Amycus

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Okay. alt_amycus needs his own discussion: two posts in an evening. And, omg, I'm terrified for alt_terry!

What do you suppose Amycus's "new regimen" lists mean?

I.
4L x 3D
Tx30
CCx4
results marginal

pigeons

II.
4L x 2D
2 pair trousers
5 CC but scattered.

I thought the first one was some sort of list of punishments in code, but "2 pair trousers" doesn't seem to fit. Perhaps he's trying experimental pigeon extermination strategies? But again, "2 pair trousers"? Am I making this harder than it needs to be?

Comments

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

You pose an interesting question: are the Carrows more evil than Bellatrix?

Are we simply more invested in the Carrow's current victim? Are we more closely aware of their deeds and more distanced from the details of Bella's daily life?


Edited for oh, my eyes, that apostrophe! and, um, general stupidity.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's fruitful to get into more or less, as opposed to just creating a typology evil, like an encyclopedia of wrongness. Bella is vicious and arrogant -- she enjoys getting her way and threatening/hurting people who interfere. But it seems purposive and controlled; she can be trusted with political missions and seems to have some sustained (if distorted) family relationships. Carrow seems to enjoy inflicting pain for its own sake -- hard to tell from just two posts, but there seems something unhinged about him, a sort of manic and playful perverseness that makes him seem completely disconnected from normal relations with people. Among the kids, Theodore seems a bit like him potentially. Not quite sure which of the kids might be a potential Bella.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Now that they've cast Amycus, we may get a better sense of how his family attachment to his sister works. Too early to tell. It does, certainly, seem that the Carrows are more independent and less manageable than other Death Eaters, which seems to pose regular and maddening problems for McGonagall. I was intrigued, after the Halloween Feast, to read about the falling out between McNair and the Carrows -- and about the Carrows' discontent at having been excluded from the proceedings to keep watch in the Castle (or whatever the excuse was). Did you have thoughts about why McG seemed to take it as given that the Carrows should not be allowed at the Feast? (Do they become more volatile in the LP's presence -- or are they likely to fall out with Him, too?)

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about the Carrows' exclusion from the feast -- that's interesting. Maybe they really aren't presentable in public? Minerva makes no effort to hide her distaste for Amycus to his face, which suggests that sort of social unpleasantness is commonplace/unremarkable for him, since elsewhere she has said that she needs to observe some limits of prudence in dealing with him. My sense that he's deranged/disconnected comes from his inappropriate flippancy -- "tidbit," "Min," the general tone of his exchanges with McG. Also of course his treatment of boot, which seems to appal a number of the people who have to be around him. McNair by contrast is a little bit humanized, because the Twins can get around him by naming their dog after him. That was almost endearing.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I was interested in the difference between McGonagall's reaction to learning that Amycus (presumably) had transfigured Terry into a dog and her canonical response to "Mad Eye Moody"'s transfiguration of Draco into a ferret. There she reprimands her staff-member (despite his being a fellow Order member -- as she supposes); in game, she seems to have done nothing to remark her disapproval, though she is Headmistress here.* Perhaps, too, she realises that transfiguration might be less damaging to Terry than beating. (Though I wonder if transfiguration is always benign and reversible, and I would note that while his dog form seemed equipped to take care of itself and to find protectors, a bug or newt or ... pigeon might be less lucky at survival in the Hogwarts wilderness.)



* Of course, in canon, the transfigured child was a student.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

She probably has more freedom to be casually rude, socially, to a creepy person for being creepy, than to specifically rebuke a DE for being cruel to a Muggleborn. She really can't, I think, take the sort of line she took in canon in defense of Draco. For the usual political reasons. But she can, and does, express her personal distaste for Amycus in a more personal way, and maybe can get away with that because it's not obviously about politics.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

You think he might turn boot into a pigeon, next?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

*points below*

All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon when we're poisoning pigeons in the park...

--Amycus's player

*cringes*

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

"Min," yes, indeed!

I was interested by McG's reprimand about his writing style: she effectively insists that the journals are a surveillance tool and that he must write understandably in them. (Though why she couches it in terms of students' being able to read and emulate Amycus' writing really does boggle my mind. I'd think the more elliptical the better in that regard, even if it does encourage Pansy and Ron and Sally Anne in their code-talk.)

And Amycus seems to cede McG's point (save for the lists). I wonder, however, if his decision to write about his planned soiree for Terry is the less-submissive portion of his response to McG's insistence on transparency.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Maybe two questions: 1. why she spoke up at all, and 2. having chosen to speak up, why she chose to address the issue of his "writing style."

I can imagine she was moved to speak up by at least two things: 1. an irresistible urge to take a shot at him; and 2. a desire to see if she could draw him out, figure out what was going on with boot.

But she has to be careful. She's got three audiences -- Carrow himself, DEs who may be watching, and Order members who may be watching. She's pretty contemptuous toward Carrow, implying pretty directly that he's not sane, but perhaps she can engage him in a sort of game so that he ends up, for whatever whimsical reason of his own, making his intentions clearer. But (facing her DE audience) she has to have a pretext for doing that. She could plausibly be trying to keep a faculty member from embarassing himself, from making too much of a spectacle of himself. And then her ultimate goal (facing the Order) is again, to try to draw Carrow out a little bit, figure out what's on his mind and what's going on with boot.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes. I like all the texture of this answer!

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I vote for conversational rules in these comments! If I went back and fixed every embarassing apostrophe or mis-spelling or grammatical lapse I made, there'd be deleted posts and muddled threads trailing behind me everywhere. :)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha!

I confess I can be manic about editing out my grammatical gaffes. Point taken. (Your inbox votes for conversational rules in these comments, too, I'd bet!)

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Really I cringe and some of the things I've posted. But I smack myself and move on!

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Um. That should be at some of the things. *facepalms*

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

:)

You did that to make me feel better, didn't you?



That's life here in the Muggle camps: we take our small amusements and kindnesses where we can get them!

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Why, yes. *looks shifty* Yes, I did that deliberately!