible behavior. Pathological, really. A pathological behavior pattern that he projects upon others because he can't face up to it himself. Because I do think that he was projecting onto Winky at the QWC, you know. I do think that he was trying to affect a kind of an exorcism."
"You do?" Eileen looks up.
"Yes. You've convinced me of that. You've convinced me that Crouch was projecting onto Winky at the QWC. I'm not sure that what he was seeing in her was really his wife, though. I think it far more likely that he was seeing himself."
"You think that when he was looking at Winky 'as though she were something filthy and rotten that was contaminating his over-shined shoes,' he was seeing himself?" Cindy repeats incredulously.
"I don't think that Mr. Crouch liked himself very much," says Elkins quietly. "I don't really think that he was lying, you know, when he claimed to despise and detest the Dark Arts and all those who practice them. But the Unforgivable Curses are Dark Arts, aren't they? Really," she asks. "Would you like yourself very much, if you were Bartemius Crouch?"
"Uh-huh. And who's the one projecting here?" demands Cindy.
"Elkins said before that she reads Crouch as a narcissist," Eileen reminds her. "Someone who sees others only as reflections of himself."
Elkins nods. "I do read him that way," she says. "And I think that his denunciation of Winky was in part an expression of self-hatred. But really, it works fine for me either way. Whether you think that he was seeing himself or his wife in Winky, the basic principle remains the same. After all, I'm sure that Crouch saw himself in his wife, too.
"What I can't see, though," she continues. "Is his renunciation of Winky as a successful banishment. Because really, it didn't change anything, did it? After the QWC, Crouch remains every bit as negligent as he was before. Even more so, really. So I can't read it as an exorcism. I read it as a failed exorcism. Another failed exorcism."
"Another failed exorcism?" asks Eileen.
"Parallel scenes."
"Oh." Eileen nods. "Oh, yes, I see," she says. "'I have no son.'"
"Yes. 'I have no son' was a failed exorcism, because Crouch reneged on it one year later. And its parallel, his denunciation of Winky, is also a failed exorcism, because after it, his behavior in regard to his son continues unchanged."
"You do realize, of course," Eileen says, with a slighty Malfoyish smirk. "That you're only making him more sympathetic with all of this? At least from a Bleeding Heart perspective, you are. I just claimed that Crouch fell into error due to his love for his wife and his overwhelming sense of True Wizarding Honour. But here you have him erring out of love for his son as well, a love so powerful that it overrides even the most compelling practical reasons not to continue to show him mercy."
"Love?" Elkins stares at her. "Who said anything about love? Or about mercy, for that matter?"
Cindy and Eileen both stare right back at her.
"You think that's why Crouch wanted so very badly to keep his son alive?" demands Elkins. "And not only to preserve his life, but also to allow him a kind of perverted illusion of independence? Under the Imperius Curse and kept indoors, yet never actually physically restrained? In full view of others, and yet invisible? Capable of walking right up to the front door, but never of passing beyond it? Permitted a kind of sick twisted parody of autonomy? Turned into a...a kind of a meat marionette? You think that was done out of love?"
"Well, I—"
"That's not love," snaps Elkins. "That bears about the same relationship to love as rape does to sex. I don't think that Crouch was about love, really. That's not his role. It's not his function. It's not what he's all about."
"I don't—"
"Haven't you ever noticed that there's a distinct pattern to the subplots and running motifs with which Crouch is associated throughout _Goblet of Fire?_" asks Elkins. "These are the things that touch on Crouch. The Imperius Curse. The Unforgivable Curses in general. Memory Charms. Azkaban. Dementors. Insanity. Human rights violations. Mass hysteria. House Elves. Father-son relationships."
"I—"
"Don't you see the pattern here? Crouch is connected to all of those subplots and running motifs that center thematically on the denial or negation of volition. He is connected to everything in the book that deals with these issues: control, coercion, power, servitude, domination, the loss of individual freedoms and autonomy. The negation of individuation. The negation of personal choice. That's where Crouch lives. Whenever you see Barty Crouch in this novel, there's a thematic thread dealing with that entire conceptual cluster not too far away. He's bound to those themes even more securely than his son was bound to Winky at the QWC."
"But—"
"Crouch is not about love," Elkins spits. "Crouch is about domination. Crouch is about narcissism. Crouch is about coercion. Crouch is about control. But primarily, Crouch is all about the denial of volition. And that's not compatable with love. How can you love other people if you don't even respect their right to exist as other people? Confronted with that which he chose to define as 'Other,' Crouch was only capable of two reactions, it seems. Either he tried to get it as far away from himself as possible, by renouncing his affiliation with it completely, or he tried to force it to change, to no longer be Other anymore, to instead be a mirror that would reflect him as he wished to believe he really was. Isn't that what the Imperius Curse is all about, really? It's about denying the autonomous existence of the Other. It's about narcissism: turning another person into your Mirror of Erised, forcing another to reflect nothing back at you but your own desires. It's about the negation of human individuality. The negation of freedom of choice.
"As are all of the Unforgivables, really," Elkins adds, after a moment's thought. "They're all about the negation of volition. That's the real reason that I think that they're 'Unforgivable,' you know. In the Potterverse, choice is a rather important concept."
"But—"
"I'm sure that Crouch believed that he loved his son," Elkins says. "I'm absolutely positive of that. I'm sure that he told himself that he was taking such pains to preserve his son's life not only to honor his wife's last wishes, but also because he truly and genuinely loved his son. But I'm not altogether convinced that Barty Crouch Sr. really understood the meaning of that word. I don't think that he really got that whole love concept any better than Voldemort does."
"Slander," says Eileen flatly.
"Is it? The Crouch family plotline is awfully strongly tied to Voldemort, isn't it?"
"Crouch Junior is linked to Voldemort," Eileen corrects her. "Through the parricide motif and its attendant symbolism. But Crouch Senior is not."
"Isn't he? Who is Crouch Jr's second father? His substitute father? The father to whom he dreams of proving himself worthy? Voldemort may be a parricide, but he presents as a father figure in the graveyard, doesn't he? And not just as a father figure, but as a representative of a very specific aspect of paternity? Father as Critic? Father as Enforcer? Father as Disciplinarian? Father as Judge?"
Eileen opens her mouth, then closes it.
"He presents, in fact," Elkins continues. "As a rather domineering father figure. A tyrannical father figure. A father figure who prides himself on being able to conquer death itself. Whose followers call themselves 'Death Eaters,' who is associated with the yew, whose familiar is a man-eating snake. Who demands absolute obedience from his servants, his children. Who demands that they subsume their own individual identities into his own. Metaphorically, he wants to eat them. He is oral aggression personified. He is the Devouring Father.
"And he also presents," she adds. "As a very very disappointed father. Doesn't he. Disappointed. Reproving. Injured. Betrayed by his own children. He is a father who tells his erring son Avery 'I do not forgive' and punishes him harshly for his transgressions, yet in the end spares him, declaring his expectation of receiving repayment for his clemency. Of receiving repayment on a debt. Repayment in the form of thirteen years of service."
"I—" Eileen begins.
"Why did Crouch place his son under the Imperius Curse when he realized that he was still devoted to Voldemort's cause?" demands Elkins. "Why did he keep him around even after Bertha Jorkins not only discovered him, but also overheard him saying something so damning that when Voldemort hears of it, he will return to England in full confidence that he can rely on Crouch Jr's devoted service? Why is he so determined to keep him safe from harm? Why does he remain so determined even after the QWC, when it becomes clear that his son is strong, powerful, dangerous, mad, and still unrepentent?"
"Because—"
"Not because he loved his wife," answers Elkins harshly. "Not because he loved his son. Not because he was merciful. And certainly not because he was squeamish. But because his son was still unrepentent. That's why. Because if Barty Jr. had died with his loyalty and his allegiance still intact, with his Otherness still intact, then Barty Jr. would have won. And Crouch wasn't willing to allow that. He wasn't going to let his son win. He wasn't going to allow him to be Other. Not even in death. Crouch wanted that boy to reflect him in more ways than just carrying his name. Crouch wasn't even willing to cede his son to human volition; you think that he was going to cede him to death?"
Elkins clasps her hands over each other, trying to stop their now quite violent shaking. She takes a deep breath.
"Voldemort presents as a father figure in the graveyard." she says again, very softly. "And he is strongly textually linked to Crouch Sr. Do you want to know why I think that Crouch Sr. was so terribly invested in keeping his son alive? Do you? Do you really? I think that it was because obedience was a virtue that Mr. Crouch wanted to teach his son. It was a virtue that he wanted to teach him before he died."
There is a very long silence.
"You know, Elkins," Eileen says softly, at length. "The text really doesn't invite us to equate Voldemort with Crouch Sr. nearly as strongly as it does to equate him with Crouch Jr. It is Crouch Jr. who literally serves Voldemort. It is Crouch Jr. who is explicitly compared with him, and not just by the narrative voice, either. Even by the character himself. The text may nudge us to equate Voldemort with Crouch Sr. But it outright begs us to equate him with Crouch's son."
"Oh, it most certainly does!" agrees Elkins. "That connection is made quite explicit in the text. So what do we make of that? What does that tell us about the relationship between Crouch and his son? What does it signify that Crouch and his son share the same name? That over the course of the novel, their identities are confused, reversed, conflated? What do we make of the difference between Crouch Jr's conscious identification with Voldemort and Crouch Sr's unconscious one? Between Crouch Jr's explicit allegiance and service, and Crouch Sr's implicit allegiance and service? Conscious and unconscious. Explicit and implicit. Open and hidden. What are we to make of that? What is the traditional relationship between hypocrite fathers and their rebellious sons?"
She looks from Cindy to Eileen, then back again.
"What do you think that Crouch Sr. really wanted?" she asks. "In his heart of hearts. What did he want more than anything else in the world?"
"For his wife to be alive, his son dutiful, and his family not in disgrace," answers Eileen promptly. "And also probably to be going out with the Fudges."
Elkins blinks.
"Oh," she says. "Er...right. Well, yes. Okay. Actually, I guess you're probably right about that. Okay, allow me to rephrase. What was something that he wanted very badly?"
There is silence.
"Badly enough to have a bit of a 'mania' about it?" prompts Elkins.
"Well," says Cindy slowly. "According to Sirius, he wanted to catch just one last Dark Wizard..."
"Right. To regain his lost popularity. But you have to have Dark Wizards around before you can start catching them, don't you? Crouch was a war-time politician. His wagon was hitched to Voldemort's star. When Voldemort fell, so did he. So what do you think that he might have secretly desired? What was his hidden wish? What did Crouch Sr. want that was so dreadful, so utterly unacceptable, that he would never have been able to admit to it? Not even to himself?
"Why did Crouch become so apoplectic at his son's sentencing?" demands Elkins. "Why did he react that way? What was he really seeing, do you think, when he looked down at his son in the dock? At his son, who shared his name? At his son, who stood accused of trying to restore Voldemort to power?"
"And of planning to resume the life of violence that he had led before Voldemort's fall," murmers Cindy.
Eileen stares up at Elkins. "Parallel scenes," she whispers. "You insisted on claiming that Crouch was seeing himself in Winky when he denounced her. Because you see him as a narcissist. As somebody who sees himself in others."
Elkins nods slowly.
"You see him," says Eileen. "As someone who stares at his own reflection. The mirror reverses..."
"The mirror reverses," agrees Elkins quietly.
"But that which the mirror reverses, it also always reflects."
******************
Elkins
**********************************************
REFERENCES:
This post is continued from part five. It is primarily a response to messages #45402 ("Crouch Sr as Tragic Hero"), #45693 ("Crouch and Winky") and #46923 ("It's All Winky's Fault"), but it also cites or references message numbers 37476, 38380, 39102, 43010, 44258.
Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on December 7, 2002 7:01 PM
2 comments (link leads to main site)
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