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GENERAL INFO |
ANALYTIC: VOLDEMORT VS. BARTY JR. |
GENERAL INFO
A quick explanation on the character's part in the book + his magical abilities & skills.
I've marked with * things I'll explain in the end of this General Info part, in case people who don't know the HP world, are reading this.
Bartemius "Barty" Crouch Jr. is a fictional character from J.K. Rowling's
Harry Potter series, from it's 4th part;
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
He was the son of Bartemius Crouch, who headed the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the Ministry of Magic, (in other words, was a judge), when Lord Voldemort first came to power in the early 1970's.
When we first meet Junior in the book, it is with Harry Potter in a kind of a flash-back of the wizarding school's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore's memories. In that memory, an approximately 18-years old Barty Junior is revealed to have become a Death Eater*, and been caught with several other Death Eaters from the scene of an unthinkable crime. This happening shoryly after lord Voldemort, their master, was "defeated" by the baby Harry Potter.
The law-men had evidence of Barty Crouch Jr. having participated with the Lestranges, in the capture and by means the Cruciatus Curse*; torture of auror* Frank Longbottom and his wife. The group of Death Eaters were trying to find out where their master had disappeared, and thought the Longbottoms knew. The Death Eaters tortured the Longbottoms for so long that the couple went out of their minds and ended up hospitalized, never to get out or any better; blank faces, slow movements. They're not functioning anymore, and they don't even regognize their own son, who was at the time of the torture the same age as Harry was. The book does not exactly confirm if Barty Junior took part in the actual torturing - he might have very well not - but he was definitely there when the aurors came to arrest the group and he was definitely a Death Eater.
Barty Jr. was sentenced to Azkaban*, for life, by his father. In the book his father seems to have lost his mind when he hears not the boy's pleading but judges him the same as the other Death Eaters, plus publicly disowns his son.
Some time later, Junior's mother - already deathly ill possibly for years - and the father go and save their boy from the inhumane prison of Azkaban. Junior and his mother drink Polyjuice Potion* which makes them take each others' appearances for an hour at time.
The mother took his place, later on dying in his stead under his identity. The father helped him out and back home. There are many possible reasons for just why all of these things happened, because the only reasons we hear are Junior's own impression on the matters, and given after years and years of being emotionally and physically damaged. It could've been essentially different though similiar, before the trial 13 years earlier.
Anyway… That was the only possible way for him to get out of Azkaban as it was commonly known as a place impossible to escape from. The only prisoner known to succeed before Crouch Jr. was Sirius Black who did it in his animagus* form. Had Sirius been a registered and not an illegal animagus, it probably wouldn't have been possible that way either.
Barty Junior was soon of course dead to the world, plus the father wanted to keep him from possibly searching for Voldemort and doing whatever that would require. He restrained and his the boy by using the Imperius Curse* which is one of the Unforgivable Curses.
For 13 years this went on, damaging Junior's mind, until the Crouch's secret was found out by a witch from the father's working place, and it reached Lord Voldemort's ears and he managed to rescue Junior. Junior was told to sneak into Hogwarts the school of witchcraft and wizzadry, in stead of an ex-auror Alastor Moody. Barty Jr. kidnapped Moody and took his place as the teacher of Defence Against Dark Arts. Doing this with the help of Polyjuice Potion* This way he was supposed to bring now 14-years old Harry Potter to Voldemort, for Voldemort needed his enemy's blood to return to his body and power. Voldemort could've used anyone - the vast majority of the world was his enemy - but he wanted Harry and no one else. For he knew now that it was Harry's mother dying when trying to save her child, in other words her love, that had protected the baby back then - and he needed a drop of Harry's blood to break the spell and be able to touch him. To kill him, which he wanted to do by himself after this change, in order to prove that Harry's nothing special.
Barty Junior was supposed to bring Harry to him by putting the boy through the Triwizard Tournament. To trick Harry into and help him through this extremely dangerous tournament as a winner. And he succeeded. In he end Potter grabbed the Triwizard Cup, which Junior had turned into a Portkey* which he'd set to take the boy to a a cemetary wherein Voldemort was waiting.
At some point of this year, Junior killed his father with the Killing Curse, because the father knew he was there and would've told Dumbledore, confessed everything, and thus would've ruined everything. Junior implies that he killed his father to prove himself to Voldemort, and naturally he despised him anyway, for all that the father had done to him. In the end Junior is finally caught again and he received a Dementor's Kiss*.
Magical ablities and skills:
X He, like any Death Eater, knows how to conjure Morsmordre*.
X Skilled in potions, for one capable of breewing perfectly the complicated Polyjuice Potion*.
X Capable of casting all the three Unforgivable Curses: Cruciatus*, Imperius*, Avada Kedavra*. For one he performes all of them in class room when teaching Defense Against Dark Arts at Hogwarts.
X Capable of casting an exceptionally powerful Confundus Charm, to confuse the Goblet of Fire to spit out four names instead of three and Harry Potter's name in particular. The Goblet of Fire is a magical object very difficult to deceive.
X Expert in Transfiguration as he succesfully turned a human into an animal, and another human into a bone.
X Wand mastery, as in he's able to use wands other than his own for even difficult spells such as the Unforgivable Curses and difficult transfigurations. He uses for example Harry's wand and Alastor Moody's wand. Wands choose their wizard/witch and not the other way around - this is why one usually doesn't succeed too well even in easy spells with other people's wands.
X Resistance to the Imperius Curse*, as he was kept under it since around 1982 and after years he was able to break free from it from time to time.
X He was also skilled in Occlumency, as in an act of magically closing his mind against Legilimency which is the act of magically navigating through the many layers of persons mind; their thoughts, memories as well as correctly interpretating their feelings, and/or influencing them. His mind had been weakened and grown sick by the time he was still able to fool Dumbledore - a wizard with greater power than most others - who was trying to figure out who's the enemy at Hogwarts. So imagine how skilled he was in it back when his mind was healthy and shaep!
So he is a very powerful and skilled wizard. He takes after his father in that.
Death Eater - A wizrad or a witch, who's sworn loyalty to Lord Voldemort, becoming his servant and follower. Death Eaters kill and torture muggles (as in people with no magical powers, people like us), and muggle-borns (as in witches and wizards born from non-magical parents.) They do this because Voldemort wants to purify the wizarding society and race so that in time there would be nothing but magical blood left with no muggle blood mixed. Death Eaters usually by means cause chaos and panic as they do those things. They can be recognnized from skull masks that they wear and a branded mark in their left forearm. It's the shape of a skull and a snake coming out of its mouth. It's called the Dark Mark and a huge poison green version of it is usually launched into the sky over the crime scene whenever the Death Eaters have done something. The brand is also the way for Voldemort to easily summon his Death Eaters for a meeting.
Morsemordre: A charm that has the Dark Mark, (explained in the above Death Eater summary), appear into the sky. Mor = Death, mordre = bite.
Cruciatus Curse - Simply put, the Torturing Curse. One of the three Unforgivable Curse's in the wizarding society. This curse causes indescribable and unthinkable constant physical pain to the victim. Thus, it's no wonder the Longbottoms went insane if tortured with this for possibly even hours. (The films really suck with this curse. Seriously, I know it's not possible to scream like you're just experiencing worse pain than you can possibly imagine, but they don't even try to get anywhere close! Even the spider Crouch Jr. tortured with the curse in the class room in the fourth film, screams more beliavably than, say, Harry or anyone else who's been the victim of it. With the exception of Emma Watson as Hermione Granger in
Deathly Hallows: Part 1. She screamed quite remarkably.)
Auror - A witch or a wizard educated to fight the Dark Arts, dark creatures and dark wizards such as Death Eaters, evil werewolves ect. They're a lot like the police of the wizarding society.
Azkaban - A prison for wizards and witches, on an island at Antarctic Ocean, far from everything. It's guarded by humans and Dementors. They say it's impossible to break free from. Only two prisoners have been known to succeed. Barty Crouch Junior and Sirius Black. Crouch with the help of his parents and Black for he was an animagus* and got the idea to use the skill and escaped as a dog. This prison is very inhumane, not only for having the Dementors around, but also lacks in health care of the prisoners.
Polyjuice Potion - A very complicated magical potion, which makes the drinker get the appearance and voice of whoever's the Potion is made to give those of. You must take a sip once in an hour if you wish to keep the appearance for a longer time. When you make the potion you must include something like a person's hair into it, only then you'll have his/her looks and voice.
Imperius Curse - One of the three Unforgivable curses - (use of any of them earns you a one-way ticket to Azkaban.) This curse gives the caster a total control over the one it's cast on, his mind and his body. And the victim obeys without questions, no matter what the order is. Under the influence of this curse one feels totally free of any worries or pain. However,
you can not make anyone feel emotions with this curse; you can not make them love or hate. You can only make them do things and to think they want to do it.
Avada Kedavra - The third Unforgivable, the Killing Cusre which simply kills with no marks what-so-ever and within a heartbeat. It is not known whether it's painful or not as no one but Harrt Potter has lived when touched by it but he was too young to remember. And the author hasn't confirmed the matter in any other way either. There is no counter-curse. Even in the world of magic, dead remains dead.
Portkey - Basically, any thing you can literally lay your hands on, can be a portkey. It will take you round and round in another dimension or something until it's taken you to the place it's set to take you. This is usually used if having to travel very long distances in secret.
Dementor's Kiss - A Dementor itself is one of the darkest creatures I've known; it's this tall, freezing, dead thing dressed in a black cape - it doesn't have eyes at all, it only uses it's sense of smell. It freezes everything around itself as it moves and it feeds on humans' happy memories.
If you'd spend a long time close around even one of these, you'd be left only with your most painful and worst memories. And you must re-live them over and over again when around these creatures. A Dementor's Kiss is said to be worse sentence than death. The Dementor sucks out your soul through your mouth. I think the films have made the dementors quite impressive even though I think it's silly we can literally see as the soul's being sucked out.
Animagus - A witch or a wizard who's capable of turning into an animal and back again by the force of will. One can not choose the animal, it's in you from the moment you are born and what the animal is depends mostly on your core personality characteristics, maybe slightly also on your physical features. Not every witch and wizard is an animagus though everyone has the form inside them. To become literally an animagus takes a very gifted witch or a wizard, and years and years of hard studying. Sirius Black and three of his friends, (a group called the Marauders), were exceptionally gifted wizards and supposedly the youngest animaguses ever. When one takes the animal form, only the body changes – the human mind and intelligence remains.
ANALYTIC: VOLDEMORT VS. BARTY JR.
I hate what the film did to such a brilliant and deep character. It surely doesn't help at all to change how overlooked this character is.
Nobody seems to care that Jo put weight in her writing, on how Junior may NOT have been invovlved in the Longbottom torture while she did NOT confirming at any point that he was guilty of it.
I personally think that's significant.
That she likely meant something by the way she put that part of Junior's story.
If she really meant him to have part in the Longbottom torture so simply and cruelly - I'd suppose she'd weighted on such image, instead of the opposite.
And it's not the first time in history that even innocent people get imprisoned while evidence speaks enough against them.
But because Junior was a Death Eater for sure, back then, and so certainly had it in him to cast some unforgivable curses and was somewhat cruel - I personally chose the middle road; that he did take part in the torture but not entirely out of his own free will.
I think his emotion in the book's version of the trial must have been genuine and not an act -
because he didn't choose to wait for Voldemort or harbour revenge on his father but he wanted to DIE and even within a year, and he was dying. As in - doesn't seem like a cold-blooded torturer-murderer-Voldemort-devoted-fannatic to me.
Most people think Crouch Jr. is more like Voldemort than anyone else of the Death Eaters because they both ended up killing their own father with glee, while they were bitter towards them.
So far I totally agree.
Before talking to Dumbledore under the influence of veritaserum, the book describes ”Moody” looking "completely insane", as in not being himself when he said that both he and Voldemort had very disappointing fathers. “Very disappointing, indeed….”, he added – most certainly thinking of his own father there, and stated that they both had “suffered the indignity of being named after those fathers”.
And how they both had the pleasure... "the very great pleasure"... of killing their own father. 95% of people seem to have – perhaps because of that connection between Voldemort and Junior - drawn a conclusion that Junior’s relationship with his father was always somehow especially distant / horrible / bittering or in some other way similar to Voldemort’s experience.
And that Junior truly and genuinely wanted to kill his father and was always a fanatic Death Eater. With that I disagree.
Because it seems to me like there are a few – in my opinion essential – points that make a big difference between his and Voldemort's daddy issues, and so may affect the Voldemort-Junior relationship too, in the deepest. At least to begin with - whatever the end.
My conclusions were and are:
1.) Junior did not have that bad relationship with his fathher before the trial's events. By all means, they might have even been close.
2.) He never really wanted to kill his father, in the deepest part of his soul.
3.) During the first war - he was a devoted-to-a-degree but not a remarkably fanatic Death Eater.
Yes, Junior tells Harry, it was a "great pleasure" to kill his own father. But he was described to look "completely insane" as in not being himself, when he said it.
And then, when he – under the influence of veritaserum - tells it to Dumbledore (that he’d killed his own father), the book does not describe any tone or expression.
So we don’t know how he actually felt. You might think it’d show in that situation if he’d really felt a genuine, great pleasure of it because such an emotion clearly showed when he recalled the moment when Voldemort had cast the Imperius Curse on the father.
As in the veritaserum did not stop him from expressing his true feelings about what he was speaking of – especially when it came to his father.
But that's not even nearly all. As I read the book, I personally also analyzed such details as follows:
A.) Junior, seeming to be in utter distress, panicked, begged and pleaded his father to
look at him as his own son, who he was and so not judge him so harshly.
If Junior had already then been utterly bitter or disappointed in his father, I don’t think he’d chosen to do that.
Of course, many interpret Junior’s behavior as a cunning and cold manipulation attempt. I only saw it as manipulation combined to a genuine distress and faith in his father.
Because:
B.) Regardless of having faith in Voldemort’s still being alive - (he did, because he obsessed about finding Voldemort after getting out of Azkaban) -
Junior was dying within a year in Azkaban, after his father had denied his very relationship with him and sent him to hell to die.
I think that's what mostly caused Junior to think of his father as a
very disappointing one and it to be a indignity to be named after him - especially if he had been close with his father like they were in my interpretation.
I mean, of course Junior had experienced disappointments throughout his childhood and grown bitter in some terms, but not so huge that he’d lost faith and love.
And so only that trial threw him into the “very disappointing indeed” and "indignity" state of mind. But obviously even after that his bitterness wasn’t right away too strong and driving.
As Junior did not want to wait for Voldemort and he didn’t harbour revenge on his father, but he wanted to
die.
His emotion in the trial very likely was genuine and not an act.
Also, I believe that anyone who is fanatic about Voldemort is not in their right mind and would gladly go to Azkaban, care about Voldemort's possible return and wait for him.
All this is what the Lestranges did. And what Barty Jr. did not.
C.) His father saved his life and thus Junior was in a life debt.
It’s not essential why Junior believed his father had saved his life. (As in for the mother who Junior said he believed the father loved as he had never loved him; in other words that the father loved the mother more or in a different level, than the man ever had loved him. Not that he thought the father had never love him at all.)
Which leads to that even in that insane and bitter state of mind Junior still remembered that his father had loved him. Something like that can’t possibly not affect feelings, especially when combined to a life debt.
Voldemort on his behalf – knew nothing of love or at least didn’t understand it.
D.) Junior also told that when Voldemort sent him news about the father’s escape, Voldemort "told me to stop my father at all costs" - and on the previous page Junior had said that his greatest ambition was for one, to prove himself to Voldemort.
And what would be more effective than killing his own father like Voldemort had killed his own?
Being very disappointed in his father, (after the trial this would’ve increased majorly especially if they'd been close with each other) + being mentally ill & "completely insane"-looking + the overwhelming desire to prove himself to Voldemort = a "great pleasure" of killing his own father.
Not necessarily any true, genuine will or being pushed into it with a distant / horrible father-relationship from the beginning.
And for all that I might question was the pleasure that deeply genuine after all?
Also as it didn’t show again in any way in the second time he spoke of it in a non-“completely-insane” state of mind.
You may remember that Voldemort also asked Junior in the book; "Are you ready to risk everything for me?" (Junior told he’d asked that.)
Why would Voldemort have asked that, if Junior had always been ready and willing and thus especially bitter to his father and worshipping / fanatic towards his master?
So, I personally can not see Voldemort and Junior any more in the beginning than in the end, as true ”soul mates” – but only seemingly. And even that beginning only after Azkaban, whereas somewhere deep inside Junior’s sick mind and twisted heart there may have been a man to who the fact that his father had loved him some time and saved his life, still meant something.
If not much because he was emotionally utterly damaged and mentally ill, but still something.
Junior himself of course, twisted and sick as he was, saw everything in extreme way.
As analyzed, I think it’s likely that Junior would’ve never killed his father at least before the trial and Azkaban and the 13 years after, since he lost his will to live after his father’s words and the sentence.
And in the end I believe he did it most essentially because of his sick mind and driven by his desire to prove himself to Voldemort, whereas his bitterness carried it well.
Most people think Junior really was distant with his father and utterly devoted to Voldemort as a replacement father of sorts or that it was the driving element.
It's possible - I agree. But I never did and never will see it that way.
I'd reckon this article clarified a lot of why in my view Junior was not looking for downright a father-figure replacement or love in Voldemort but only the acceptance / approval he had been essentially missing from his father, and also wanted to get back at him in power matters and stuff related to his father's ambition.
But he didn't need Voldemort to replace his father in any truly emotional way, like love and closeness - that he had from his father and it's not as if he'd found that from Voldemort anyway.
“I will be honored beyond all other Death Eaters. I will be his dearest, his closest supporter... closer than a son...”
That too works for my interpretation that Junior had been close with his daddy.
If a close father does what Senior did, the son would certainly come to desire to become even closer with someone new he’d become to worship – so that the disappointment wouldn’t happen again.
The only thing that implies Senior working so much that he didn't get to know his son, is Sirius saying so. That is not a reliable source, seeing to Sirius' opinion on Senior and how he was not a family friend anyway, as far as we know.
Of course Sirius may have been looking to the right direction, as in partly right. But he certainly was in no position to tell in which way Senior's working affected the man's family relationships.
Of course, Junior's relationship with his father had to have become essentially and critically troubled at some point or else Junior wouldn't have joined Voldemort's cause.
But it doesn't mean they couldn't have remained close in their hearts or that he'd been looking for a father replacement.
I think they had hope all the way to the trial, in which his Dad unintenitionally destroyed it all.
After the year in Azkaban Junior simply didn't hear his heart anymore because it had been broken and grown back cold and twisted and later on his mind got ill.
And he never forgave his father, while the power of forgiveness is the only emotion that conquers all obstacles to do the right thing.
But it's not connected to love so strongly. Love, if it was true, is always there.
Even if your mind got sick and you lost it - the imprint is always there.
And there is a logical reason how a close father who knows and loves his son might end up doing what Junior's father did in the trial.
You see, I can't bring myself to dismiss the trial's events and emotional elements that would have to be extremeley shocking and affecting to any family, to any father.
Junior having become a Death Eater wasn't necessarily a complete surprise to the father - just extremely unpleasent and a nightmare to actually have happened and then if combined to (enough) undeniable evidence of the unspekable torture crime particopating, and all this publicly revealed - I can easily imagine the look in Senior's eyes growing distant as if he was looking a stranger instead of his close son, (thanks to the shock and growing fury.)
And this look finally triggering the genuine fear and not-cunning but desperate manipulation attempt in Junior, causing him to desperately deny any part of it regardless of if it was a lie (while it may have been even the truth.) So that his dad would somehow still remember what he really knew - including that he, Junior, would never take part in such a crime (out of his own free will.) Which ought to also mean that the trial events and emotions in itself do not tell that much about his father.
I'm not insisting that they necessarely were close. It's just a possibility. So basically all I'm trying to say with this article, is that I don't think the person Barty Crouch Jr. originally was, was too much like Voldemort. But only the utterly disappointed, hurt and sick person he became after his trial, the disowning, Azkaban and 13 years under the Imperius Curse. Which could've been far, far from the person he originally was. Junior surely was devoted to Voldemort to a degree all along, but remarkably less so during the first war than in 1994.
This article's point in a nutshell; Yes, Barty Crouch Junior is a Voldemort admirer but I think there is supposed to be much, much more to him in the first place, than that.
My Barty Crouch Jr. section of this site is reviewing his devotion as a Death Eater, his possible part in the Longbottom torture, his childhood, his father's love for him and their relationship’s possible closeness - and some other things - always basing on what we can read from the Goblet of Fire book. That section also has fanfics and fan videos which I’ve written and made in this interpretation of mine.