Monday, April 21, 2014

Wondering about the Durmstrang Headmaster

Whatever happened to Karkaroff? You remember him, the head of Durmstrang in The Goblet of Fire? What ever happened to him after that book?

He's an interesting character. We find out from Sirius that he was a big Death Eater but that, once imprisoned in Azkaban, he sold out other Voldemort's supporters in exchange for his release from prison. One of those he sold out was... Barty Crouch Jr.

But, unless I'm mistaken, after he disappears at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, Karkaroff never appears in the Harry Potter books again.

Is that right? Karkaroff simply disappears? Or am I missing something?

It's a great story line from Rowling but it makes you wonder how Crouch Jr., in Hogwarts in the guise of Mad-Eye Moody, doesn't succumb to the temptation to do exact vengeance on the man who sent him to Azkaban in the first place.

In all my readings of the Rowling books, I have never paid much attention to Karkaroff and his fate. I will have to be more attentive in the future. I have a feeling Rowling does drop a line into a later book that says what happens to the sinister Durmstrang headmaster but I cannot remember it now.

In The Goblet, Karkaroff serves many purposes, including giving J.K. a ready-made villain to throw at us as an easy explanation for the peril in which Harry finds himself. Who put my name in the Goblet, Harry wonders. Karkaroff, Sirius tells him. Who is trying to kill me? Karkaroff. Who is the biggest threat to me here? Karkaroff.

It's just like Rowling to use this kind of misdirection, to keep our attention on one possible threat while the real villain does a tap-dance right in front of us.

Interesting too that, other than coming to the conclusion that Karkaroff is the enemy rather than Mad-Eye Crouch Jr., Sirius has got most of the Voldemort's recent activities just about right. Sirius has connected Bertha Jorkin's disappearance in Albania with the Death-Eater activities at the World Cup with the other recent developments and come up, quite correctly, with Voldemort.

Again, it's just like J.K. to tell us exactly what's going on in such a way that we almost refuse to believe it.

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