Quick "Spotting Test". Read the following quotation from a Harry Potter novel and tell me who said it and in what context.
"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."
What do you think? What book? Who said it?
As you probably already know from reading this blog, I've been enjoying The Goblet of Fire again so it's no surprise that the quote is from that novel. But you might be surprised, based on what we learn of this character in later books, who actually says it.
It's Sirus Black. He's talking to Harry, Hermione and Ron in a cave outside Hogsmeade and the subject is Barty Crouch, Sr. Sirius is advising the hero trio to recognise that the manner in which Crouch treated his house elf, Winky, earlier in the novel is indicative of the evil within him.
Surprised? I was. Sirius' comments in this novel will come back to haunt him in The Order of the Phoenix when we see how poorly Black treats his family's own house elf, Kreacher.
Makes you wonder, doesn't it, if J.K. actually had a clear plan of what would happen in The Order of the Phoenix at the time she was writing this passage in The Goblet of Fire.
After all, Sirius is absolutely right when he tells the trio that Crouch's treatment of Winky is, in fact, a measure of him as a man. But would Rowling be putting these words into Sirius' mouth in the fourth book if she knew how she was going to portray his treatment of Kreacher in the fifth book?
Either Rowling had not planned her books to that level of detail or she really wanted to show us how lacking in self-awareness Sirius is.
What do you think?
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