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deathtocapslockThis was inspired by borg_princess’s response to Madderbrad’s comments on my last: Borg wrote, “All Voldy had to do was torture the Weasleys. Hell, hold Ginny to ransom and Harry would come flying to the rescue! But no, we’re to buy that they were let alone, no attempt to use them as leverage, and that a ghoul with spots was able to keep them from harm…”
This had been bothering me for a long time, but Madderbrad & borg_princess made me finally pull my disjointed thoughts into shape. Thanks!
*
Loathe though I may be to admit it, it seems that Jo’s Voldemort and his minions were not simply being stupid in letting the Order wander around free and never trying to kidnap Ginny to induce Harry to surrender.
The Order’s freedom, and Ginny’s (for the time covered by the book) served Voldemort’s best interests.
I. Voldemort’s Actions
First off, the Order in general had apparently been hypnotized by Dumbledore into believing only Harry could do anything against the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. Once they no longer played a part in directly protecting Harry, they sank into becoming Harry’s cheerleaders from the sidelines.
Now think this through from a P.R. viewpoint. Dumbledore’s hand-picked followers respond to Voldemort’s takeover of the WW by waiting for a teenager to do… something. The teen drops out of sight, and the Order sits tight and accepts Voldemort’s puppet-Minister and Headmaster.
The propaganda value of Arthur, alone, continuing to work for the Ministry and to send his daughter to Hogwarts is humongous! If the Order, specially trained by Dumbledore to resist You-Know-Who and privy to everything Dumbledore knew, demonstrates that they are utterly convinced that they can do nothing effective to oppose Voldemort, surely no one else dare even try?
And no one ever does, do they, save for Neville and his followers back at school?
Now, as to the curious failure to take hostages to force Harry to fly to their rescue, that’s easily explained.
Voldemort didn’t WANT to face Harry until he knew he had a wand that could beat him.
First there’s that pesky twin-core problem that Tom has been fretting over since GoF. Finally Tom simply has done with fretting and kidnaps the wand expert to tell him what’s what. As soon as he’s tortured a possible solution out of Ollivander, Tom faces off against Harry again. Only to discover that a stick of wood cored by Fawkes’ feather is smarter and a better fighter than the boy, and Ollivander can’t tell Tom how to keep Harry’s Speshul wand from vomiting Tom’s own best (worst) magic back at him! So Tom now needs to solve this new problem before he can face Harry again (never learning, alas, that Hermione eventually solved that problem for him by breaking Harry’s Speshul wand).
So if Voldemort took Ginny hostage (or tortured the Weasleys) too soon, he’d just goad Harry into confronting him before Tom was really ready to take him on.
Moreover, Tom had learned something very valuable about Harry at that battle at the Ministry. Harry’s not like a Malfoy, taking risks ONLY for his best-beloveds. True, Tom successfully used the imaginary threat to Sirius to sucker Harry into going to the MoM. However, Bellatrix will have told Tom that a real threat to Neville (of all people!) induced Harry to agree to hand over the prophecy (which so far as Harry knew, was tantamount to handing Voldemort the ultimate victory). So while ex-girlfriends Ginny or Cho might be the best hostages for Harry from an aesthetic point of view, really almost anyone Harry knows will do in a pinch. The spattergroit-ridden Ron back at the Burrow, Professor McGonagall, Stan Shunpike. Percy.
So what does Voldie do? He leaves ALL of Harry’s old chums alone for the time being, thinking themselves safe—but the moment he’s solved the wand problem, he can pick up someone suitable easily enough. The more easily if they’ve been lulled into not expecting it. Ginny? She’s secure in Snape’s custody—except when she’s at the Burrow, whose security the DE’s have already cracked. Or if it’s not convenient to grab her when the right time finally comes, threaten anyone Harry recognizes as a friend or ally.
There’s no shortage, none at all, of potential hostages.
Because look indeed at what Tom does in canon—he gets the Elder Wand, and plays with it a while, and eventually decides he’s not really its master yet.
Oops.
Severus is Tom’s most valuable servant, and he really doesn’t want to lose him, but needs must….
And the very moment that Snape is dead and Tom is satisfied that he has, finally, a wand which will best Harry’s—well, Tom doesn’t bother looking for little Ginny, does he? Why take that trouble? No, Tom holds the whole damn SCHOOL hostage, demanding that Harry surrender within the hour or he’ll kill everyone in sight.
And Harry duly surrenders.
See? It worked. Not so stupid after all.
*
II. The Actions of the Order of the Phoenix
Consider the situation that Bill Weasley tells us about in DH Chapter 24, “The Wandmaker.” Voldemort took over at the Ministry in August. It’s now the Easter holidays of the following year, and the Weasleys are just now moving into self-Fidelius protected safe houses (and in Bill and Arthur’s cases at least, quitting their day jobs). Ginny happens to be home for the holidays, but she’d spent two terms normally at school.
Let’s think about this scenario a little from the Prophet-informed (or mis-informed) public’s point of view. Scrimegour was killed, and Thicknesse took over as Minister amid whispers that he was controlled by You-Know-Who. The Chosen One was accused of Dumbledore’s murder and declared Undesirable #1. Snape, cleared of Dumbledore’s murder, was installed as Headmaster of Hogwarts. The Chosen One disappeared with his Mu—er, Muggle-born friend. Soon Umbridge set up her Commission, and started accusing magic-users without provable Wizarding ancestry of having stolen magic (so that’s why the old Pureblood families have been suffering an increasing incidence of Squibs!). And eventually the children at Hogwarts start whispering things…
And what are the well-known Weasleys, Dumbledore’s most ardent supporters, doing in response to these outrages? Nothing. Their youngest son, known to be the Chosen One’s friend, is home sick with spattergroit. Their treasured daughter is sent to Hogwarts under Snape. Arthur and his son Percy continue to work for the Ministry; Bill continues to work for Gringotts.
And no one bothers them.
Nothin’ wrong here.
At first, the Weasleys’ compliance might have been taken as a sign that the stories about Thicknesse and Snape must be false.
Soon enough though, everyone knows the truth.
But most people continue to follow the Weasleys’ lead in pretending that everything was normal. For the Weasleys’ passivity must have demonstrated to everyone that resistance is truly futile. If the members of Dumbledore’s own Order, those best-informed by him and trained to fight Voldemort’s rise, know that there is nothing to be done but hope that Harry will save them, then surely they must be right.
The best course, the only course, is to keep your head down, pretend everything’s normal, and wait for Salvation from On Harry.
Now consider the official radio program of the so-called Resistance. What was it called again? Oh, yeah, Potterwatch.
Let’s summarize the program Harry hears. First, Lee reports on casualties attributed to Death Eaters since the last broadcast: Bathilda, 2 Muggle-borns—Dirk and Ted, 1 Goblin--Gornuk, and 5 anonymous Muggles killed by an apparent gas leak (who are sincerely mourned, really, though no wizard could be expected to be bothered to note their names).
Next, Kingsley urges witches and wizards to protect their Muggle friends and neighbors (that lets Molly off the hook—she has neither) by casting protective charms over their dwellings, Then there’s the popular “Pals of Potter” feature, in which Remus assures a rapt audience that the lack of news of Harry is sure proof that he’s alive, and that Harry is the symbol of everything for which they are fighting.
Er, what fighting would this be, Remus?
Then there’s the report on those friends of Potter who are suffering for their allegiance. (Allegiance? Harry is his own government now? Or cult?). Xeno Lovegood has been imprisoned, and Hagrid narrowly escaped an attempt to arrest him for hosting a “Support Harry Potter” party. Lee suggests that it’s wiser “to show your devotion to the man with the lightning scar by listening to Potterwatch!” Finally, Fred spreads rumors and jokes about You-Know-Who, and urges people, “don’t count on him being a long way away if you’re planning on taking any risks. I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but safety first!”
And the program ends with the inspirational: “We don’t know when it will be possible to broadcast again, but you can be sure we shall be back. Keep twiddling those dials: The next password will be ‘Mad-Eye.’ Keep each other safe: Keep faith. Good night.” (DH chapter 22)
So. The group specifically trained by Dumbledore to resist You-Know-Who instructs everyone less well-trained on how they too can most effectively oppose the new regime:
Surreptitiously protect nearby Muggles.
Don’t be stupidly blatant about your support of Potter.
Don’t do anything else except “twiddle those dials” (and your thumbs) and “keep faith”—i.e. trust Potter to do, well, something. Eventually. Someday. Just wait for it, okay?.
Hell, if I were a Nazi commandant listening to a broadcast like that from a minor Résistance faction, I wouldn’t be trying to stop that faction from broadcasting—I’d be funding them!
Or, actually, I’d be faking attacks on them to make it look like I wanted them silenced.
Yeah, that will work much better. (Dusts hands in satisfaction after making arrangements.)
Dumbledore’s followers are doing the Death Eaters’ jobs for them, keeping the general populace quiet while the Dark Lord consolidates his position.
Round up the members of the Order of the Phoenix, when they’re doing such brilliant work for us? Are you insane???
Regarding Dumbledore’s giving his adult followers such asinine instructions as “Harry is the best hope we have. Trust him,” I can only blame the man’s overwhelming hubris. He can’t bear to think that his lovely plan to sacrifice Harry might be upstaged, that anyone might do anything outside of his carefully-plotted operation that might prove at all effective in reducing Voldemort’s power or control. His way or the highway, and Albus always insisted that his “men” choose his way.
Regarding the Order going along with such stupid passivity… I mean, really, “Keep faith?” That’s the only thing you can come up with to give any sort of discomfort to the enemy? Try consulting with Charles DeGaulle, or even Corrie ten Boom, if you have no ideas of your own!
Of all the Order members, only Remus even had the gumption to so much as offer to go along to help, instruct, and protect Harry on his mysterious “mission”—and he only did so to try to get away from Tonks, pregnant with (he thought) his baby monster.
I must say, my (presumably fan-fictional) Confidere is looking better every day. That way I can just blame Dumbledore.
Absent that explanation, I can see no reason to respect a man jack (okay, or a woman jill) of the Order of the Phoenix.
Fucking Quislings all.
III. The Death Eaters
On the other side, how terrible is it in Wizarding Britain under the Death Eaters, really?
Let’s pause to consider Lee’s assertion that the death of those five nameless Muggles is “more evidence, as if it were needed, of the fact that Muggle slaughter is becoming little more than a recreational sport under the new regime.”
Um. Lee. This broadcast is in March. Late March (Easter holidays at Hogwarts), and you open by apologizing for your “temporary absence from the airwaves.” Later on you announce the two latest arrests of outspoken Potter supporters: a failed attempt that very day to arrest Hagrid, and Xenophilius Lovegood’s imprisonment.
Now, surely it’s most reasonable to suppose that Xeno was arrested just after Christmas when his attempt to betray Harry to the Death Eaters failed? And surely Lee could only attribute that arrest to Xeno’s being one “of the more outspoken Harry Potter supporters” if that December issue of the Quibbler, with “Undesirable #1” on the cover, never went out? (Well, we know that it didn’t—most of the copies were destroyed in the explosion.)
Harry expected Xeno to be punished for the failure; Hermione deliberately arranged for the DE’s to see her and Harry so they would know he’d been telling the truth about trying to catch Harry for them, so that Xeno’s punishment would be less than death. Surely Xeno didn’t get off scot-free in late December, only to take up “outspokenly” supporting Potter again (risking Luna’s life—and we did see how he felt about that) to earn a subsequent arrest in March?
Further, Lee announces as news the discovery of Bathilda’s body. How long after Voldemort was no longer animating the corpse would it take for the old lady’s death to become known? Surely not three full months? The old lady has neighbors. Muggle neighbors. Her bedroom window was smashed in the fight between the snake, Harry, and Hermione. If that’s visible though the garden (overgrown, but it’s also midwinter), the next-door neighbor would have been knocking on the door Christmas morning to see if the old lady was all right. If not, someone should soon observe that there was no longer smoke coming from that dotty old lady’s house. Muggles are perfectly capable of drawing inferences about apparently-lifeless houses known to have sheltered old people living alone. So the corpse ought to have been discovered not terribly long after Nagini stopped animating it.
(Indeed, consider that the Order specified that the corpse, when they examined it, had been dead for “several months.” Harry had just observed that it had been dead “for a while”. If you were expecting Harry to make a pilgrimage to his parents’ graves, wouldn’t you expect him to visit on the anniversary of their deaths? The Bathilda-trap may have been set just before Hallowe’en, with the Order examining the body St. Stephen’s Day.)
So Lee is announcing as hot news in late March events that likely occurred at the end of December. A temporary absence from the airwaves, indeed.
Now consider the news in this light. What have the terrible Death Eaters been doing during all this time? The “heavy casualties” suffered by Muggles amount to—five. Five deaths entirely too many, true, but hardly wholesale carnage. One family could have simply been Bellatrix’s version of a night out with her hubby. Also killed were two, count ‘em, two, Muggle-borns who refused to register and surrender their wands. And a goblin who refused to obey any wizard’s orders.
And Bathilda, who might not even have been murdered: “The Order of the Phoenix informs us that her body showed unmistakable signs of injuries inflicted by Dark Magic.” Yes, I imagine that a monstrous snake lurking inside a corpse and operating it as a puppet would leave “unmistakable signs.” But the Order doesn’t actually state that she was killed by Dark Magic, does it? We know that the corpse MUST have exhibited “unmistakable signs of injuries inflicted by Dark Magic” that were inflicted AFTER Bathilda’s demise. It’s not stated that there were also injuries inflicted before her death, though it’s not stated that there were not.
So it’s entirely possible that the crime here might be desecration of a body, rather than murder followed by the desecration of the victim’s body. Perhaps the DE’s might have approached Bathilda, planning to use her as a tool to watch for Potter. Perhaps they assumed, from the very damaging information she gave Rita, that old Batty was not a Dumbledore-fan and would gladly volunteer for the task. Or perhaps they planned to put the old lady under the Imperius. Either way, Batty resisted, and her heart gave out, and Tom decided she still could be used if he got a little creative. Or even, she was dead in her chair (having had a heart attack when she saw how Skeeter had used her) when they came knocking. Perfectly possible, and we’ll never know either way.
But even if Batty was murdered, two arrests and nine deaths in three months (three of the dead being fugitives who presumably resisted arrest) is a far cry from the unending lists whispered over the radio in the movie version, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, the Weasleys and the Dumbledore-loving Hogwarts professors continue their lives unmolested. Kingsley only had to go on the run because he disrespectfully uttered the name “Voldemort”—he wasn’t targeted as an Order member. Ted Tonks had no concerns that he might have left Andromeda facing danger—and indeed he apparently did not, she was left holding the baby in the end. Dean’s whole Muggle family is unharmed, only desperate for news of Dean.
It actually seems to be true that if you keep your head down and your mouth shut, it’s basically business as usual under the Death Eaters, Seclusion and all. (Though of course losing up to a quarter of your customer base is bad for many businesses….)
Unless you chance to be a Muggle-born, in which case you’re forced to register and to surrender your wand, and are not allowed to attend Hogwarts or to work for the Ministry.
And are made to suffer… Well, what?
Because we never actually saw any “and,” did we? We just inferred that there must be an “and,” assumed the very worst actually, based on Jo’s Nazi parallels. Surely Umbridge was going to send Mary Cattermole to a camp next, wasn’t she? Would it be a “work camp”, or immediate gassing? Those are the alternatives we immediately pictured, based on the parallels Jo suggested.
But we never saw either.
What we did see, six months later, was “the wandless” begging in Diagon Alley when the Trio went on that Gringotts raid. No camps at all for those Muggle-borns, clearly, if also no wands and no jobs in the WW.
And yet all those Muggle-borns apparently felt safer and more comfortable begging for Knuts on the Death Eater-controlled streets of Diagon Alley than repatriating to the Muggle world they were all raised in. Getting a real job (I’m imagining Vernon and Petunia’s scornful tones for that phrase) or going on the dole.
Begging from Death Eaters is preferable?
What more really needs to be said? And this is canon, folks.
Except to add that the only three Muggle-borns we know to have been killed by Voldie’s minions were all openly resisting the new regime: Ted and Dirk, and tiny Colin in the battle of Hogwarts (which you will note that both Dean and naïve little Colin lived to attend).
What of Mary Cattermole? Was she there among the beggars? Was she living with Reg still, trying to keep house and to raise Maisie, Ellie, and Alfred without a wand, and nervously urging Reg not to make waves, to keep in good with his bosses the Death Eaters? Did she escape the WW to stay with her shopkeeper sister in Lambeth, or run off with her children to Wizarding France? Or did the Trio’s “rescue” put Mary’s name, and those of the other ten Muggle-borns being registered that day, onto the list of “resistors” to be killed?
We’ll never know, will we?
But one final consideration.
During the whole time from late August to late March Voldemort himself was mostly away on the Continent, trying to trace the rumors of that unbeatable wand, the Deathstick. (He caught up with Gregorovich, tortured the memory of the merry thief out of him, and killed him, on 9/2, so he must have started researching/looking before then.) And we saw that Voldemort didn’t much want to be disturbed in that quest.
Perhaps his Death Eaters were a bit less zealous in their master’s absence?
It’s even possible that the puppet-Minister followed his illustrious predecessor Fudge’s example and asked the Hogwarts Headmaster for guidance…. Though I hardly think that Snape would dare to give advice that was actually counter to Voldemort’s standing orders. He had a task regarding Potter to complete and several hundred children under his protection, after all; he could scarcely afford to blow his cover now.
So it seems likely that the Death Eaters, with notable exceptions such as Bellatrix (observe that she’s instantly recognized and avoided by the beggars!), really don’t act so terribly when their master isn’t standing over them, wand raised, to keep them performing down to his standards.
This had been bothering me for a long time, but Madderbrad & borg_princess made me finally pull my disjointed thoughts into shape. Thanks!
*
Loathe though I may be to admit it, it seems that Jo’s Voldemort and his minions were not simply being stupid in letting the Order wander around free and never trying to kidnap Ginny to induce Harry to surrender.
The Order’s freedom, and Ginny’s (for the time covered by the book) served Voldemort’s best interests.
I. Voldemort’s Actions
First off, the Order in general had apparently been hypnotized by Dumbledore into believing only Harry could do anything against the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. Once they no longer played a part in directly protecting Harry, they sank into becoming Harry’s cheerleaders from the sidelines.
Now think this through from a P.R. viewpoint. Dumbledore’s hand-picked followers respond to Voldemort’s takeover of the WW by waiting for a teenager to do… something. The teen drops out of sight, and the Order sits tight and accepts Voldemort’s puppet-Minister and Headmaster.
The propaganda value of Arthur, alone, continuing to work for the Ministry and to send his daughter to Hogwarts is humongous! If the Order, specially trained by Dumbledore to resist You-Know-Who and privy to everything Dumbledore knew, demonstrates that they are utterly convinced that they can do nothing effective to oppose Voldemort, surely no one else dare even try?
And no one ever does, do they, save for Neville and his followers back at school?
Now, as to the curious failure to take hostages to force Harry to fly to their rescue, that’s easily explained.
Voldemort didn’t WANT to face Harry until he knew he had a wand that could beat him.
First there’s that pesky twin-core problem that Tom has been fretting over since GoF. Finally Tom simply has done with fretting and kidnaps the wand expert to tell him what’s what. As soon as he’s tortured a possible solution out of Ollivander, Tom faces off against Harry again. Only to discover that a stick of wood cored by Fawkes’ feather is smarter and a better fighter than the boy, and Ollivander can’t tell Tom how to keep Harry’s Speshul wand from vomiting Tom’s own best (worst) magic back at him! So Tom now needs to solve this new problem before he can face Harry again (never learning, alas, that Hermione eventually solved that problem for him by breaking Harry’s Speshul wand).
So if Voldemort took Ginny hostage (or tortured the Weasleys) too soon, he’d just goad Harry into confronting him before Tom was really ready to take him on.
Moreover, Tom had learned something very valuable about Harry at that battle at the Ministry. Harry’s not like a Malfoy, taking risks ONLY for his best-beloveds. True, Tom successfully used the imaginary threat to Sirius to sucker Harry into going to the MoM. However, Bellatrix will have told Tom that a real threat to Neville (of all people!) induced Harry to agree to hand over the prophecy (which so far as Harry knew, was tantamount to handing Voldemort the ultimate victory). So while ex-girlfriends Ginny or Cho might be the best hostages for Harry from an aesthetic point of view, really almost anyone Harry knows will do in a pinch. The spattergroit-ridden Ron back at the Burrow, Professor McGonagall, Stan Shunpike. Percy.
So what does Voldie do? He leaves ALL of Harry’s old chums alone for the time being, thinking themselves safe—but the moment he’s solved the wand problem, he can pick up someone suitable easily enough. The more easily if they’ve been lulled into not expecting it. Ginny? She’s secure in Snape’s custody—except when she’s at the Burrow, whose security the DE’s have already cracked. Or if it’s not convenient to grab her when the right time finally comes, threaten anyone Harry recognizes as a friend or ally.
There’s no shortage, none at all, of potential hostages.
Because look indeed at what Tom does in canon—he gets the Elder Wand, and plays with it a while, and eventually decides he’s not really its master yet.
Oops.
Severus is Tom’s most valuable servant, and he really doesn’t want to lose him, but needs must….
And the very moment that Snape is dead and Tom is satisfied that he has, finally, a wand which will best Harry’s—well, Tom doesn’t bother looking for little Ginny, does he? Why take that trouble? No, Tom holds the whole damn SCHOOL hostage, demanding that Harry surrender within the hour or he’ll kill everyone in sight.
And Harry duly surrenders.
See? It worked. Not so stupid after all.
*
II. The Actions of the Order of the Phoenix
Consider the situation that Bill Weasley tells us about in DH Chapter 24, “The Wandmaker.” Voldemort took over at the Ministry in August. It’s now the Easter holidays of the following year, and the Weasleys are just now moving into self-Fidelius protected safe houses (and in Bill and Arthur’s cases at least, quitting their day jobs). Ginny happens to be home for the holidays, but she’d spent two terms normally at school.
Let’s think about this scenario a little from the Prophet-informed (or mis-informed) public’s point of view. Scrimegour was killed, and Thicknesse took over as Minister amid whispers that he was controlled by You-Know-Who. The Chosen One was accused of Dumbledore’s murder and declared Undesirable #1. Snape, cleared of Dumbledore’s murder, was installed as Headmaster of Hogwarts. The Chosen One disappeared with his Mu—er, Muggle-born friend. Soon Umbridge set up her Commission, and started accusing magic-users without provable Wizarding ancestry of having stolen magic (so that’s why the old Pureblood families have been suffering an increasing incidence of Squibs!). And eventually the children at Hogwarts start whispering things…
And what are the well-known Weasleys, Dumbledore’s most ardent supporters, doing in response to these outrages? Nothing. Their youngest son, known to be the Chosen One’s friend, is home sick with spattergroit. Their treasured daughter is sent to Hogwarts under Snape. Arthur and his son Percy continue to work for the Ministry; Bill continues to work for Gringotts.
And no one bothers them.
Nothin’ wrong here.
At first, the Weasleys’ compliance might have been taken as a sign that the stories about Thicknesse and Snape must be false.
Soon enough though, everyone knows the truth.
But most people continue to follow the Weasleys’ lead in pretending that everything was normal. For the Weasleys’ passivity must have demonstrated to everyone that resistance is truly futile. If the members of Dumbledore’s own Order, those best-informed by him and trained to fight Voldemort’s rise, know that there is nothing to be done but hope that Harry will save them, then surely they must be right.
The best course, the only course, is to keep your head down, pretend everything’s normal, and wait for Salvation from On Harry.
Now consider the official radio program of the so-called Resistance. What was it called again? Oh, yeah, Potterwatch.
Let’s summarize the program Harry hears. First, Lee reports on casualties attributed to Death Eaters since the last broadcast: Bathilda, 2 Muggle-borns—Dirk and Ted, 1 Goblin--Gornuk, and 5 anonymous Muggles killed by an apparent gas leak (who are sincerely mourned, really, though no wizard could be expected to be bothered to note their names).
Next, Kingsley urges witches and wizards to protect their Muggle friends and neighbors (that lets Molly off the hook—she has neither) by casting protective charms over their dwellings, Then there’s the popular “Pals of Potter” feature, in which Remus assures a rapt audience that the lack of news of Harry is sure proof that he’s alive, and that Harry is the symbol of everything for which they are fighting.
Er, what fighting would this be, Remus?
Then there’s the report on those friends of Potter who are suffering for their allegiance. (Allegiance? Harry is his own government now? Or cult?). Xeno Lovegood has been imprisoned, and Hagrid narrowly escaped an attempt to arrest him for hosting a “Support Harry Potter” party. Lee suggests that it’s wiser “to show your devotion to the man with the lightning scar by listening to Potterwatch!” Finally, Fred spreads rumors and jokes about You-Know-Who, and urges people, “don’t count on him being a long way away if you’re planning on taking any risks. I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but safety first!”
And the program ends with the inspirational: “We don’t know when it will be possible to broadcast again, but you can be sure we shall be back. Keep twiddling those dials: The next password will be ‘Mad-Eye.’ Keep each other safe: Keep faith. Good night.” (DH chapter 22)
So. The group specifically trained by Dumbledore to resist You-Know-Who instructs everyone less well-trained on how they too can most effectively oppose the new regime:
Surreptitiously protect nearby Muggles.
Don’t be stupidly blatant about your support of Potter.
Don’t do anything else except “twiddle those dials” (and your thumbs) and “keep faith”—i.e. trust Potter to do, well, something. Eventually. Someday. Just wait for it, okay?.
Hell, if I were a Nazi commandant listening to a broadcast like that from a minor Résistance faction, I wouldn’t be trying to stop that faction from broadcasting—I’d be funding them!
Or, actually, I’d be faking attacks on them to make it look like I wanted them silenced.
Yeah, that will work much better. (Dusts hands in satisfaction after making arrangements.)
Dumbledore’s followers are doing the Death Eaters’ jobs for them, keeping the general populace quiet while the Dark Lord consolidates his position.
Round up the members of the Order of the Phoenix, when they’re doing such brilliant work for us? Are you insane???
Regarding Dumbledore’s giving his adult followers such asinine instructions as “Harry is the best hope we have. Trust him,” I can only blame the man’s overwhelming hubris. He can’t bear to think that his lovely plan to sacrifice Harry might be upstaged, that anyone might do anything outside of his carefully-plotted operation that might prove at all effective in reducing Voldemort’s power or control. His way or the highway, and Albus always insisted that his “men” choose his way.
Regarding the Order going along with such stupid passivity… I mean, really, “Keep faith?” That’s the only thing you can come up with to give any sort of discomfort to the enemy? Try consulting with Charles DeGaulle, or even Corrie ten Boom, if you have no ideas of your own!
Of all the Order members, only Remus even had the gumption to so much as offer to go along to help, instruct, and protect Harry on his mysterious “mission”—and he only did so to try to get away from Tonks, pregnant with (he thought) his baby monster.
I must say, my (presumably fan-fictional) Confidere is looking better every day. That way I can just blame Dumbledore.
Absent that explanation, I can see no reason to respect a man jack (okay, or a woman jill) of the Order of the Phoenix.
Fucking Quislings all.
III. The Death Eaters
On the other side, how terrible is it in Wizarding Britain under the Death Eaters, really?
Let’s pause to consider Lee’s assertion that the death of those five nameless Muggles is “more evidence, as if it were needed, of the fact that Muggle slaughter is becoming little more than a recreational sport under the new regime.”
Um. Lee. This broadcast is in March. Late March (Easter holidays at Hogwarts), and you open by apologizing for your “temporary absence from the airwaves.” Later on you announce the two latest arrests of outspoken Potter supporters: a failed attempt that very day to arrest Hagrid, and Xenophilius Lovegood’s imprisonment.
Now, surely it’s most reasonable to suppose that Xeno was arrested just after Christmas when his attempt to betray Harry to the Death Eaters failed? And surely Lee could only attribute that arrest to Xeno’s being one “of the more outspoken Harry Potter supporters” if that December issue of the Quibbler, with “Undesirable #1” on the cover, never went out? (Well, we know that it didn’t—most of the copies were destroyed in the explosion.)
Harry expected Xeno to be punished for the failure; Hermione deliberately arranged for the DE’s to see her and Harry so they would know he’d been telling the truth about trying to catch Harry for them, so that Xeno’s punishment would be less than death. Surely Xeno didn’t get off scot-free in late December, only to take up “outspokenly” supporting Potter again (risking Luna’s life—and we did see how he felt about that) to earn a subsequent arrest in March?
Further, Lee announces as news the discovery of Bathilda’s body. How long after Voldemort was no longer animating the corpse would it take for the old lady’s death to become known? Surely not three full months? The old lady has neighbors. Muggle neighbors. Her bedroom window was smashed in the fight between the snake, Harry, and Hermione. If that’s visible though the garden (overgrown, but it’s also midwinter), the next-door neighbor would have been knocking on the door Christmas morning to see if the old lady was all right. If not, someone should soon observe that there was no longer smoke coming from that dotty old lady’s house. Muggles are perfectly capable of drawing inferences about apparently-lifeless houses known to have sheltered old people living alone. So the corpse ought to have been discovered not terribly long after Nagini stopped animating it.
(Indeed, consider that the Order specified that the corpse, when they examined it, had been dead for “several months.” Harry had just observed that it had been dead “for a while”. If you were expecting Harry to make a pilgrimage to his parents’ graves, wouldn’t you expect him to visit on the anniversary of their deaths? The Bathilda-trap may have been set just before Hallowe’en, with the Order examining the body St. Stephen’s Day.)
So Lee is announcing as hot news in late March events that likely occurred at the end of December. A temporary absence from the airwaves, indeed.
Now consider the news in this light. What have the terrible Death Eaters been doing during all this time? The “heavy casualties” suffered by Muggles amount to—five. Five deaths entirely too many, true, but hardly wholesale carnage. One family could have simply been Bellatrix’s version of a night out with her hubby. Also killed were two, count ‘em, two, Muggle-borns who refused to register and surrender their wands. And a goblin who refused to obey any wizard’s orders.
And Bathilda, who might not even have been murdered: “The Order of the Phoenix informs us that her body showed unmistakable signs of injuries inflicted by Dark Magic.” Yes, I imagine that a monstrous snake lurking inside a corpse and operating it as a puppet would leave “unmistakable signs.” But the Order doesn’t actually state that she was killed by Dark Magic, does it? We know that the corpse MUST have exhibited “unmistakable signs of injuries inflicted by Dark Magic” that were inflicted AFTER Bathilda’s demise. It’s not stated that there were also injuries inflicted before her death, though it’s not stated that there were not.
So it’s entirely possible that the crime here might be desecration of a body, rather than murder followed by the desecration of the victim’s body. Perhaps the DE’s might have approached Bathilda, planning to use her as a tool to watch for Potter. Perhaps they assumed, from the very damaging information she gave Rita, that old Batty was not a Dumbledore-fan and would gladly volunteer for the task. Or perhaps they planned to put the old lady under the Imperius. Either way, Batty resisted, and her heart gave out, and Tom decided she still could be used if he got a little creative. Or even, she was dead in her chair (having had a heart attack when she saw how Skeeter had used her) when they came knocking. Perfectly possible, and we’ll never know either way.
But even if Batty was murdered, two arrests and nine deaths in three months (three of the dead being fugitives who presumably resisted arrest) is a far cry from the unending lists whispered over the radio in the movie version, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, the Weasleys and the Dumbledore-loving Hogwarts professors continue their lives unmolested. Kingsley only had to go on the run because he disrespectfully uttered the name “Voldemort”—he wasn’t targeted as an Order member. Ted Tonks had no concerns that he might have left Andromeda facing danger—and indeed he apparently did not, she was left holding the baby in the end. Dean’s whole Muggle family is unharmed, only desperate for news of Dean.
It actually seems to be true that if you keep your head down and your mouth shut, it’s basically business as usual under the Death Eaters, Seclusion and all. (Though of course losing up to a quarter of your customer base is bad for many businesses….)
Unless you chance to be a Muggle-born, in which case you’re forced to register and to surrender your wand, and are not allowed to attend Hogwarts or to work for the Ministry.
And are made to suffer… Well, what?
Because we never actually saw any “and,” did we? We just inferred that there must be an “and,” assumed the very worst actually, based on Jo’s Nazi parallels. Surely Umbridge was going to send Mary Cattermole to a camp next, wasn’t she? Would it be a “work camp”, or immediate gassing? Those are the alternatives we immediately pictured, based on the parallels Jo suggested.
But we never saw either.
What we did see, six months later, was “the wandless” begging in Diagon Alley when the Trio went on that Gringotts raid. No camps at all for those Muggle-borns, clearly, if also no wands and no jobs in the WW.
And yet all those Muggle-borns apparently felt safer and more comfortable begging for Knuts on the Death Eater-controlled streets of Diagon Alley than repatriating to the Muggle world they were all raised in. Getting a real job (I’m imagining Vernon and Petunia’s scornful tones for that phrase) or going on the dole.
Begging from Death Eaters is preferable?
What more really needs to be said? And this is canon, folks.
Except to add that the only three Muggle-borns we know to have been killed by Voldie’s minions were all openly resisting the new regime: Ted and Dirk, and tiny Colin in the battle of Hogwarts (which you will note that both Dean and naïve little Colin lived to attend).
What of Mary Cattermole? Was she there among the beggars? Was she living with Reg still, trying to keep house and to raise Maisie, Ellie, and Alfred without a wand, and nervously urging Reg not to make waves, to keep in good with his bosses the Death Eaters? Did she escape the WW to stay with her shopkeeper sister in Lambeth, or run off with her children to Wizarding France? Or did the Trio’s “rescue” put Mary’s name, and those of the other ten Muggle-borns being registered that day, onto the list of “resistors” to be killed?
We’ll never know, will we?
But one final consideration.
During the whole time from late August to late March Voldemort himself was mostly away on the Continent, trying to trace the rumors of that unbeatable wand, the Deathstick. (He caught up with Gregorovich, tortured the memory of the merry thief out of him, and killed him, on 9/2, so he must have started researching/looking before then.) And we saw that Voldemort didn’t much want to be disturbed in that quest.
Perhaps his Death Eaters were a bit less zealous in their master’s absence?
It’s even possible that the puppet-Minister followed his illustrious predecessor Fudge’s example and asked the Hogwarts Headmaster for guidance…. Though I hardly think that Snape would dare to give advice that was actually counter to Voldemort’s standing orders. He had a task regarding Potter to complete and several hundred children under his protection, after all; he could scarcely afford to blow his cover now.
So it seems likely that the Death Eaters, with notable exceptions such as Bellatrix (observe that she’s instantly recognized and avoided by the beggars!), really don’t act so terribly when their master isn’t standing over them, wand raised, to keep them performing down to his standards.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 12:48 am (UTC)What do we learn about James? He didn't mind hexing every second kid in the corridors at Hogwarts while he was a teenager but when his life and family's life is in danger and depending on him he forgets he should be carring his wand around 99.99% of the time?
JKR and fans can go on and on about how Horrible Snape was...but seriously WTF kind of dumbass was James. Snape is practically 99.99% right about the guy.
And it isn't like James grew up muggle where maybe was used to not having a wand...the dude was a pureblood and was exposed to magic all his life. Shouldn't a wand have felt more like an extention of his arm seeing as how he grew up purebood?
And I don't get WHY they wouldn't have some sort of escape tunnel created? Magical people can...MAKE crap, and James and Lily were stated to being so "UBER" Special with magic. WTH didn't they have some kind of escape plan worked out already, like a tunnel or hidden door or...something.
Lazy, sloppy and dumb for poeple spoken of as being great. And JKR didn't show them in any good light that night or show them as being this amazing 'brilliant' magic people.
The both acted like people who had never been around magic. The whole scene would have made 100% more sense if JKR had made Harry a muggleborn and both his parents would have been muggles.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 06:45 pm (UTC)Exactly. Sure, their plan has to fail because they have to die, but show them trying something serious and appropriate and failing rather than being caught like deer in the headlights. (Heck, maybe that's the true meaning of the deer symbolism and Potters.)
no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 10:42 pm (UTC)Don't know how much experience she has with actual deer =/
no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 09:37 pm (UTC)Lily was just as stupid as her husband. We know from Snape's memory that Lily could, if not actually fly without a broom, at least hang in the air for several moments and then come to a soft, safe landing...
So when she heard the ruckus downstairs, why didn't she just grab her wand & baby Harry, AND JUMP OUT THE DAMN WINDOW? :-P