Barty Crouch Jr. - evil & unloved - or just misunderstood?, In how many ways exactly can he be interpretated. |
  Jan 27 2010, 02:20 PM
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Being Eaten by the Pea Soup Posts: 25 Joined: 10:18am January 27, 2010  |
I tried to post this to the GoF Book Club's BCJ topic but it wouldn't let me, sayin it was a read-only. Reading that topic made me wish to throw in my interpretation of the character overall because it seems I'm quite alone with it. I know I'm not all alone as my view has received some positive feedback throughout the years. But I'm wondering if there's anyone here, who can agree to any degree? (Note; I don't expect anyone to fully agree, and constructive and polite arguments are welcome.)
I do believe my interpretation is very well logic to the canon even though very different from the majority of the interpretations of other fans - though my Barty Jr.'s story does get a little Alternate Universe from the end of Goblet of Fire book, because I do not write him having the Dementor's Kiss but create something more for, and about him, for a short time to come until I have him dead later that year. This because I really, really think he shouldn't have been thrown away so soon in the first place. My version is not a Slyherin as most like to assume Barty Jr. was, but a Gryffendor. This choice for many reasons but for one because a Slytherin would have been such a cliché for a future Death Eater. I do not think wrong choices and evil deeds should be always connected to the House of Slytherin. The children are sorted into the Houses at so young age, they may very well yet change and make choices no one would've believed at the time and I don't even think that anyone really belongs to just one House but it's only the essence of the person that sorts them into a certain House - it has nothing to do with the depth of the character. Also, I believe Barty Jr. was his father's son but certain things poisoned his mind. So, he really did take part in the torture of the Longbottoms. He was looking for acceptance from Voldemort and had probably had more of it - (pretended or genuine, who knows) - than he felt he'd had from his father and in the light of that and his bitterness, he might have very well ended up wanting to find Voldemort again, so bad that he'd be able to cast the Unforgivable curse and got carried away. But his choices from becoming a Death Eater in the first place to everything else he did before he got caught, were not so much hate driven but more out of desperation and youthful foolishness, combined to Voldemort being excpetionally good in manipulating people. In my vision the trial happened like in the book, but mixed with the film's vision as in, that he didn't get caught with the Lestranges but in Karkaroff's hearing a bit later. But the emotional elements would be that of the book's. And he behaved so because he still held on to some hope when it came to his father. Regardless of anything they may have had or missed in the past - his pleading oozed the attitude 'but-I'm-your-son-you're-my-daddy-you-don't-really-want-to-do-this-to-me' - and even more so as he turned to his mommy, pleading her to make the father see that. Mothers usually have an unconditionally genuine love-bond to their children and sometimes end up reminding fathers that they do too. That is what I think Junior was counting on at that point. He was not innocent at all, but he held on to a hope which is the 'when love is blood, you're never on trial'. (Personally I don't think it has to be a blood tie, just love as strong as that. Generalizing, of course.) And his father did love him, unconditionally. Thus being betrayed by his son in such a way naturally hurt extremely much, causing him to disown him - but of course to that affected also that he was very proud of his status as highly appreciated and respected judge, which Junior had now put to shame. Not only by being a DE but by taking part in such an unthinkable, cruel crime. I think what Junior had done and sending him to Azkaban crushed the father in two ways and affected his behavour in the trial. Because he really loved the boy and because it shamed his name and for a time the love turned to not-so-genuine hate. For a time he probably didn't even want to hear the kid's name mentioned. Of course only the film says in Dumbledore's words "crushed Barty to do it but the evidence was over-whelming" and in Barty's words about the tragicness of losing one's family and life going on ect. - the book doesn't show any of that or that Barty would've felt remorse about sending his son to Azkaban. But I don't think it has to mean he didn't feel sorrow for it, or had "a heart of stone" like Sirius put it, or that he didn't love his child. Heck no - I like to dig deeper in this detail too instead of be done with the first impression. But no, I don't think he ever regretted sending him to Azkaban. Of course he didn't - after all the boy had taken part in torturing (with an Unforgivable Curse) two persons into madness. If he regretted something about the matter, it must have been the disowning which was in a way even worse punishment than a life sentence in that inhumane prison - and that he had let his son slip away and end up doing something like that - and so, there had easily been love from both sides. (Hence, my fan video "Breathe Into Me"). The father also agreed to help in rescuing the boy from Azkaban and keeping him alive and taken care of, at home, in relatively good circumstances, can be interpretated at least in two different ways: It may speak for still loving him or in the least for still caring about him. After all, if you truly loved someone once, you never really turn cold about them. Never really - no matter what they've done. But Junior of course by the time believed his father did all that out of love for his wife only and thus that it was all his mother who saved him, but as said in another section, it was not necessarely the trurh. My point is; the whole trial incident is much more powerful, if they had love for and faith in each others instead of the most popular interpretation where there was never love at all. My Junior was usually the incredibly thoughtless, head-strong kid, looking for accapetance and attention, whose bitterness finally blinded him with hate and desperation - for a time long enough to lead him to his final mistake - the Longbottom's torture. And even though the family ties seemed to be broken when the mistake was revealed, they as we know, were not broken truly - but I think the trust was gone forever. That caused the 13 years of mostly suffering even more until there was no turning back, when the boy lost his mind, and therefore possibly, even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't so easily figure out right from wrong anymore. Wants to say he was rescued remotely by Voldemort, who hadn't yet abandoned or betrayed him, he helped Voldemort back to power, killed his own father... Imperioed a boy into crucioing a girl in order to bring Harry to Voldemort... It was only after being sentenced to Azkaban for life and being puclicly disowned by his father, when Junior truly turned against him and embraced Voldemort and became loyal to him. Not all the sudden but developed into it (fast) - so yes, even my Barty Jr. truly was a devoted and fanatic Death Eater at one point of his life even though not from the beginning, and not evil at heart, or sick at mind all along. But I wanted to give him a chance. My Junior won't receive the Dementor's Kiss but he'll die by Voldemort's wand. I'm in belief that wizards honour life-debts very high. And Junior here owed his life to both of his parents and in this case in every way a person can owe his life to another. And, Dumbledore is a great man. He couldn't save Barty Junior anymore but he was still able to remind him of certain things Junior already knew but had been ignoring or forgotten. Hence, he wasn't all about Voldemort in the first place and he wasn't hate driven to join the Death Eaters and he'd remember all of that. And so, not forgiving his father, but maybe understanding him better. He was helped to escape by Snape, returned to Voldemort, received his long awated reward but a lot had happened, the times had changed, and so had he, while he had always in the deepest been his father's son. Even if he knew nothing could erase the things he had done, nothing could really take away his guilt, he may have wanted to try to do something right - even once in his life. And for doing that he had now a great possibility… But to be true to the original storyline, he never used the possibility - after all he was physically and emotionally exrtremely damaged and confused, at this point torn between his love for Voldemort and his long abused love for his parents, while as said he could not actually forgive his father. It was no doubt way too late for him in every way. To tell you more about the early years of my Junior's life I have visioned he was a true gryffendor but also a bit too reckless and with many strong Syltherin features too, though his heart in the deepest that of a Gryffenfdor. He was close with his father and they had their good times and the boy had felt the feeling of being loved by him, but the father in the end put his job as a judge ahead his family, for too long took his job as a judge more important than that of as a father. When daddy's little boy was always there but the father did not take care of the relationship, anything good and beautiful is sure to slowly turn into bad, through loneliness, uncertainty, bitterness, all the way to occasional moments of hate. If dad was not enough there for him when he needed him the most after his mother got deathly ill but selfishly drowned his own sorrow into his precious job, and the kid happened to be in sensitive age at the time, things would certainly get worse fast. The Harry Potter Wiki says that the father never loved his son at all and the son killed the father because he (the son) despised him (the father.) Now, first off - I don't think that's exactly a fact, that the father never loved him. That is never said in the book, except implied in Junior's words but as said, truth is a relative concept. But surely Junior despised his father at the point in when he killed him. Who wouldn't? The man had publicly disowned him, and sent him to that inhumane prison for life, and even when rescured him, held him captive by the darkest of magic. Surely this would make one also doubt if the parent actually ever loved him. I know that never-loved view is the easiest way to have all those things to happen. But to me, the easiest way isn't the interesting one, nor the best. I think it much more interesting for me that the father-son relationship was close but never worked too well though he's in a way so much like his father but in many things so different... They can't understand each others in many things and too often forget to respect each others. I think they had it all and they wanted it to last, especially the boy longed for his father, but a complicated relationship takes more work than the father was willing and able to do on it. But I do not like to think their relationship would have been doomed from the beginning because of the father never really trying or caring. Rather as in that he wanted a child, but became a father at too young age, and being ambisious to a high degree he didn't think of or even fully understand the responsibility that having a child, truly brings. And then the mother's illness came to picture, making life even harder. So I prefer something potential-to-end-happily, something beautiful, turning bad and to worse and to the bitter end because of selfishness, strong hate and desperation sprung out of love, and of wrong choices. Instead of an all along cold and hateful thing continuing into it. I think it's in a way, more tragic my way. I hope this wasn't too confusing. Wwhen I some time get some fan fiction stories done I will publish them and you'll get a better picture of what I'm trying to say here. What I'm trying to show in my interpretation of the Crouch father and son, is that an end-up like that (Junior joining the Death Eaters, torturing the Longbottoms and sentenced to Azkaban by his own father, and finally Junior murddering him), does not have to spring from extreme circumstances. ^ That was copy&pasted from my Barty Crouch Jr. fan site - (a link in my signature), where I babble about the character on other bases too + publish my fan art & fan videos (which of course I base on this interpretation of my own. Like the one mentioned earlier, "Breathe Into Me".) This post has been edited by VampireOutlaw: Jan 27 2010, 05:39 PM -------------------- "It's not the flesh and blood but the hearts that make us fathers and sons."
In Memoriam of Barty Crouch Jr. (Fan Site) |
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