I don't see where people come from with assuming that Barty Crouch Jr and Voldemort could do whatever they wanted with Harry, and just elected to do the most convoluted action. It is explained in the book that they didn't want anyone to know about Voldemort's revival, and this is how they could make it look like an accident. It's not just them being stupid for the sake of having a Doorstopper.
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This is four years old, but the issue is that they could have found other ways to make it look like Harry died in an accident. Such as tossing his body into the Forbidden Forest, or into the lake, anything.
Before this extends to an edit war, could the people responsible for the Acceptable Targets entry about obese boys please offer their pro and counter arguments?
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I just saw this now. Is anyone still willing to discuss this? It seems like a case of Square Peg Round Trope to me, as I don't feel that obese boys in themselves are being made a case of Acceptable Targets. It's only Dudley whom the narrative is making fun of for his weight, and part of that is simply because Dudley is a jerk in general. Contrast Hagrid, who's also heavy-set and who is a much nicer character, and his weight isn't made fun of.
Also, the entry on the YMMV page reads like it's being used to bash Rowling for her apparent Double Standard mentality about the issue. I don't know if that was the intent; that's just how it reads to me. Which, again, I'd argue that overweight boys as a whole are not the target of scorn in the narrative, but also that Rowling herself may have simply matured over time. When she first wrote the books, she might not have thought much of it, but came to realize later how damaging society's pressure to remain thin can be. It doesn't necessarily make her a hypocrite.
Edited by StardustSoldier
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Barty Crouch Sr. He neglected his son and only cared about his job. He eventually threw his son in Azkaban. Though he was right to throw him in, he also threw Sirius Black in Azkaban, who was framed for the death of Harry Potter's parents, without even giving him a trial. Afterwards, he smuggled his son out of Azkaban and put him under the Imperius Curse and later used a memory charm on someone that found out what he was doing to his son, which caused permanent brain damage on that person. The fact that he called his son out for using the Cruciatus Curse, which is one of the three unforgiving curses, proves that Barty Crouch Sr. is a hypocrite, which makes him more of an asshole victim when he's killed by his own son. Moreover, he’s likely solely responsible for the Fanon perception that the Wizarding World, even excluding the Death Eaters, is socially backward to the point of medievalism, since he not only threw Sirius in Azkaban without trial, but didn’t recuse himself at his son’s trial—-something which would be required by law in Muggle society.
All of this is true, but "unintentionally" is part of the trope name for a REASON. Barty was NOT played sympathetically, he was portrayed as a Knight Templar suffering from extreme He Who Fights Monsters, Sirius even called him as bad as those he fought. At no point, it is suggested that he deserves sympathy for anything he did.
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I agree, he doesn't count as an example of this trope. His cruelty was enough that he's listed as an example of Adaptational Heroism for the film adaptation because all the mean things he did are left out. The entry above even notes that he's an Asshole Victim.
Edited by StardustSoldier
How it is an Idiot Plot for fake-Moody to claim Dumbledore let him try out the curse on Students to give them a taste? It actually undermined Voldemort because he insisted on having Harry resist the curse fully. I think that fake-Moody did ask permission ahead of time so that he could do something that the real Moody would likely do. He was very careful not to arouse Dumbledore's suspicions until the end.