About Barty

by **lindarkness** Sun Feb 01, 2015 5:17 am

NAME: Bartemius Crouch junior

DATE OF BIRTH: September 18, 1962

SEXUALITY: Demisexual (Pan)

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BLOODSTATUS: Pureblood (Sacred 28)

WAND: Ash Wood, Dragon Heartstring Core, 6 inches, unyielding

"The ash wand cleaves to its one true master and ought not to be passed on or gifted from the original owner, because it will lose power and skill. This tendency is extreme if the core is of unicorn. Old superstitions regarding wands rarely bear close examination, but I find that the old rhyme regarding rowan, chestnut, ash and hazel wands (rowan gossips, chestnut drones, ash is stubborn, hazel moans) contains a small nugget of truth. Those witches and wizards best suited to ash wands are not, in my experience, lightly swayed from their beliefs or purposes. However, the brash or over-confident witch or wizard, who often insists on trying wands of this prestigious wood, will be disappointed by its effects. The ideal owner may be stubborn, and will certainly be courageous, but never crass or arrogant" - Pottermore
"As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner. The dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental." - Pottermore

PATRONUS: He is unable to produce a Patronus.

HOUSE: Gryffindor (It is almost ironic how he shares a house with his father, with how their goals and affiliations are directly opposed to each other. This is the reason why he rejects his own house, why he keeps wishing that he had been sorted into Slytherin instead. Oddly enough, however, the house suits him quite well. He’s not as cold as he makes himself out to be, you see, and for all the ways he outwardly keeps rejecting the notion of idealism, the boy carries a fire in him, and a thirst for glory)

OCCUPATION: Hogwarts Student (Miserable Ministry Intern after Graduation)

AFFILIATION: Death Eater. (It is a curious thing how Barty came to join the ranks of the group. He could not care less about the reasoning of blood purity. The only sentiment he has about Muggles, is to completely ignore them, neither hating, nor loving them. He sees them as simple tools for him, nothing more. In fact, he thinks of the ideology of blood purity as a simple means to get those who believe in it to fight among his ranks, no more. No, he took the Dark Mark for anger, for strive, for resentment, for glory. Years of being lectured about politics, about diplomatic speach, of seeing the corruption and hypocrisy of government with his own eyes, the young boy came to associate the Death Eaters with effective rebellion, and rise against the Ministry, as they were the only group who effectively opposed it in his eyes. That, as well as reasonable encouragement from certain peers was the original cause behind him joining ranks with the group. Once he joined, however, he discovered more advantages for him. For once, it gave him opportunity to gain more practical experience when it came to Dueling, and the Dark Arts.Most importantly, however, the more he learned about him, the more he started to admire, and look up to the Dark Lord. His achievements, his pragmatic policy, his magical skill, his wisdom, his leadership, and his true ambitious - for now, He has grown to be a sort of rolemodel for the young boy)

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ALIGNMENT: True Neutral / Neutral Evil

TEMPERAMENT: Melancholic

ENNEAGRAM: Type Four

MBTI/JUNG: INTP

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STRENGTHS:

Intelligence – Barty can be an extremely logical person when his mind is not clouded by emotion. He has a wit, a good understanding for how things connect, and work, and is usually rather quick to piece two and two together. Furthermore, he can easily see the bigger picture in any given situations, and connect it to his own situation.
Perspective – Though he may have a hard time getting any emotional connection to others, he still understands other people and can very well slip into their perspective to guess how they might act in a certain situation. This does not solely apply to people, either. He understands the way that different groups of people interact with each other (if he bothers to learn about their ways, of course) and he gets the way the political climate works.
Magical Ability – Barty was always a gifted child when it came to this field. This natural talent, too, was mixed with very early opportunities to experiment and practice on his own with little to no oversight, as well as access to various books.
Social-Awareness – Don’t get him wrong on this one - Barty is no social butterfly, nor does he have any desire to be. He is neither charming, nor particularly friendly. Yet, he is aware how the core of his personality - the standoffish, easily irritated young boy who slowly becomes more civil if you push the right buttons - will likely be perceived and he uses that in order to maintain the appearance of innocence. In fact, he believes his naturally rude behaviour only helps to make him appear more genuine. He knows that the way he acts, a lot of people might presume him harmless, or the Jerk-With-A-Heart-of-Gold type, and while that hardly comes close to the truth, he uses it to fool people without having to do a whole lot of acting.
Acting – That is, he can act if he has to.
Pragmatism - Barty’s goals are mostly clear, and he will use the most simple and straightforward methods of getting to them, if he can. He’s not someone who will waste his time with overly elaborate cuts and corners in his plans, nor will he stop and commit evil just for evil’s sake. If there is a problem, he will just use the most direct method there is in order to solve it.
Low-Maintenance – For someone who grew up in apparent luxury, and privilege, he has surprisingly little demands on his environment. As long as he has enough personal space, and maybe some chocolate, he won’t complain all too much.

WEAKNESSES:

Lack of Empathy - Even though Barty very well experiences human emotion, he himself has absolutely no concept of what they are or how to deal with them. Happiness, love, guilt, sadness, hope, friendship - any one of these things are completely alien to him. He will experience them, he may act upon them, but he has a hard time recognizing them for what they are or even recognizing them at all. This is not only a problem because the emotions he feels are rather strong, and the boy is rather passionate underneath, no matter how much he denies it to himself, but also because it makes looking at the world around him rather difficult. It is not that he can’tempathize with people, it’s that, because of how much he distanced himself from his own feelings, he doesn’t.
Anger – His whole identity, his soul, his ambitions are build upon so much wrath that it becomes difficult for him to contain, or even control this emotion at times, especially since he does not wholly understand it. This results in a dark potential that he might just snap at certain points…
Insecurity – Barty is no wallflower, yet it is important to understand that his existence is deeply riddled with insecurities, even though they might not show in the conventional way. A lot of his anger is rooted in him feeling like he was disposable, negligible. He could never quite place the feeling in himself and would not be able to name its causes, but since the very first time it appeared, he has aggressively, and angrily rejected it. On a greater level, he simply wants to prove himself worthy of being acknowledged, of being remembered. This is the very reason why, despite being able to trick people, and possessing a certain degree of social intelligence, the boy is at times so easily manipulated by others, especially by people who give him the right kind of attention, and enough reason for him to want to stay in their company.
Naivety - For someone who can torture, and murder someone with hardly a second thought, Barty is surprisingly naive when it comes to dealing with others, and not in the conventional way, either. Rather than expecting everyone around him to be good to the core, it’s rather that he lacks some experience with them, and expects their minds to work similar to his own.
Obsessiveness – Barty is constantly torn between two extremes. On the one hand there is this kind of cold detachment with which he can handle things, in a way that will end up being almost close to apathy. On the other hand, however, when he gets too close to something, or someone, he will fixate on that beyond what is healthy, and might lose his head.
Lack of experience – Barty is young, and does not have all too much real-life experiences that he could rely on. Furthermore, he has only very recently joined the Death Eaters, and his expectations might not actually end up living up to the reality of it all.
Immaturity – No matter his intelligence and sharp observations, it is clear that the boy has not entirely grown up yet. His emotional maturity, especially, is extremely lacking. He does not know how to deal with a large range of feelings, and will sometimes literally act like a petulant child, with his pouting, and his entitled, sulky nature.

LIKES:

Control – Subconsciously, the boy fears losing control over himself, over his mind, and the way that he leads his life. He does not want to feel like there is anything standing between him and his own independence and free will - not even himself. This is why he loves the feeling of having power, of having control over others, even if it might only be fleeting. This is also the reason why he places such high value on his perceived sanity, and the impression of superior reason that he likes to give off.
Solitude – Often the boy will act like he hates people, and never wants any kind of attention from anyone, while this is of course, wrong, there is a certain grain of truth in there. Barty is very used to being alone, has been ever since he was little, and thus, he feels more comfortable, more safe when he is alone. His own thoughts, and his own company brings him peace.
Knowledge – Surprisingly, Barty isn’t one of the people who only crave knowledge to use it as an instrument to gain power. He has, in fact, always been an uniquely curious child, which is a trait that installed itself within him in his early years, where he was much more used to interacting with books than with people. Taking a step further even, almost all of his interests that he carried over into his life come from the very books that he read as a child. Most of them were text books on different kinds of magic, history, ~~and his mothers sappy wiz romance novels.~~
The Death Eaters – At first, the young boy would not have even considered the group as an option for himself, as he perceived their goals as merely social - a field that he did not care about at all. However, he soon began to realize just how much their goals and their methods would be able to help his own agenda, and slowly started seeing them in a new light. Once he joined them, this trend intensified. With time, the Death Eaters started to feel less like a simple means to an end to him, and more like a second family.
Sweets (especially chocolate) – When he was a little younger, the boy would try to hide just how much of a sweet tooth he was, stealing himself some sugar every time he thought nobody was looking, but as he grew up, he stopped caring about that.
The Outdoors – Barty has a gread desire for personal freedom, and needs a large amount of space around him in order to feel truly comfortable. This is the reason why he loves being outside, and taking solitary walks. It is not that he appreciates nature in itself, but the fresh air, and the wide open spaces give him some peace.
Quidditch – Barty is a firm believer that anyone claiming not to like Quidditch either doesn’t understand the sport, or is simply too pretentious, or snobby to try and give it a chance. He himself is fascinated by the game, and a great enthusiast for the Wimbourne Wasps.

DISLIKES

His father – When asked about it, Barty will often say that he ‘doesn’t care what his father does’ and that he is simply annoyed at how everyone insists on comparing the two. Yet, this is far from the truth; Barty hates his father, and everything in his association - and we all know that hatred often stems from caring about something, sometimes too much. Once, the boy used to be eager to please, and want nothing more than to be acknowledged, to be respected, to be valued by his father. Now, these desires are directed toward the Dark Lord, and his actual father has grown to be a figure of resentment and disgrace for him.
The Ministry of Magic – Barty is no anarchist, nor does he hate the Ministry simply because his father happens to occupy a position there (although that does play a large role in his dislike of it), rather the boy has found the structure and the foundation of government to be fundamentally rotten. He believes the place to be filled either with hypocrites, opportunists, useless idiots, or, in some rare cases, hopeless idealists who have not uncovered the true nature of the government yet. The Dark Lord taking over would be the best solution, in his eyes, because then the Wizarding World would be united again, and corrupting influence would be eradicated.
Gryffindor – The Hogwarts Houses don’t exist in a vacuum, and Barty, more than anything, is aware of that. One might have thought that he only hated his own house because he shares it with his father, but it is more complicated than that. The thing he hates most about Gryffindor is what it stands for, what people associate with it - all the brave knights, and great heroes, and bravery, and what have you. It all just makes him so angry - he feels like he’s surrounded by nothing but stupid, loudmouthed idiots who do just don’t bloody think for themselves. He finds himself very much out of touch with his house mates that he’s never really gotten along with in the first place, especially now that the war has started to become a more prominent part of his life. He wants to get with the Slytherins, above all, as they seem just so much better than anyone - more reasonable, and more in touch with his own personality, yet he knows he cannot fully be part of that group. For, most importantly, he hates the fact that he knows that he does belong in Gryffindor, and that he can relate to its values. He resents his house for it, he resents Hogwarts for it, and he resents himself for it. Surely, it helps him keep his cover in the public eye, but at what price? For being in Gryffindor, he feels like he has to work even harder to earn his place within the Death Eaters, and it might never be enough. He fears he may always be just a little bit of an outsider.
Insanity – One of the things that he values most within himself is his intelligence, his ability to reason, the clarity of his own mind. Logic, reason, and his own thoughts are something stable, something that he can control, and feelings represent the exact opposite of that. It is for this reason that he puts himself as such distance from his emotions and ironically, it is also the reason why he has such a hard time governing them, too. Because he puts such deep value on sanity, he fears any disruption of it, and looks down on people that he thinks, have willingly let it go.
Violation of his personal space – Barty has always been used to being alone, and having a lot of space for himself to use. He loves his privacy, and places subconscious value on the autonomy of his own body. As a result, his personal bubble is a little larger than it is for most people, and he absolutely hates being physically touched in any way when he doesn’t want to be.
Hypocrisy – Barty has nothing against lies in general, or other forms of manipulation, as he sees them as useful, and valid means to achieve a goal, and if someone is fooled by it, then its their own fault for being stupid. What he cannot stand, however, is a lack of integrity, someone who stands up and presents himself as a bearer of certain principle, only to betray it in the same breath. It is almost odd to discover this twisted sense of honour that the boy carries within him. While he usually strays far from conventional morality with his murder and his torture and all that, there’s still some notion of principle buried inside of him, that greets him in the most unexpected times. For example, he does not like it when people cheat with a matter that could have been easily won using fair methods, or if cheat without a greater cause in their mind. Some might say that this notion was one of his greatest weaknesses.
Pretentiousness - Nothing can ruin a person’s general impression on him more than the thought of them being snobby or pretentious. He cannot stand it when someone thinks they’re better than everybody because of nothing, but superficial, petty things like how many “big words” they use in their speech, how much money they have, or how fancy their free-time activities are. It’s a little funny to think of it like that since he himself comes from a rich household that values the finer things in life. But maybe the fact that he has so often been lectured about the importance of “proper conduct” is exactly the reason why he dislikes it so much. Then again, the boy makes such a big deal of ‘not being pretentious’ that some might label that attitude pretentious in itself.
Overly emotional people – Excuse you, Barty is uncomfortable with your feelings. What are these anyway? Get them away from him, please.
Alcohol – The boy actually has an incredibly weak stomach when it comes to food and drinks (for example, food that is too spicy will make him throw up) but he especially cannot handle alcohol, and would get drunk after consuming obscenely small amounts of it. He rejects it on principle, anyhow. ‘It’s poison for the mind’, he says.

HISTORY:

With the odds alone, little Barty might even have turned out a quite ordinary boy - his parents were stable enough, his mother doted over him, and they were wealthy enough. However, the boy’s own nature one should rather describe as anything, but ordinary. A remarkably quiet boy, at first, the child seemed to be more interested in textbooks, and his father’s papers than the usual games that others in his age would play. Spending most of his time clinging hungrily to his mother, or trying to do the same with his father, nobody would have said, however, that there was something all too off with the boy until much later, for all there seemed to be of him of the time, was a small, and sensitive child, which is also the image that his father has of him to this day.

The main two things that lead to his development becoming more and more troubled were for once his lack of social interaction, and more so, his rejection of it (He had been a very scared child, and had not allowed anyone near him, but his parents, and the house elf), and the neglect that he suffered from by his father. While Crouch senior isn’t really to blame for his son’s natural personality, his behavior, in combination with that nature, was a poisonous mix. Gradually, the young boy started to resent his father, and distance himself from his mother, at first, turning much more obsessively towards the acquisition of information, and the more knowledge he gained of the world, the more the resentment of his father, would turn into hatred, and soon enough that hatred expanded also toward the ministry, all the values that his father had taught him, and everything he was associated with.

And while classes bore him, and - in his eyes - lack usefulness, the boy always had a thing for forbidden things. The Dark, and everything that lies in it fascinates him, and more often than not this fascination had lead him behind the gates of the Restricted Section of the library - and much further. Eager to get to know the world outside of Howarts, young Barty has already done some extensive research. He was drawn to it not out of an inherent longing for cruelty, but rather, out of defiance, and the urge to go against anything that was forbidden by others, simply for the sake of it. Soon enough, however, he learned to appreciate the theory of it for its own sake, as it was something new, and interesting.

The academic success that he has in Hogwarts, does not faze the boy much. While twelve OWLs might seem impressive to anyone else, Barty himself is rather annoyed with his courses at Hogwarts. He especially resented the students that he had to endure at that time, seeing them as stupid, rowdy, and obnoxious.

He felt extremely out of place where he was at Hogwarts, as he thought of himself as extremely mature for his age (he wasn’t), and the only person with true insight of what was going on. Being in Gryffindor especially grinded his gears, as he felt like he was stuck on the wrong side of the world, and he often wished that he had been sorted in Slytherin, or maybe Ravenclaw instead, cursing the naive, idealistic child that he thought he had been at eleven.

By his fifth year, he had enough of it all. How could people not understand how truly rotten the world was? How broken, and corrupt their entire system was at this point? The resentment that he held against his father, against the Ministry, against all the pointless, false attempts of people to ‘make things better’ had reached its peak.

The boy had not really considered joining the Death Eaters before that point, as he had before then, failed to see the common goal they shared, and frankly, could not make sense of their whole “Muggle obsession”, as he thought of it (“If they acknowledge that Muggles are beneath us, why do they hate them? Why do they care?”), but, alas, he had finally begun to see the light.

He had always been very attentive when it came to recent events, had always prided himself in being able to analyze them from a higher standpoint, and after spending time with certain peers, he started seeing the Death Eaters from a different perspective.

They were the only ones opposing the true enemy - the Ministry. They were the only ones who could share his goal, his perspective. The Dark Lord was the strong leader the wizarding world so desperately needed. He would rid it of its corruption, and bring discipline and order back again.

Barty would follow them to his death.

by **lindarkness** Sun Feb 01, 2015 5:18 am

Okay, so I want to talk about the concept of “blending in”, and how it affects the way I chose to portray Barty. There is a lot of word-vomit ahead, I will probably repeat myself at some point, and for some reason I don’t seem to be able to sound professional no matter how hard I try so bear with little old me here, please.

In the books, deception is one of the major themes that are associated with his character. It is absolutely vital to his essence that Barty seems to be either very unassuming, or trustworthy for the majority of the time, and only few glimpses are given to us into his actual, much darker nature.
This is a pattern that repeats itself many times in hi life. Let’s first take a look at the boy in his childhood until his late teens. Admittedly, we don’t know much about that time period in canon, but the little things we see or are able to deduce are absolutely essential for understanding him, in my opinion.
When we look at the trial scene in particular, the most important thing to consider, I think, is the fact that everyone appears to be completely shocked by the suggestion that Barty is a Death Eater, to the point where even after his conviction there were still voices who looked at him as though he had simply been some impressionable young boy who had been tragically “influenced” into “falling in with the wrong crowd”
That’s, of course, not true, but it does show that he did a very good job at blending in before that. Now the text shows us a few very distinct reasons for why that might be, so let’s look at that.
First, there us the way that he was described at the time that I think needs to be pointed out. It is very obvious that Barty, despite being a capable wizard, made a very soft, and harmless impression over all. Nothing about his appearance or even his mannerisms was at all threatening (movie-canon does not count). In fact, we get a lot of emphasis on his youth and his innocent, boyish features.
The kid looked completely unassuming.
Second - well, there is overwhelming proof out there that Barty is an incredibly skilled actor who not only possesses great insight into people and how he can use their nature to his advantage, but is also intelligent enough to go through complex plans, and control the way he is perceived by others, to the point where even Dumbledore himself was fooled by him for a whole year.
Barty’s entire narrative is filled with the theme of deception, stealth and illusion. For years, he played the role pf the good citizen. At his trial, he played the role of the vulnerable boy, until he was faced with rejection — And let’s not forget the fact that he escaped Azkaban while pretending to be his mother, and then spent the remaining years hidden under the guise of lies and an invisibility cloak until he escaped yet again, only to take up another role.
One could say that his success as a villain depends almost entirely on his acting skills and his ability to fool people into thinking him harmless, or trustworthy. He is the mantis, stalking its prey while pretending to be nothing but the leaf of a tree.
And all of that is basically the reason why I play him the way I do, why his villainous nature is sometimes difficult to detect, and why he in a lot of his interactions seems to act more like a bratty child than a threatening Death Eater - because he isn’t supposed to seem like a threatening Death Eater. He’s supposed to blend in, and he achieves that with a mixture of his natural personalty as well as a healthy dose of deliberate moves, and expression of certain traits.
There’s still a villain behind all that.

About Barty

About Barty

Barty & Fitting in