ME AND BARTY JR.
When I first read the book in 2004, I was hypnotized. The Crouches were the best thing in fictional stories for a long shot and the one thing that made the book itself so brilliant and captivating, to me.
I stopped for a long time just to enjoy the idea that a highly appreciated judge's son had turned to the dark side, becoming his father's enemy. Irony couldn't be more delicious! I love psychology and I've always been very fond of fictional, troubled father-son relationship, so you can imagine how the Crouch family was a dream come true.
And in the end when it was revealed he wasn't dead after all - and even taken in to make an awesome plot twist, I think I could have died of happiness.
'Cause I really didn't see it coming. I though they'd thrown away the fascinating family completely but instead the son was alive and provided an interesting background story!
Yet I'm glad Junior spoke of it under the effect of Veritaserum, (a magic potion which forces the drinker to answer any question asked and speak only the truth), because truth is a relative thing. What Junior believed to be true
may not have really been the truth. Also I was glad that his backgrounds were told in such way that it could be interpretated that he wasn't as sick and fanatic at the beginning as he was at that point.
For I'm not much into too throughly evil characters - I prefer them developing from someone rather good at heart.
Anyway... And then - the whole family just literally thrown away!
Shame on you, Rowling! (But a thousand-fold more praises on you for at least making this character up in the first place and giving him to us! Better a short appearance than nothing.
I love you forever for the Crouch family!)
Then the movie came.
I was itching to see what they made of my favourite part of the series
and of Barty Junior's character.
Well, I totally fell in love with the movie generally, but was still rather pissed off for that they, like, let us know the Crouches are somehow important and in the end that the son really is the most of that, but no one ever explained to the watcher, how!! Would it really have made the film too long, cost too much money or anything, if they had made Dumbledore ask him how'd he escape Azkaban and him explaining it? Don't think so...
I really think it's one of the greatest wrongs ever in the Harry Potter movie history, that the Crouches were left so clearly aside in the movie, passed by like some insignificant third party members and unexplained - when in truth without them, the Dark Lord's return - the turning point of the HP storyline, wouldn't have happened!
Without them and their choices everything would still be quite alright!
They sure had all the rights to be explained good and well, but weren't.
Shame on the film makers too! Some silly ass reader once said that maybe they didn't explain it at the end because "it wasn't important anymore", my gosh, that's exactly the point where it WAS important!!
However, David Tennant was an excellent choice for the character, in my opinion - at least for that version.
I was glad his looks were way different from the book's description. (For once I was, unlike in Mad-Eye Moody's case.)
I never really cared for the way Junior's looks was described in the book... A character like him, can't look so... childish... soft... or something.
And anyway, Tennant's being oozed the sweet insanity that was needed, and his eyes...
And then the 'tongue thing' was all new and somehow surprising too.
I know for a fact that some people find it mostly sexy or even lewd... I didn't.
I kinda liked the tongue flicking thing though could've easily been without. As in, it didn't bother me much but I'm not a big fan of the addition either.
It just made me laugh 'cause I'd heard some old psyche medicine, (don't know how old), had something like that as a side symptom and had it permanent as in, continuing for the rest of the person's life even after stopped taking the medicine. Wonder if they visioned his father feeding him something like that which caused that... But probably they just thought it would look cool or something. Personally I think it looked rather stupid but I guess it suited the psycho they wrote poor Barty into.
And that reminds me, I loved it how that little reflex or whatever, was the reason his father recognized him and this for one reason, led him into killing his own father.
The movie turned the Crouches upside down.
In the book, it was the father that seemed to be all bad-ass, and the son the one with a feeling.
But in the film, Senior showed sadness and weakness (and in Dumbledore's words about sending his boy to Azkaban: "destroyed Barty to do so but he had no choice… The evidence was over-whelming.")
But all Junior ever said was "I won't disappoint you, my Lord.", "Mors Mordre!", "Hands off me, you pathetic little men! … Hello, father!", *going on about Lord Voldemort and getting a reward for killing Harry*, "You know what this means - He's back! Lord Voldmeort is back!!" "I'll be welcomed back like a hero!" etc. Get my meaning? He was all evil unlike in the book, and that was pretty much the only thing I did not like in the movie version of the character.
They should've showed the other side of him too. The sensitive side. So independently the film version is ok but in comparation to the book's, I hate it.
Both versions of the character are nice, but as a character I prefer the book's - the original version, who has more depth. But neither one of them seems complete to me. My Barty Junior is - so I have noticed - very different interpretation seeing to the popular ones. He and his family are more complicated, with more colourful history in life and feelings, and that way, some people have said, I deepened his character. Different is so easily judged cruely
and I still haven't found anyone who sees them anywhere near my way.
For years, whenever my interest has been on this fandom, I've been among other HP nerdy business, indepthly studying and analyzing this character, his family and his entire story, taking note of and using in my interpretation even the tiniest detail revealed in the book and also taking note of how the information was laid out. So, I haven't been interested only in the canon about him but also in the author's intent. She told so little yet so much about him. Of course, I have no knowledge what her intent is and thus my interpretation remains just that; my interpretation, even though probably one of the most canon respective there can possibly be.
I'm grateful that my interpretation is appreciated and respected, but naturally I'd wish people could also enjoy reading about it in my fanfiction stories.
So far just very, very few have bothered to comment on my stories at all, not to mention on my interpretation of the character or the story in question.
Of course I'm grateful for any politely put feedback that my stories, videos and art get.