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deathtocapslockIf Lucius, Bellatrix, or Severus weren’t among the most important Death Eaters during the first war, then who was?
We know that old Nott, an elder Rosier, an elder Mulciber, Dolohov, Macnair, Rookwood, and Karkaroff were Death Eaters during the first war. Also possibly an elder Lestrange and an elder Avery since they were in Slughorn’s club looking admiringly at Tom. (Alternatively, the elder Lestrange and Avery could have balked at joining the Death Eaters and, as people who knew too much, became some of Tom’s early victims — though probably not until after they’d married had had kids.) What do we know about any of these candidates?
The elder Rosier was one of Tom’s early followers, one of the four who accompanied him on the job interview trip. If he was Evan, he was killed. If Evan was Severus’s schoolmate, we never hear about the elder Rosier again. He may have been killed or captured. If captured, he presumably died in Azkaban before the mass break-out. We don’t know his status before he was taken out of commission, but he’s a possible candidate for a higher-ranking Death Eater.
There’s only one Mulciber alive and free when Karkaroff names him, since Karkaroff doesn’t have to specify which Mulciber he means, so both Mulcibers were out of commission after that point. The elder Mulciber was also part of the job interview cheering squad. We don’t know whether he was the Imperialist-specialist Mulciber. Other than these two tidbits, we don’t know what either Mulciber did during the first war. So the elder Mulciber is another possible candidate for a higher-ranking DE.
Similarly, there’s only one Avery named in the graveyard and no second Avery in the Azkaban escapees. If the Avery in the graveyard was Severus Snape’s schoolmate, either something happened to the elder Avery or he wasn’t a Death Eater in the first place. He wasn’t part of the cheering squad, which might tilt the odds in favor of his not joining the Death Eaters — but on the other hand, maybe Voldemort brought his least valuable followers on that occasion. That would allow for a high-ranking elder Avery left behind for his protection.
We don’t hear about any living male Lestranges in the 1990s besides relatively-young Rodolphus and Rabastan. The elder Lestrange also wasn’t part of the cheering squad, which suggests the same possibilities as it does for Avery. I like him as a higher-ranking DE in the early days, killed or captured before that final spasm of violence in the last year of the war (the distance in time would explain why he wasn’t included in discussions of his younger relatives’ trials). But canon says so little that just about anything is possible. Maybe he refused to join and was killed to keep him from saying too much about Tom’s schooldays, if you prefer.
We don’t know what Nott ever did besides get injured and arrested or killed during the 1996 Ministry raid. But he apparently had money and social status and has been loyal for decades. In the graveyard, Voldemort lumped Nott in with the elder Crabbe and Goyle as Death Eaters who should “do better this time,” so it’s possible that Nott failed badly somehow near the end of the first war and is still in the doghouse. But he might have been high-ranking before that. Perhaps he was one of those tasked with bribing and blackmailing Ministry officials and suchlike, given his wealth. A role model for Lucius?
Dolohov was widely feared by the public, so he was probably out committing violence during the first war. We don’t know whether he was just a very effective foot soldier or whether Voldemort trusted him with any leadership responsibility.
Voldemort promises Macnair better prey than the animals he executes for the Ministry, so probably Macnair was committing violence during the first war too. Also like Dolohov, we don’t know whether he was entrusted with anything else.
Rookwood lost his primary value when Karkaroff shopped him, and was recaptured or killed during the 1996 Ministry break-in after his first escape, so he isn’t very prominent during the second war. But he might have been the spymaster at the Ministry during the first war. His name is the only useful one Karkaroff gives Crouch, and led to more arrests, like Ludo Bagman’s. Inasmuch as Voldemort values or trusts anyone, Rookwood might have been one of those people, possibly for decades. He probably gathered information from dupes and Imperiused puppets and maybe managed lower-level spies. We don’t know whether he also participated in violent missions, but that seems like a pointless way to risk a difficult-to-replace spymaster. And Karkaroff doesn’t finger him for any violent crimes.
Moody accuses Karkaroff of participating in at least one torture and murder mission, and Karkaroff knew of violent crimes that Evan Rosier had committed. Maybe Karkaroff was another foot soldier. (Visiting from abroad and living in Death Eater safe houses?) On the other hand, he knew about Rookwood and Snape. Rookwood was almost certainly involved in intelligence gathering and possibly sabotage, Imperius, etc. within the Ministry, and possibly not in violence. How would Karkaroff know about him? Maybe Karkaroff was a diplomat who hung out with the Ministry crowd, and recognized Rookwood as a Death Eater based on his posture and voice? Or was he one of Rookwood’s agents, one who both participated in violent missions and gathered information? Maybe he was internal security and reported on fellow Death Eaters, with whom he had no school and probably few close family ties if he was raised outside Britain; acting as a foot soldier was his cover to observe their performance and let Rookwood know whose skills were subpar or whose loyalty seemed to be wavering. Maybe he just happened to run into Snape at Snape’s day job (whatever that was) and recognized him as the guy who stood next to him during circle time. Or, as others have suggested, maybe one of Snape’s jobs was serving as a DE Healer, and he treated Karkaroff’s injuries at least once, again allowing Karkaroff to recognize Snape in another context.
What about other possibilities not confirmed in canon? Cygnus Black is a likely candidate. He might have been recruited by his Rosier in-laws and recruited his daughter Bellatrix and son-in-law Lucius in turn. There are multiple versions of the Black family tree, one giving Cygnus’s death date as 1979 and one as 1992. A 1979 death date could make him one of the senior Death Eaters arrested or killed during the war, while a 1992 death date might mean he survived the war only to die in the same dragonpox epidemic that killed Abraxas Malfoy and possibly several other elder Blacks (Arcturus, Pollux, Cassiopeia, and Lucretia).
The fact that we never hear about Cygnus might argue against his being a Death Eater. Shouldn’t Sirius have made a snide remark about Regulus and Bellatrix falling for the B.S. Uncle Cygnus fed them about the Dark Lord? Or Kreacher have mentioned that Regulus was upset about his uncle’s death when Voldemort demanded a house-elf, implying he already had doubts and Voldemort’s callous treatment of Kreacher was the last straw? Perhaps another dragonpox epidemic from 1977-1979 killed Cygnus as well as with Orion Black, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, and Charlus and Dorea their son — nothing to do with the war. Members of the Black family seem to have trouble surviving past eighty, so maybe they all inherit the same disease vulnerabilities or congenital health problems. On the other hand, Sirius was out of touch with his family in 1979 and Kreacher might not have known the relevant details. And if Cygnus was killed quietly by Voldemort in a purge of his older (too knowledgeable) followers and his death staged to look natural, maybe few realized what really happened.
So, here’s a possible original lineup:
Then the elder Lestrange, elder Rosier, and maybe elder Avery went to prison or died. If they died in a Voldemort-initiated purge in late 1979 or early 1980, shortly after the prophecy was made, this may have misled the Order of the Phoenix into thinking Regulus Black must have been one of the purge victims.
Voldemort took the opportunity offered by the purge to start flattening his organizational structure, maybe alternating who in each cell would be in charge of a given mission rather than having permanent cell leaders. So lower-ranking followers like Travers and second-generation followers like Bellatrix and young Rosier got entrusted with more responsibility and information, but not to the degree that Tom’s original schoolmates had. New recruits like Peter, Severus, and Barty never got much information or authority at all during the first war, and Severus and Barty were being prepared for probable-suicide missions anyway.
(Incidentally, if Severus was an emergency medic for the DEs, he’s another candidate for an internal security operative, like Karkaroff. Treating injured comrades and drugging them for valid medical reasons would offer good opportunities for poking around in their minds without their realizing or remembering. This usefulness doesn’t stop Voldemort from sending him on a probable suicide mission to Hogwarts to deploy the diary and/or kill Dumbledore when he gets the word.)
At some point, probably near the end of the war since it’s still worth mentioning in the graveyard in 1995, Nott screwed up. If this wasn’t directly before Voldemort’s discorporation, Voldemort may have had time to strip Nott of some authority.
Does that work? Any other suggestions?
We know that old Nott, an elder Rosier, an elder Mulciber, Dolohov, Macnair, Rookwood, and Karkaroff were Death Eaters during the first war. Also possibly an elder Lestrange and an elder Avery since they were in Slughorn’s club looking admiringly at Tom. (Alternatively, the elder Lestrange and Avery could have balked at joining the Death Eaters and, as people who knew too much, became some of Tom’s early victims — though probably not until after they’d married had had kids.) What do we know about any of these candidates?
The elder Rosier was one of Tom’s early followers, one of the four who accompanied him on the job interview trip. If he was Evan, he was killed. If Evan was Severus’s schoolmate, we never hear about the elder Rosier again. He may have been killed or captured. If captured, he presumably died in Azkaban before the mass break-out. We don’t know his status before he was taken out of commission, but he’s a possible candidate for a higher-ranking Death Eater.
There’s only one Mulciber alive and free when Karkaroff names him, since Karkaroff doesn’t have to specify which Mulciber he means, so both Mulcibers were out of commission after that point. The elder Mulciber was also part of the job interview cheering squad. We don’t know whether he was the Imperialist-specialist Mulciber. Other than these two tidbits, we don’t know what either Mulciber did during the first war. So the elder Mulciber is another possible candidate for a higher-ranking DE.
Similarly, there’s only one Avery named in the graveyard and no second Avery in the Azkaban escapees. If the Avery in the graveyard was Severus Snape’s schoolmate, either something happened to the elder Avery or he wasn’t a Death Eater in the first place. He wasn’t part of the cheering squad, which might tilt the odds in favor of his not joining the Death Eaters — but on the other hand, maybe Voldemort brought his least valuable followers on that occasion. That would allow for a high-ranking elder Avery left behind for his protection.
We don’t hear about any living male Lestranges in the 1990s besides relatively-young Rodolphus and Rabastan. The elder Lestrange also wasn’t part of the cheering squad, which suggests the same possibilities as it does for Avery. I like him as a higher-ranking DE in the early days, killed or captured before that final spasm of violence in the last year of the war (the distance in time would explain why he wasn’t included in discussions of his younger relatives’ trials). But canon says so little that just about anything is possible. Maybe he refused to join and was killed to keep him from saying too much about Tom’s schooldays, if you prefer.
We don’t know what Nott ever did besides get injured and arrested or killed during the 1996 Ministry raid. But he apparently had money and social status and has been loyal for decades. In the graveyard, Voldemort lumped Nott in with the elder Crabbe and Goyle as Death Eaters who should “do better this time,” so it’s possible that Nott failed badly somehow near the end of the first war and is still in the doghouse. But he might have been high-ranking before that. Perhaps he was one of those tasked with bribing and blackmailing Ministry officials and suchlike, given his wealth. A role model for Lucius?
Dolohov was widely feared by the public, so he was probably out committing violence during the first war. We don’t know whether he was just a very effective foot soldier or whether Voldemort trusted him with any leadership responsibility.
Voldemort promises Macnair better prey than the animals he executes for the Ministry, so probably Macnair was committing violence during the first war too. Also like Dolohov, we don’t know whether he was entrusted with anything else.
Rookwood lost his primary value when Karkaroff shopped him, and was recaptured or killed during the 1996 Ministry break-in after his first escape, so he isn’t very prominent during the second war. But he might have been the spymaster at the Ministry during the first war. His name is the only useful one Karkaroff gives Crouch, and led to more arrests, like Ludo Bagman’s. Inasmuch as Voldemort values or trusts anyone, Rookwood might have been one of those people, possibly for decades. He probably gathered information from dupes and Imperiused puppets and maybe managed lower-level spies. We don’t know whether he also participated in violent missions, but that seems like a pointless way to risk a difficult-to-replace spymaster. And Karkaroff doesn’t finger him for any violent crimes.
Moody accuses Karkaroff of participating in at least one torture and murder mission, and Karkaroff knew of violent crimes that Evan Rosier had committed. Maybe Karkaroff was another foot soldier. (Visiting from abroad and living in Death Eater safe houses?) On the other hand, he knew about Rookwood and Snape. Rookwood was almost certainly involved in intelligence gathering and possibly sabotage, Imperius, etc. within the Ministry, and possibly not in violence. How would Karkaroff know about him? Maybe Karkaroff was a diplomat who hung out with the Ministry crowd, and recognized Rookwood as a Death Eater based on his posture and voice? Or was he one of Rookwood’s agents, one who both participated in violent missions and gathered information? Maybe he was internal security and reported on fellow Death Eaters, with whom he had no school and probably few close family ties if he was raised outside Britain; acting as a foot soldier was his cover to observe their performance and let Rookwood know whose skills were subpar or whose loyalty seemed to be wavering. Maybe he just happened to run into Snape at Snape’s day job (whatever that was) and recognized him as the guy who stood next to him during circle time. Or, as others have suggested, maybe one of Snape’s jobs was serving as a DE Healer, and he treated Karkaroff’s injuries at least once, again allowing Karkaroff to recognize Snape in another context.
What about other possibilities not confirmed in canon? Cygnus Black is a likely candidate. He might have been recruited by his Rosier in-laws and recruited his daughter Bellatrix and son-in-law Lucius in turn. There are multiple versions of the Black family tree, one giving Cygnus’s death date as 1979 and one as 1992. A 1979 death date could make him one of the senior Death Eaters arrested or killed during the war, while a 1992 death date might mean he survived the war only to die in the same dragonpox epidemic that killed Abraxas Malfoy and possibly several other elder Blacks (Arcturus, Pollux, Cassiopeia, and Lucretia).
The fact that we never hear about Cygnus might argue against his being a Death Eater. Shouldn’t Sirius have made a snide remark about Regulus and Bellatrix falling for the B.S. Uncle Cygnus fed them about the Dark Lord? Or Kreacher have mentioned that Regulus was upset about his uncle’s death when Voldemort demanded a house-elf, implying he already had doubts and Voldemort’s callous treatment of Kreacher was the last straw? Perhaps another dragonpox epidemic from 1977-1979 killed Cygnus as well as with Orion Black, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, and Charlus and Dorea their son — nothing to do with the war. Members of the Black family seem to have trouble surviving past eighty, so maybe they all inherit the same disease vulnerabilities or congenital health problems. On the other hand, Sirius was out of touch with his family in 1979 and Kreacher might not have known the relevant details. And if Cygnus was killed quietly by Voldemort in a purge of his older (too knowledgeable) followers and his death staged to look natural, maybe few realized what really happened.
So, here’s a possible original lineup:
- The elder Lestrange, elder Rosier, elder Avery, Nott, and Cygnus Black are higher-ranking Death Eaters, possibly cell leaders. They plan attacks and give orders to the foot soldiers (possibly fighting alongside them too), and bribe and blackmail important people. How much of which activities they perform varies by individual and over time.
- Dolohov fights and may or may not also have leadership responsibilities.
- Rookwood is a spymaster; besides getting information from dupes (or pretending-to-be-dupes) like Ludo Bagman and Imperiusing Ministry employees to get information and commit sabotage and whatnot, he has authority over a few other Death Eater spies. His reports may include Mulciber the Imperius specialist and Lucius Malfoy (whose skills lie in the bribing, blackmailing, and Imperiusing line, even if he participates in violence too — though bear in mind that Voldemort in the graveyard might have been mocking Lucius for “leading” from a safe distance). Torturing people for information is another possible duty for this group, maybe in cooperation with the foot soldiers.
- Karkaroff is outwardly a “floater” who joins different groups when they need an extra wand for a job, and maybe also does a bit of spying if he had a legitimate (possibly diplomacy-related) day job in Britain. But his true job is internal security: spying on his fellow Death Eaters for Voldemort.
Then the elder Lestrange, elder Rosier, and maybe elder Avery went to prison or died. If they died in a Voldemort-initiated purge in late 1979 or early 1980, shortly after the prophecy was made, this may have misled the Order of the Phoenix into thinking Regulus Black must have been one of the purge victims.
Voldemort took the opportunity offered by the purge to start flattening his organizational structure, maybe alternating who in each cell would be in charge of a given mission rather than having permanent cell leaders. So lower-ranking followers like Travers and second-generation followers like Bellatrix and young Rosier got entrusted with more responsibility and information, but not to the degree that Tom’s original schoolmates had. New recruits like Peter, Severus, and Barty never got much information or authority at all during the first war, and Severus and Barty were being prepared for probable-suicide missions anyway.
(Incidentally, if Severus was an emergency medic for the DEs, he’s another candidate for an internal security operative, like Karkaroff. Treating injured comrades and drugging them for valid medical reasons would offer good opportunities for poking around in their minds without their realizing or remembering. This usefulness doesn’t stop Voldemort from sending him on a probable suicide mission to Hogwarts to deploy the diary and/or kill Dumbledore when he gets the word.)
At some point, probably near the end of the war since it’s still worth mentioning in the graveyard in 1995, Nott screwed up. If this wasn’t directly before Voldemort’s discorporation, Voldemort may have had time to strip Nott of some authority.
Does that work? Any other suggestions?
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-09-12 08:57 pm (UTC)I can understand why he wouldn't try alerting anyone at the Ministry--by that point surely everyone realized it was riddled with DE moles (willing and Imperiused). Could he have thought there was already at least one mole in Dumbledore's circle who might intercept any message? Maybe Peter was spying for longer than anyone realized, or there was a second spy. Or maybe none at all, but Regulus believed there was one. I can see Voldemort boasting about having a spy in Dumbledore's inner circle purely to sow distrust. Which might have made it easier to eventually convince Peter that "he was taking over everywhere" and it was time to throw in his lot with the winners, come to think of it.
So maybe Regulus couldn't think of a way to warn Dumbledore that didn't risk tipping off the (possibly non-existent) spy? And decided to hope that Dumbledore and his people would act sensibly and try to injure Voldemort whenever they got the chance, even if they didn't realize it would kill him? I mean, that would be the sensible thing to do, wouldn't it? Injured Voldemort is surely preferable to fit and healthy Voldemort!
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-09-13 04:26 am (UTC)Yes about the Ministry having more holes in it than Swiss cheese.
I guess the best ploy — if Regulus didn’t basically d!e as a Gryffindor — is to order Kreacher to pick a time where all the Blacks are asleep, and apparate off to find Dumbledore, in his office. Either Kreacher would have destroyed this One And Only Horcrux by then, and Dumbledore needs to know that The Dark Lord is killable now, or he can help with destroying the Locket. Either way his role is invaluable and un-skippable.
I once joked on Reddit (I would link it to you but I’m currently fighting to repeal a shadowban 🤦🏻♂️) that “I would sooner pick Young, Pre-doubleagent Snape over Late Stage RAB as a fellow traveller”, because even as a tunnel-visioned “Save only Lily and don’t even try to save Harry” guy, Snape STILL had enough presence of mind to ASK DUMBLEDORE FOR HELP, even though he had *already* obtained a “sincere” promise from Voldemort that he would spare Lily’s life! Whereas RAB completely screwed everything up! No backup plan, no next phase for someone to notify Dumbledore that Voldemort is killable now, even if it was the only Horcrux and Kreacher should actually destroy it!
* headdesks again *
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-09-14 01:38 am (UTC)I wonder if Terri's theory about Regulus dying partly so Voldemort and the other Death Eaters wouldn't have access to 12 Grimmauld Place might be relevant? That is, maybe that was his main focus, he left the FU note for Voldemort because why not, and then--distantly, because it actually wasn't as pressing a problem to him as his family's safety--figured of course Dumbledore and company would be attacking Voldemort every chance they got so it would work out. This is still terrible planning, obviously, but I don't imagine that being raised by bigots and then manipulated by a psychopathic cult leader is very good for developing one's critical reasoning skills. An emotional teenager in that situation might make a catastrophic oversight. I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced of this, but I'm trying to come up with a plausible reason since JKR obviously didn't bother.
I can see Snape not thinking it was possible to save Harry, hence it not occurring to him to ask Dumbledore about that. (Obviously asking Voldemort would be worse than pointless and probably lead to Voldemort resolving to kill Lily extra-painfully to punish Severus for wanting Voldemort's destined foe to live.) Hagrid might not be wholly reliable about facts, but I don't doubt him when he reports that the general feeling in the wizarding world was that if Voldemort wanted you dead, you were dead. If that's how the general public felt, how much more strongly would his own terrorized followers believe it? Voldemort says Lily "needn't have died," which makes me think Voldemort's opinion was that James did need to die as well. Maybe James was the primary "meddlesome fool" in Voldemort's opinion. So it would be emotionally understandable for Snape to have written their lives off as lost already and focus on the one person it might be possible to save.
It's kind of like if the Potters were all trapped in a burning building, James and Harry were upstairs with fallen beams all around them and also the stairs were already burned out, and Lily was passed out from smoke inhalation right by the front door. Begging a firefighter to drag her out doesn't mean "and let the other two burn, who cares." It just means she's relatively easy to rescue and they're probably already on fire. It also happened that hers was the life he cared about most, but that wasn't due to any planning on his part. He was stammering from fright and Dumbledore hardly let him finish any sentences, plus accused him of not asking Voldemort to spare the very person Voldemort was determined to kill out of greed rather than hopelessness or even thoughtlessness, so I don't think we can tell from that scene exactly how much Snape might have been thinking "oh well, no loss" vs. "it's awful but there's nothing to be done." Not even from him sounding ambiguously guilty, because even though he didn't intend it, his joining the Death Eaters and reporting the prophecy in the first place set this in motion. What's he going to do, calmly argue about his precise degree of guilt? "Think whatever you want about me as long as you save Lily" seems like the correct order of priorities.
We can, however, fault him for not suggesting, sometime over the course of the year or so that he was spying for Dumbledore, that Dumbledore hide the Potters separately. Maybe with a variant of Chantaldormand described as the "Fidelius matryoshka doll" setup: Peter can betray Sirius's location all he likes, but not the Potters. Sirius can in turn betray James all he likes, but not Lily and Harry. Voldemort would have to get through at least three layers of Secret-Keepers to get to them even if they stuck to a Marauders-and-Lily-only scenario. Why didn't anyone think of that, I would like to know? And especially why not the guy who really and truly wanted Lily to survive?
Maybe he did and Dumbledore shot the idea down, but his Pensieve infodump included enough memories highlighting how bad Dumbledore is at making plans that succeed or protecting anyone that I think this one would have been included too if it existed. So we're stuck with either "no one thought of it for no good reason" or looking for a different good reason. Well, "good" in the sense of "plausible given what we know of the characters' mental and emotional makeups," not necessarily a reason an intelligent and emotionally healthy person calmly thinking things through under optimal conditions would come up with.
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-09-22 05:46 pm (UTC)I think, that the best case scenario for Regulus, is that he does believe that Kreacher can destroy the Horcrux. (I do not fault him for thinking the house elf can do it, same as I do not fault him for thinking a Locket *that well protected* is the Only horcrux.) *On top of that*, he can protect his family so long as they stay fortified inside the London townhouse (Not too hard to imagine being actual Black Family policy, as wasn’t it Orion himself who decided the dark lord was Too Much and cast all those extra protections to the house to begin with? And the fact that they’d rather hide amongst six million ewww-inducing muggles than live in some Black family manor or chateau?). — To not care if the locket can be destroyed, is insanity. 🤷🏻♂️
As for Young Severus, I’m saying that the lowest bar on his part is still higher than RAB’s, because he DID get a promise from Voldemort that he’ll let Lily live (because it won’t be Lily that’ll vanquish him), but he still peered through the haze and decided it was not enough. So he went to see Dumbledore, EVEN IF he feared extralegal torture or death on sight. Meanwhile with RAB, we’re left here giving him brownie points because of his stunted growth as a human being. 😅
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-09-23 01:47 am (UTC)As for why they're in a Muggle townhouse built recently enough to have gaslights, one can only assume that any ancestral country home they had was lost long ago. They were rich (again?) by the time Sirius was born, but maybe had major financial troubles a couple of centuries ago and had to sell it off? Or gambled it away? Wizards wouldn't need a house in town the way Muggles would (they don't have to suffer days-long jolting carriage rides to get to London when they can Floo and Apparate), so probably the townhouse was a place a younger family member used to live out from under the oversight of family elders who didn't approve of too much carousing, or maybe was the place where someone stashed a lover. (Possibly a Muggle lover.)
Huh. I wonder if Regulus was, oddly enough, counting on his brother? Say that he reasonably believes the locket is Voldemort's sole horcrux, that Kreacher will be able to destroy it, that Voldemort will know when it's destroyed, and that the family will be safer if Regulus is dead when that happens so no one can get them in their protected house. If he thinks any message he sends Dumbledore is likely to be intercepted or even reported to Voldemort after the fact by a spy, he wouldn't want to risk Voldemort getting warned before Kreacher can destroy the locket. So maybe a message is too risky. (He's probably wrong about this, but he might reasonably believe it.) He knows Sirius is part of Dumbledore's secret paramilitary group, and that Sirius is brave to the point of recklessness, reacts quickly and often without forethought, and is good at cursing people. Surely big bro is going to take any shot he gets at Voldemort regardless how of likely he might think it is to do damage in a logical accounting? And he's going to be trying to attack Voldemort really hard--that's what the group is for, isn't it? So surely, probably in the not-too-distant future, Sirius and his equally-Gryffindorish buddies will blast Voldemort with some nasty curse, and bam! Job done.
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-09-23 02:19 pm (UTC)Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-09-27 04:45 am (UTC)Hm. Dumbledore could have done something to allow Kreacher through that year, maybe to see what Harry would do and get a chance to keep an eye on Kreacher if he was summoned. Dobby is still a problem, though. Ugh. Maybe Lucius knew about a secret tunnel or two, and...Dobby overheard him reminiscing about it with Narcissa one night, and so Dobby did get into the castle that way? Honestly, CoS is just the worst for having convoluted plots that don't add up in ways that make even more ridiculous and convoluted plots necessary to try to make anything work.
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-09-28 03:01 am (UTC)Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-09-28 06:29 pm (UTC)But even if this kinda sorta works, it is still way too complicated.
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-10-02 02:53 am (UTC)Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-10-20 01:35 am (UTC)Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-11-17 06:10 pm (UTC)-- Depends on how well he Explored And Plumbed The Secrets Of Hogwarts, heh heh. Does he ever try to raid the kitchens? 😋
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-09-22 05:52 pm (UTC)But so is a great AU fic I read (by DarkBlueDark on AO3) where Moody found out about Wormtail because of a Sneakoscope. Or the one by the same author where Lily ended up saving her fam because she invented a lie-detecting potion that gives you distressful stomach cramps if you lied and in true Marauders-frau style she tested it on Remus and Peter in a “fun” entrapment way.
Or the thing I figured out recently about if only Black and Lupin thought of using an Unbreakable Vow to force Peter to surrender to Dumbledore and the Ministry this night (in exchange for “So we won’t kill you now” or even “We will personally beg the Ministry to not give you the Dementor’s Kiss”).
That’s why HP is easier to make this kinda fics up than, say, LOTR. The lore is underexplored.
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-09-23 01:23 am (UTC)For 1981, it would have been darkly funny if actually all the Marauders, James included, were Death Eaters...but none knew about the others, and so they kept accidentally wrecking each other's plans. If only they'd wrecked them a bit more thoroughly, maybe they could have accidentally solved everyone's problems!
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-09-23 02:28 pm (UTC)~*~
Yup, there was no good reason at all not to wake Snape up after they’d bound and gagged him securely, if only to rub the truth in his face!
"Hey look Snape, you were wrong! But if it's any consolation, the real culprit is still one of our old gang and we are still disgusted about all this betrayal, and you probably would be laughing at our blindness for the next hundred years!"
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-09-27 04:34 am (UTC)Hah, that's probably why they didn't wake him up. It doesn't actually sound that great to say, "Uh, so you were wrong in the details but absolutely right that we were dunderheads who gambled the Potters' lives on a one in three chance that we'd correctly identified the traitor in the group..." Plus, what if he asked awkward questions, like whether there was only one spy? Did the kids have any good reason to believe Remus and/or Sirius couldn't also be a Death Eater who'd decided to throw Peter under the bus to save his own skin? No, better to die than face embarrassment like that.
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-09-28 03:03 am (UTC)Good point on "More than one traitor" but it can be partially absolved by the Secret Keeper quirkiness... if the movie was arsed to even give us the concept instead of utterly trampling over it with "hurr durr Sirius Black was oNe oF tHE FEw who knew where the Potters were".
I said this a lot of times on Reddit before and I'm saying it here: Even with a compressed (and sanitized so they look less like idiots) adaptation, the truth of the matter is THE SHRIEKING SHACK SCENE IS THE TRUE CLIMAX OF PoA, the time travel rescue is merely a long-ass denouement where Harry and Hermione make it so that the true climax wasn't in waste! Why is it in the Shrieking Shack? Because it's the place where the Marauder Bois had so much FUN together but it was rotten then and it's surely rotten now! Jesus it makes me so angry.
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-09-28 06:53 pm (UTC)It is really frustrating! In theory, I can understand if the movies were maybe trying to shift the focus from the adults' backstory to the kids actually doing stuff in the present day, because that's probably easier to dramatize (powerfully motivating backstory is easier in novels than on screen, I think). But I don't think the movies did a satisfactory job of it. So Harry realizes he has the power to make a Patronus after all and saves himself and Sirius. Okay? That's nice, but besides the immediate benefit of their not being soul-sucked and the series continuing, so what? Harry has not struggled with worrying about whether he's capable of saving anyone from danger. He's done it twice already. He's struggled with this particular spell, but for most of the book he only cared about that because it might affect his Quidditch game again, which is not something we're very invested in. We haven't been led to worry that Lupin was deliberately sabotaging his Patronus practice, so it doesn't even relieve us on that score. Harry has sort of been sad about his parents throughout the movie and was upset that their friend betrayed them, but this doesn't resolve that, nor does it create some other present-day problem which the Patronus solves. If the movie wanted this to be the big climactic moment (instead of the Shack), it did a poor job of setting things up emotionally. It is dramatic and does as much as it can with vibes, but falls a bit short for me.
Now I'm trying to imagine how they could set that up. Um. Maybe if the focus was that everyone had unjustly believed Sirius guilty--including Harry, once he heard the story and didn't question it, even when Hagrid's outburst about Sirius pointedly not attacking Hagrid and killing Harry when he had the chance ought to have made him wonder--then Harry turning around and saving Sirius from the Azkaban guards would mean a lot more. On the other hand, this would probably require a bit more time in the Shack with Remus explaining how he'd realized he was so very, very wrong. And maybe that James (influenced by Peter?) had secretly suspected Sirius and been wrong, so Harry would be waiting for his dad to come right that wrong only to realize he had to do it himself. So there's really no getting away from building up the Shack scene even if they wanted to shift the emotional climax to the lake.
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-09-28 11:21 pm (UTC)~*~
"Maybe if the focus was that everyone had unjustly believed Sirius guilty--including Harry, once he heard the story and didn't question it--"
-- Which would require a competent screenwriter (and perhaps more importantly a director who actually gives an eff about the plot - do not forget that Chris Columbus had the same scatterbrained Hermione-glazing Harmione Shipper in his lot of studio appointments and yet he did his twonbook adaptations most faithfully -- many chucklef*cks online try to say "But those books are short" and ignoring that POA WASN'T THAT MUCH THICKER) that bothers to have Harry actually read the Daily Prophet in Stan Shumpike's hands and go something like "Oh no, he killed thirteen people!" and Stan will say something like "Twelve muggles and one wizard... all with one spell!" BUT WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT WHEN MAESTRO ALFONSO NEEDS JAMAICAN ACCENTED SHRUNKEN HEADS ON THE STAGE.
"even when Hagrid's outburst about Sirius pointedly not attacking Hagrid and killing Harry when he had the chance ought to have made him wonder--"
-- And I loathe this Hagrid moment for a whole different reason: Note that Hagrid never expressed "Oh no I never knew Black was the Potters' secret keeper and went to Azkaban for betraying them all!" No no no no, he only expressed how Azkaban was too good for him and he should have personally ripped Black apart, right?
SO, HOW IN THE EVERLOVING F*** DID RUBEUS GET TO SIT HIS ASS DOWN IN FRONT OF HARRY AND EXPRESS THAT "NEVER WAS ANY WIZARD AND WITCH WHO WENT BAD NOT COME OUT OF SLYTHERIN", HMM? THAT'D BE LIKE PROCLAIMING "ALL AMERICAN WIFE-KILLERS ARE WHITE GUYS", IN A TIMELINE WHERE OJS actually *got* convicted and was in jail! Moreso, what Hagrid was getting at, isn't even about All Slytherins Bad, but rather, more damningly, "If you're not in Slytherin then you're sAfE"! Safe from ever becoming evil, and safe from being around evil ones -- BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF BLUE BLISTERING BARNACLES, MAN! What the eff was the lesson we were supposed to get out of the whole Sirius Black sh*tshow, if not OH DARN, VOLDEMORT CAN RECRUIT HIS DEATH EATERS IN OTHER HOUSES, EVEN FROM GRYFFINDOR!!! Harry was damn lucky he only ever had to contend with shrill weirdos like Fifth Year Seamus in his house and not actual dark lord sleeper agents!
(ETA which is why I called it a major face-saving moment that the movie PS/SS gave the wrong generalization from Hagrid to Ron because it is SO much more believable that 11 year old Ron never knew about the sordid sins of Sirius Black rather than the fellow Order member who saw Sirius on the night of 1981.10.31!)
~*~
The lack of understanding of what makes the last act of PoA so great is also why I hate ppl who talk about "Marauder Spinoff Films" because they obviously didn't fully let the Canon sink in to begin with, plus the Canon backstory would have made for better spinoff material anyways if they thirst for it so much.
ETA
And here is a major hot take from me: I think Canon all but proves that Peter, Sirius but moreso James basically fetishized Remus's lyncanthropy condition to Have Funz but when push came to shove, they suspected Remus to be the spy basically out of Racial Profiling.
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-09-29 05:58 pm (UTC)But Harry would have to realize at some point that Hagrid makes sweeping generalizations that even he might not agree with if questioned more closely, and therefore his statements should be taken as suggestions or starting points to explore further, not The TruthTM. Since the movies obviously weren't going to take on a subplot the books didn't (understandably--it would be way down the priority list of things to include), you're right that it makes a lot of sense for the movies to give that line to little kid Ron.
I suspect you're sadly correct about the Marauders. It was fun while they were having jolly romps, but when the chips are down, Remus isn't part of the James/Sirius besties duo, and they can see how Voldemort's message might appeal to him... Though in fairness, I also suspect Peter had a lot to do with making sure to raise those doubts without making it obvious he was manipulating everyone. (Well, not obvious to them. They swallowed the whole "Wow, James!" routine or at least didn't suspect it of covering for anything against their interests, when someone outside might to, "Uh, that is the most obviously fake flattery ever, gross. And what does he really want out of this, hm?") He had a vested interest in making sure someone else was the "obvious" suspect, after all.
There's a fan film called Severus Snape and the Marauders which I seem to remember showing James as being almost as awful as he seems in the books, though I haven't watched it in a few years. I would be on board for that sort of spinoff.
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-10-02 03:07 am (UTC)... which is all well and good, and even adheres to the otherwise flawed “It is our choices that SHOW what we truly are” adage, quite ironically, but the fact remains that this means the SORTING itself proves diddly squat, lmao.
~*~
I’ll look into that fan film.
I would also recommend @ Escoger’s fics including “Letters from the dark” (a “You Got Mail” type twist premise) and “The Purgatory of Lily” where she is in the afterlife and gets a God’s eyes view outlook on many things.
One of my greatest events as a Harry Potter fanfic consumer, however, is discovering @ Laventadorn back in circa 2011 on ff dot net, and in particular her fic called “Come Once Again And Love Me” (which I actually played a part in persuading her to repost onto her AO3 account back in 2017, thanks to a tumblr Q&A post I did, yay). It is a “Peggy Sue” type fic, but instead of regular time travel as I inderstand PS fics to usually work upon, both Severus and Lily get their *heart and mind and soul* (so it’s more like Wolverine in Days Of Future Past) transported back to later December 1977 (their sixth year). What follows next is a COMPACTED A.F. (the main plot only takes place in the span of less than 20 days!) soul-grinding growing-up for the both of them but more importantly Lily, as she helps Severus tactfully refuse the preliminary audience with Voldemort, but also learns so much more about him and herself and most importantly the bad shit that the Marauders got into (Not surprisingly, the only Marauder who is redeemed after all of this is Remus). I cannot recommend her HP fics highly enough! In fact I hope someone would actually write about them on this community.
Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-10-20 01:28 am (UTC)Re: Better usage of magical plots
Date: 2024-11-17 06:13 pm (UTC)Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-10-06 10:34 pm (UTC)I don't know what the rules of magical sacrifices are, but I would guess for the sacrifice to be real one wouldn't be allowed to do anything additional to promote the cause one is dying for. Hmm, James does yell for Lily to escape with harry, and at least Terri believed James died as a sacrifice that gave Lily luck in her saving of Harry, so maybe I am wrong here.
Anyway, look at posts by me and earlier ones by Terry about sacrificial deaths.
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-10-16 12:42 am (UTC)Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-10-20 01:49 am (UTC)Besides, while they will send nudges in exchange for sacrifice, they don't seem to go any farther out of their way to be helpful than they think they is required to balance the scales. They sure don't seem like benevolent forces who want the best for the world. So fine, they'll send a nudge. Not their problem if it nudges people into ridiculously convoluted but entertaining actions! Which might also feed the demons somehow, depending on how they work.
Re: On RAB
Date: 2024-11-17 06:13 pm (UTC)