GOF Chapter 7: Bagman and Crouch

[oryx_leucoryx]

This chapter brings wizards' mental block against Muggle clothing to ridiculous levels. If they know enough about the clothes to recognize the names of the items wouldn't they have seen enough Muggles to know what to wear with what?

I can understand wizards not *trusting* paper money, but how hard is it to figure out the value? Yes, there are numbers right there, on the bills. Of course wizards don't learn math at school (except for the few who take Arithmancy) so perhaps they are mostly innumerate.

Over a year ago Harry saw Lockhart wiping his own memory clean. This enables him to recognize that Mr Roberts just had his memory modified. And it doesn't creep him out because Mr Roberts maintains enough functionality to hand out maps. Even after 10 zaps a day. For 2 weeks. Anyway, it keeps him 'happy'. Yikes!

In between the lines of Arthur's assessment of his friend Ludo I get that Bagman spends his work time boasting about his Quidditch days and letting others do his work. And Arthur is enchanted with his enthusiasm. I can see Auror!Ron in the same pattern - talking a lot about his wartime adventures and not doing his job. Percy who actually does his work is the one who eventually gets ostracized.

There's a tent with live peacocks! Is that the Malfoy tent?

Harry had never been camping in his life. Don't you worry, Harry! In three years you'll catch up!

Perkins' tent looks like Mrs Fig's apartment and smells of cats! The source of theories about the Perkins-Figg connection that went nowhere.

Wizards can get water and fire by magic, but Arthur insists on doing it the Muggle way, ostensibly for security (as if Mr Roberts would notice), but of course really for fun. He's like a medieval re-enactor. Which does not explain why the trio in DH gathered firewood. I'm wondering under what circumstances Arthur had the chance to see Muggles camping (and what was left of their brains when he left).

Harry realizes there really were witches and wizards in other countries. He thought Charlie and Bill worked abroad with other British folk, right? All those History of Magic lessons and international laws should have been a hint. Let alone yesterday's conversation about Quidditch teams from several countries.

African wizards roast a rabbit, looking appropriately at home in the wilds, but their fire is purple, so it's probably magical. What's the story about the Salem witch hunts in the Potterverse? There really were witches in Salem and they let innocent Muggle women get killed as part of their cover-up?

Seamus is there with his mother and his best friend Dean. Mr Finnigan isn't there because he is a Muggle, and as we will be told next chapter there are Muggle-repeling charms around. We don't know what happened to Mr Finnigan after recovering from the shock of discovering he was married to a witch. Is he still around? Did he leave in terror? Did his wife kill him? Did she wipe or rewrite his memory? Does she keep him under some form of mind-control? Another interesting tidbit - Mrs Finnigan takes no notice of Harry whatsoever. Not fussing over The-Boy-Who-Lived is the mark of evil, I tell you!

Archie likes a breeze around his privates. Real wizards don't need underwear, graying or otherwise!

Harry sees unfamiliar teenagers. In 2 years time he won't even recognize his own House members by sight, but here he realizes they just might not be from Hogwarts at all! The wonders never end! Hermione knows about foreign wizards and schools because she must have read about them. Yes, and paid attention, and applied some basic logic. Ron knows about foreign schools through his experience of growing up in a wizarding family, which is expected. But soon enough we will discover the holes in his education. Has anyone ever compiled a list of things Ron knows from home vs things one would expect him to know but he doesn't? That could be an interesting insight into the home life of the Weasleys. Do you think Bill's brothers appreciated the prank his former pen-friend  played on him? Personally I think it was rather jerkish, but also something the twins or Ginny v2.0 might pull.

Arthur introduces some of his colleagues, including Bode, next year's red-shirt. But the other Unspeakable, Croaker, is of no significance. Despite readers' expectations (especially after we got told that James and Lily's occupation was 'significant') the Department of Mysteries exists only in order to house next year's McGuffin and the draperies of doom. Maybe when Albus was reinstated as Chief Warlock he ordered that the department close down as it had served its purpose. Hmm, the Head of the Goblins Liaison Office is one Cuthbert Mockridge. Horace Slughorn has yet to pull whatever strings he pulled to get Dirk Cresswell that job. However Horace will go underground the coming June. The timeline just barely works.

A very warm welcome to Ludo - kids, be nice to people who bribe your dad! Percy is well-mannered to a person he does not appreciate professionally. Harry of course sees this negatively. No Harry, that's how normal people are supposed to behave.

Ludo's jingling gold in his pocket shows how enthusiastic he is, completely different from the gold in Lucius' pocket clinking as he moves (next year)!

Not being a gambler I might be getting this wrong, but if Agatha Timms bet half of the shares in her eel farm on it being a week-long match, and the game ended that night, doesn't that mean Ludo came to own half an eel farm after the game? Wasn't that enough to settle at least his debt to the goblins?

Fred and George aren't of age yet, but their father can't stop them from gambling their entire savings. And Ludo interferes with Arthur's parenting for the sake of landing another bet. A really swell guy!

Crouch is working hard. Bagman is having the time of his life not working - despite the event in question being a sport event and therefore squarely within the jurisdiction of his department.

At the mention of his boss' name Percy stokes the fire to make tea. It comes across to me as Percy's sincere expression of admiration, not deliberate sucking up. Of course without knowing Crouch's dark secret he does come across as very professional, very competent and even caring for a former underling who must have run into trouble. However it is painful to see Crouch constantly ignoring Percy beyond the bare minimum. 

What is the deal about 'Weatherby'? Is it a slip of Crouch's? Is that the name Percy chose for himself? Did Percy ask Crouch not to judge him by his father and Crouch is playing along? Looking at Crouch's personality and story-arc as a whole I tend to think the first is the case. Because Crouch has trouble respecting the individuality of his son as well as his various underlings, past and present - Bertha Jorkins and Winky. So not paying attention to Percy's name follows the same pattern.

The Bulgarians wanted to add 12 seats to the top box at the last minute. Did one of them just make an emergency bribe or is this a matter of keeping parity with the hosts (ie they didn't want to be outnumbered by people of the host country, so Arthur's 10 tickets had to be matched)?

Arthur won't let Muggle artifacts such as carpets be charmed to fly. Only cars.

Bagman enjoys hinting and nudging about an event at Hogwarts that would require much organizing. Whatever could that be about?

So 'they' have signed already, but the details haven't been worked out yet. In HBP we will learn that Fudge updated the Muggle prime minister about the intent to import 3 foreign dragons and one sphinx the same time he reported the disturbance at the Quidditch World Cup. Unless this report was much belated, it looks like the details were in fact already quite worked out by the time of the game. Or perhaps Rowling forgot to reread GOF when she wrote that bit.

Ron follows the Weasley school of financial management by spending his entire fortune on souvenirs just before noticing he could have used the money on something more useful.

Comments

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that it would be harder for home nations to oversee their colonies (though Muggles managed it without benefit of phoenix teleports/Portkeys/whatever plot-convenient transport system is introduced in any given book). What I was annoyed by was the implication that of course the heroic Americans wouldn't exploit the Muggles like their British counterparts do, considering how the original settlers treated the native inhabitants, the fact that segregation lasted until the sixties in some places, and the fact that wizarding social attitudes seem to be somewhat conservative.

Incidentally, how do you see the wizarding USA deal with the issue of being colonised by multiple nations? Considering when the Statute of Secrecy went into action I'm somewhat surprised that the Wizarding World even acknowledged the Muggle rebellion (though perhaps I shouldn't be given the parasitic nature of the wizarding world).

But I think any non-European countries that belong just give lip-service to the rules and then just do things the way they've always done them, the rules be damned.

Various countries ran successful empires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries without the benefit of teleportation, so I'm not convinced that international law enforcement would be significantly harder than it is in the Muggle world. Whether or not they're actually enforced is another matter, but I don't think it's as difficult as you suggest. Admittedly, Dumbledore doesn't seem to take his international duties too seriously, though I'm not sure what this says about their relevance.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

What I was annoyed by was the implication that of course the heroic Americans wouldn't exploit the Muggles like their British counterparts do, considering how the original settlers treated the native inhabitants, the fact that segregation lasted until the sixties in some places, and the fact that wizarding social attitudes seem to be somewhat conservative.

My personal!canon is that American wizards and witches would basically reflect the attitudes of their nonmagikal colonial counterparts. Which means some would be staunch supporters of the home country, the rest would gladly join the rebelling colonists. After the rebels won the Revolution, I think there would be a major conundrum for the American wizarding community.

Those who had supported the status quo would have probably move to Canada, or back to England, leaving those wizards and witches who'd supported the Revolution, and I don't see those magikal folk being keen to have the MoM, Wizanmagot, or any International Confederation of Wizards telling them what to do and how to conduct their lives.

As for the dealings of European wizarding folk with the Native Americans, I think that generally they'd probably would tend to have had better relations than did nonmagickal Europeans...

But when it comes down to it, European wizards and witches would have come here seeking land and opportunities just like their nonmagikal counterparts, and if a particular Native American tribe was seen to stand in the way of their plans, I think wizarding immigrants would have been just as willing to remove "the Indian problem" as anyone else.


Incidentally, how do you see the wizarding USA deal with the issue of being colonised by multiple nations?

Not just colonized...you have all those Africans who didn't ask to come here... :-/

But you may remember that in another post I'd stated that I believed that the U.S. would have more than one "school of witchcraft and wizardry"; I think that we'd have ended up with a minimum of 5 schools, probably more. One reason would be just due to geography, but the other reason I see is that certain regions would just have different magikal traditions based on not only the Native American traditions of the area, but the later European colonization and any influx of African traditions.

IOW, you'd have completely different magikal traditions in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest because of both the Native American traditions, but what influence Russian settlers brought, than what you'd find in the New Orleans, Louisiana area.

And then there's Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands! :-o


Various countries ran successful empires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries without the benefit of teleportation, so I'm not convinced that international law enforcement would be significantly harder than it is in the Muggle world. Whether or not they're actually enforced is another matter, but I don't think it's as difficult as you suggest. Admittedly, Dumbledore doesn't seem to take his international duties too seriously, though I'm not sure what this says about their relevance.

It all depends on how efficient of a local colonial government bureaucracy is set up, and then, as you point out, if the laws are even bothered to be enforced.

So on one hand you have the possibility of there not being any local enforcement agency being in place; OTOH there's the possibility that even if a bureaucracy has been established, that those ensconced in the bureaucracy don't give a damn about bothering to enforce any laws/statutes.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Not just colonized...you have all those Africans who didn't ask to come here... :-/

I thought, if I'm remembering right that a lot of people were sent/came as indentured servents even before actual slaves, in fact I thought that was how a lot of people came over here or got here.

Wasn't there something to do with debters prison as well? That some can by way of that or something like that.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I thought, if I'm remembering right that a lot of people were sent/came as indentured servents even before actual slaves, in fact I thought that was how a lot of people came over here or got here.

Point of fact, slavery existed in all the colonies at one time, not just the southern ones. But while southern slaves were primarily of African extraction, northern slaves could be any race.

The difference between north and south is that northern colonies had laws limiting the time someone could be enslaved, and providing ways for the enslaved person to gain their freedom before the time was up.

This was different than indentured servitude; most indentured people were indentured as their way to get over here. IOW, they didn't have the money for the passage, so they indentured themselves to someone in the colonies as a way to get over here. So they weren't forced into being indentured, it was their choice.

And there were also laws regarding the treatment of indentured servants (they generally got better treatment than slaves, but in many northern colonies it was hard to tell the difference between being a slave or being indentured)...generally the term of indenture was 7 years, or the indentured person could buy their way out of servitude if they made enough money, which surprisingly many did.

Most northern states outlawed both slavery and indenturetude by the early 19th century.


Wasn't there something to do with debters prison as well? That some can by way of that or something like that.

The only actual "prisoner colony" in America was Georgia. What happened regarding "Debtors' Prison" is that a man or woman would be faced with being thrown into the prison because they couldn't pay their bills, or they could indenture themselves to a master or mistress in the colonies, getting their bills and their passage paid all at once. They'd then have to stay indentured for an agreed upon length of time to pay off their debt to their master/mistress, or if they were lucky and were able to save money, buy out their term early.

In some cases you probably had guys who were facing Debtors' Prison getting a job on board a ship just to escape the authorities, and once they landed in an American harbor they'd quit and go look for a job on land.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

As for the dealings of European wizarding folk with the Native Americans, I think that generally they'd probably would tend to have had better relations than did nonmagickal Europeans...

I posted about Pocahontas and John Rolfe; he married her, clearly he didn't have as much of an issue with race if he married her.

Plus the whole experiementing with tobacco that he's given credit for sounds pretty interesting; almost wizardish sounding =)