The Dark Lord Strikes Again! (finally a proper use of Frank Miller)

notapipe @ 2003-05-17 18:49:00

The Dark Lord Strikes Again! (finally a proper use of Frank Miller)
Mood: productive

Neville has posted in his journal. This, combined with his other recent escapades, presents a dark picture.

The first thing is that it is definetly slick!Neville playing for sympathy. That's the ENTIRETY of his message. It's all loaded with "poor Neville" messages. He's completely without shame, apparently. His journal reads like a better, more angsty and longer version of the Notepad entries of the John Edwards campaign. And he's GOOD at it. I almost want to support his dark designs, or to beleive that he's a good Dark Lord.

The next thing is the question, WHY play for sympathy? Two reasons. The first is to make Snape's accussastions appear less credulus. This is obvious. He noted, when avoiding the question on Veritaserum, how horrible what happened to his parents was, and how he would never do that to anyone. Now he plays up that angle again, talking about how horrible what happened to his parents. Now their anniversary comes up. Lucky him. Forgive me my cynicsm, but he's being cynical in his exploitation of his parents too. The second is that he wants to build support for his Veritaserum plan.

You'll notice he doesn't let up on the Veritaserum, and that appears to be the most important thing, more so than avoiding Snape, or anything else. He is doing everything he can to bring this about. First, he brings it up with McGonagall. It's always good to keep the pressure up.

Also, he's deviously manipulating Snape. He's doing his best to make sure that Snape gets more and more interested in Neville's status so that he'll relent and put Neville under Veritaserum. If Snape had access to Neville in class, he might not need to resort to Veritaserum, but with Neville gone, he would have no chance to adress the problem that is Neville. Walking out of class not only takes him away from Snape's eye, but makes Snape all the more committed. If he DIDN'T want to be put under Veritaserum, he would be dead for doing that. It's SNAPE. But Snape thinks he's a Dark Lord in training, and a real threat to becoming evil, and also a threat now. So he's forced to be less direct than he might like to be. The solution? Veritaserum. These complications must occur to Snape, and Neville is betting they'll precipitate the proper actions.

Unlike Crabbe thinks (as Neville would like him to think), Neville is not a squib, and he's not stupid for walking out. In fact, he's not stupid at all. Let's be honest, if he were stupid, he would have responded to Snape's questions directly, and he wouldn't have gotten anything out of research, yet another point where he presses the memory issue as much as he can. And he does it over journal, not just so that Hermoine will catch it (he does, after all, share a great number of classes with her), but so others will see that he is doing the research.

I beleive I have pointed out before why an evil!Neville may want Veritaserum, but I admit there is a less evil reason. Perhaps he genuinely wants to know (in fact, if Neville is unaware of his evil, this would be the reason anyway). However, his cunning and deviousness indicate something about Neville's character, something very wrong for a stupid squib who lacks any ambition or art in manipulation. This is indicative of a Neville who is much more of a threat than the Neville the masses have accepted, a Neville not far off from Snape's, even if not as outright evil. But then, that too fits with Punisher!Neville, a Dark Lord with a heart of gold, and I don't think it presents a serious objection.

Comments:

princess_draco @ May 17 2003, 19:21:41 UTC

Jekyll-and-Hyde!Neville, sort of? lol

Your evil!Neville posts never fail to amuse me.

I do think Neville wants to know if he's evil or not. And actually, your reasoning makes sense, scarily. Perhaps he wants to take Veritaserum to prove he is not planning anything evil... and then after he takes the Veritaserum, then he can plan, and no one would suspect. A clever plot, but you, notapipe, are on to him.

Maybe Crabbe and Neville are secretly in cahoots. Another clever ruse.

(sorry for any incoherency, am tired)

Anonymous @ May 17 2003, 20:14:29 UTC Look at this exchange between Neville and Snape!

See here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/nocturne_alley/148901.html). Snape is refusing to give the Veritaserum to Neville! What do you make of that?

If Snape was so convinced that Neville had evil intent that he announced it during the wedding reception, wouldn't he want to prove it, using the serum?

princess_draco @ May 17 2003, 20:23:05 UTC Re: Look at this exchange between Neville and Snape!

Perhaps he doesn't want to look a fool if Neville turns out to be not-evil. Saving his own arse, I wonder...