Rules: There may be spoilers for all seven books and 8 movies Each match will last for exactly 24 hours. Any votes after that point will not count. Discussion is encouraged but not required. Make sure all of your votes are obvious. I should know who you are voting for, basically don't bury your vote in the middle of a paragraph. No alt-voting. Ties will be replayed the next day with the rest of the matches. No vote-saves or rallying for specific characters. Telling people to vote is encouraged but don't tell them how to vote! Don't complain about the seeds, they were the result of a save-my. Because matches can overlap, results will be in this topic. http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/61327435
(1)Minerva McGonagall (16)Bartemius "Barty" Crouch Jr.
^Hardest match for me so far, probably hardest first round match for me in any contest ever. Both are in my top 20, but Crouch Jr. ranks ever so slightly higher.
(8)Quirinus Quirrell
^Why couldn't one of these goons have been against McGonagall and the other against Crouch Jr.? (yeah, I know why, don't bother answering)
(5)Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody
^Moody is overrated to hell and back, but Lavender is in my bottom 10 from the series.
(4)Fenrir Greyback
^Yeah.
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(1)Minerva McGonagall (16)Bartemius "Barty" Crouch Jr.
Abstain for now. I'd hate to jump the gun and vote Barty only for this to turn out closer than I think.
(8)Quirinus Quirrell (9)Rufus Scrimgeour
Quirrell sucks. Why yes, that's all my logic for this match.
(5)Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody (12)Lavender Brown
I found Mad-Eye Moody to be a completely underwhelming character after Crouch Jr. I had far more respect for him when I believed him to be the sinister- perhaps crazed from years of fighting dark wizards- veteran that turned students into ferrets and demonstrated Forbidden Spells right in front of students with zero regard to the consequences. When Rowling basically b****-slapped my perceptions up to that point I expected the actual Moody to be as awesome if not far moreso, but... he wasn't. He was just some cautious old guy who kept the younger Aurors in check, which... well Molly or Shacklebolt could've done just as easily. Part of his appeal is that he's the wizened vet of the team who's accomplished these great feats in the past, but... I can't recall any of them. Were they not detailed or did I just forget them because they weren't so spectacular?
Anyway Lavender "Lav-Lav" Brown has a pretty interesting dynamic as far as background characters go. She's known for hanging around Parvati and Hermy when the latter wanted to escape the boys, doting on Trelawney, flirting with Firenze, and... best of all dating Ron. She was a pretty bad girlfriend- overly obsessive and emotional- but this is what made her interesting.
(4)Fenrir Greyback (13)Pansy Parkinson
Hmmm... badass werewolf with the tendency to f*** s*** up or background female Slytherin who does nothing. Decisions, decisions...
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I've come to the realization that I need a sig.
(1)Minerva McGonagall McGonagall is bar none my favorite teacher at Hogwarts. While Crouch Jr. is one of the smarter characters in the series, McGonagall just takes the cake. She's strict -- but fair. There are so many moments that I like about McGonagall. From smiling at Harry mentioning that points shouldn't be taken for the flying car incident because it happened before school, to her giving points out for proving to the world Voldemort had returned. Then you have her moments with Trelawney. "Which one of you is it going to be this year?" She's also a badass old witch. And an Animagus. Then you have her rivalry with Umbridge -- you can tell that she comes close to losing it over Umbridge much like Harry does. She's also the first magical character seen in the series.
(9)Rufus Scrimgeour Quirrell... hardly if ever gets mentioned after the first book. Snape might bring him up when dealing with Bellatrix. But most of what we see of him is the work of Voldemort. Scrimgeour on the other hand... is kind of like Snape-light. He sees Harry as Dumbledores favorite, someone who's untalented, and undeserving of all the attention he gets. He's different from Fudge in some ways, and the same in the other. Appearances, Appearances, Appearances. Like Fudge, he cared too much about the job. But I think he has slightly better motives. He wanted to give hope to the wizarding community. He dies protecting Harry's whereabouts however. Something that redeems him some. But he really never did much in regards to gaining Harry's trust. He visits the Weasley's under the image of letting Percy see his home, when it's really so he can see Harry. He holds back Dumbledores will in hopes of figuring out what Dumbledore left for Harry, rather than giving it to Harry immediately, so that he can do whatever Dumbledore assigned him. I wonder how Wizarding history will see him... considering that he's between two of the worst Ministers of all time -- Fudge, who would not see reason. The truth was in front of his face, and instead he chose a smear campaign against the one who'd go on to defeat Voldemort. On the other, you have Thicknesse, who was under the imperius curse, and did the Death Eaters bidding. But then you have Kingsley after that, and honestly I'd say it'll probably go down as the worst three ministers in a row.
(5)Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody Maybe if Lavender had went after Won-Won in book four or five, she'd have been more interesting. But she doesn't really contribute much. I wonder if Ron ever saw Uranus. Moody on the other hand is a highly intelligent auror, that's a bit paranoid. He plays a huge part, and if what we saw of Crouch Jr. was any hint to Moody, then he really is the badass they play him out to be.
(4)Fenrir Greyback We don't really see much of Greyback, but we don't see much of Pansy either. She's sort of the Slytherin student who's just there. She didn't really do much. Hardly any of the Slytherins got much screentime unless they were Draco, Snape, or Slughorn. She nor Millicent Bulstrode have any defining moments. Greyback at least attacks Bill.
(1)Minerva McGonagall (16)Bartemius "Barty" Crouch Jr.
McGonagall to me represents all kinds of lost potential. I remember two influential essays before book 7 comes out. One was "Snape loves Lilly", where we figured out basically the exact contents of the Snape's Memories chapter (right down to stuff like Snape was the one to tell Lilly about Dementors and Azkaban). The other essay was "McGonagall is a death eater". And it makes all kinds of sense--despite being in the order of the phoenix, she misses damn near every major battle for some excuse or another. An hour after Dumbledore died, she gets Harry alone in the headmaster's office and starts grilling him for information (and Harry refuses). And if you go back to the introductory chapter in book 1...instead of celebrating, she's following a lead, expressing distain at how muggle the Dursleys are, and Dumbledore is quite guarded in what information he shares with her.
So...lost potential there. As is, she's a generically strict teacher, who can nonetheless be indulgent, and fights with the good guys but for no explained reason nobody trusts her enough to share inner circle information.
In the mean time, Barty Crouch Jr is pretty awesome. There's an open question, I suppose, on whether you should count fake-Moody towards Barty Crouch Jr, and I'd argue that you should--at least at some level. His personality is subtly different from real Moody. Various things he says have double-meaning, like when he taunts Snape about his dark mark. (Bear in mind, at this point Sirius doesn't even know what a dark mark is, despite spending three years listening to other prisoners mutter in Azkaban, and presumably the ministry doesn't either because they locked Sirius up). He's also much more flattering--like he spontaneously suggests to Harry that Harry might want to be an Auror. It strikes me that the real Moody might do something like say "oh, well, I've got several old photographs of aurors, why don't I describe the gruesome way in which each of them died? Real treat for you, eh?" I also like how, after describing how using an unforgivable curse on a human will land you in Azkaban, he starts Imperius cursing the students for practice. Somehow I don't expect the real Moody would be like "hey harry, want to practice breaking the Imperius curse after supper?"
And of course, on top of his interesting acting skills, and subtle differences from real Moody, he's also by far the most competent death eater. (Or most competent loyal death eater, I guess; Snape is pretty good too).
(8)Quirinus Quirrell (9)Rufus Scrimgeour
"I shouldn't have said that," said Scrimgeour quickly. "It was tactless —" "No, it was honest," said Harry. "One of the only honest things you've said to me. You don't care whether I live or die, but you do care that I help you convince everyone you're winning the war against Voldemort. I haven't forgotten, Minister...." He raised his right fist. There, shining white on the back of his cold hand, were the scars which Dolores Umbridge had forced him to carve into his own flesh: I must not tell lies.
Scrimgeour, frankly, benefits from showing up in book 6, when Rowling's writing is in turbo kickass mode (whereas Quirrell only shows up in book 1). But he's also an interesting character--someone on the same side of the war as Harry, who is clearly competent, and legitimately wants to take down Voldemort, and yet is clearly an antagonist.
(4k check)
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
This is the hardest match for me. How much credit do we give real moody for Barty Crouch Jr's performance? If it's none, then he's a pretty dull character. A senior Auror on a similar level to Kingsley Shacklebolt with a similar amount of screen time. With a few more quirks, mind you; he still has the eye, and he's still quite paranoid, and he lacks any sense of social graces (let's just show Harry a picture of his dead parents without warning). But on the other hand...If we give him credit for all of Barty Crouch Jr's performance, he's a pretty fantastic character.
Lavender, on the other hand, is a pretty solid midcarder. Most hilarious psycho girlfriend ever, with the "Won-Won" and the golden "my sweetheart" necklace. She falls pretty solidly in-between these two extremes.
Thing is, the Barty Crouch Jr impersonation is so likeable partially because he can turn on the charm and flattery when he's trying to gain Harry's trust and admiration. I'm not sure the real Moody knows what charm and flattery are all about. So all the things that drew me to the fake, like ferret Malfoy, and calling Harry into his office to tell him what a decent thing he did with Cedric, probably wouldn't happen if it was real-Moody. So...would I even have liked Moody as a teacher if it had been real-Moody? I'm...not sure I would have. I'm imagining something a little more like Quirrell--paranoid about everything and doesn't initiate 1-on-1 conversations due to security risk, which I would have found forgettable. So...umm...I...guess I vote for Lavender?
(4)Fenrir Greyback (13)Pansy Parkinson
Yeah, I just can't bring myself to care about Pansy Parkinson.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
(1)Minerva McGonagall (decent character, especially towards the end of DH) (8)Quirinus Quirrell (only because Scrimgeour is completely dull) (5)Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody (Moody isn't the best character, but he's up against Lavender so) (13)Fenrir Greyback (quite a good heel character)
Yeah, I struggle to say anything positive about him at all.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
In all seriousness, though, I'd love to see the arguments for voting for Quirrell, because to me he seems like such a weak character with such low screen time I'd consider voting epilogue characters over him. >_>
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
From: metroid composite | #032 In all seriousness, though, I'd love to see the arguments for voting for Quirrell, because to me he seems like such a weak character with such low screen time I'd consider voting epilogue characters over him. >_>
I'm voting for him because of "TROLLLLLLLL in the dungeon!!" and dat first name.