Order Only
Sep. 9th, 2011 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_macnairHad some time to think this week, mostly reading through different reports about the explosion at the Quidditch Cup and such. Also re-read what you wrote, Black, condemning those who were involved. I assume that what you wrote was meant to be an expression of the mindset that most of the Order share - the ones who weren't forced on you, anyway.
Thing is, I'm still not really clear on what we do. The Order, that is. Snape and I traveled together because we both saw we shared a common goal: ridding the world of one of the most dangerous megalomaniacs it's ever known. So far, I haven't heard much talk of how to make that happen.
Rousing the people themselves to depose of the "puppets" is well and good, but there are too many people who don't realise who the puppets are, or even see that they themselves might be one. Not all the vital cogs in the Protectorate wear the mark. Most of them - like the camp administrators, the mid-level Ministry workers - probably consider themselves decent folk who are just trying to keep their head down and ride things out.
The only people who are moved to action right now are the ones who have already suffered to extremes, and because of that, their goal is one built on revenge, not change. I share your condemnation of their plots because they are chaotic and put others in harms way, in addition to making more people fear them, the resistance, than the one they should really fear.
But, I can't fault them for their desire to take action, even if the way they go about it is wrong-headed. What if the explosion at the cup had been better executed and Voldemort had been killed. Would the deaths of those innocents not have been an acceptable loss?
Because innocents are already dying every day, and in slower, far less merciful ways. Smuggling in wands and hiding people away in a sanctuary doesn't do the rest of them any good. Neither does passing the job of deposing on to people who have shown themselves to be unwilling.
Thing is, I'm still not really clear on what we do. The Order, that is. Snape and I traveled together because we both saw we shared a common goal: ridding the world of one of the most dangerous megalomaniacs it's ever known. So far, I haven't heard much talk of how to make that happen.
Rousing the people themselves to depose of the "puppets" is well and good, but there are too many people who don't realise who the puppets are, or even see that they themselves might be one. Not all the vital cogs in the Protectorate wear the mark. Most of them - like the camp administrators, the mid-level Ministry workers - probably consider themselves decent folk who are just trying to keep their head down and ride things out.
The only people who are moved to action right now are the ones who have already suffered to extremes, and because of that, their goal is one built on revenge, not change. I share your condemnation of their plots because they are chaotic and put others in harms way, in addition to making more people fear them, the resistance, than the one they should really fear.
But, I can't fault them for their desire to take action, even if the way they go about it is wrong-headed. What if the explosion at the cup had been better executed and Voldemort had been killed. Would the deaths of those innocents not have been an acceptable loss?
Because innocents are already dying every day, and in slower, far less merciful ways. Smuggling in wands and hiding people away in a sanctuary doesn't do the rest of them any good. Neither does passing the job of deposing on to people who have shown themselves to be unwilling.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 06:50 pm (UTC)I understand their frustration as well, though - and yours. It's difficult to find purchase when there doesn't seem to be a direct path to victory. We've been concentrated on doing what we can on a small scale, person-to-person. Since I've been back in the country we missed that one shipment, which is hurting us a great deal, both for funds to continue our more covert activities and for the supplies we can't get any other way and need to make polyjuice and half a dozen other important potions. That's why Melisandra was such a groundbreaking discovery (and Hermione, again, if you can still talk to Terry, tell him how much it meant that he wanted to get her to us). If she can successfully start making wands, in addition to the ones we can smuggle, then we might be able to accellerate our efforts to get them back in the hands of muggleborns.
And no, it doesn't help them all. If you've got ideas about how to overturn the whole system in a single go, let's hear them. Currently we're nipping at the edges, we know, but every one we save adds momentum.
As it happens, the three of us here at Laszlo's have been talking more about that extra hiding place across the back garden. I do think we could easily get half a dozen people at a time, maybe more, into that building without anyone noticing, if we could then get them on to another spot at some point safely. I'm hoping Lucinda has some more information from that Mrs Fellsworthy; connecting to the Underground would be excellent, I think. If we can get muggleborn out of the camps and safely in place by the Solstice, then we could bring them through the wards to Norway or Sweden when the wards go down. If they want to leave, of course. If they'd prefer to stay and fight, that's all right. I think John would love to lead a skirmish team.
There's that Ministry bloke to pay off every month or so but I think we've got his number now. Assuming we can raise the payment he won't be any trouble.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 09:50 pm (UTC)I guess I've had the advantage of seeing a long-standing institution obliterated up-close, but I reckon that none of you would want to utilise the kind of tactics it took to change the face of Britain so completely. I'm not keen to revisit them myself.
Wands in the hands of muggleborns helps, but it would be better to have those who have been long-trained in using them on our side.
How often does recruiting go on, if at all?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-11 02:18 pm (UTC)I do think a conversation about 'recruitment' is overdue. I do not, however, mean recruitment to our core group. That's far too risky. The one thing I think we might learn from this Dogstar group is the way they appear to organise themselves in order to frustrate MLE's ability to bring down the whole when one cell or another falls.
You do, however, have a point in suggesting that we need more people on our side. Indeed, if we had a way to turn wizards who have served the regime, but who could now be brought to stand against it, it would be something. I suppose the question is whether we need not only to win the consciences of those people away from unquestioning allegiance to the Protectorate but also to organise them and incorporate them into some large, structured movement we would direct.
That has not been our intention heretofore, though our relationship with the group in Sherwood might suggest a structure we could develop.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 07:22 pm (UTC)But maybe that's not a bad thing, that you're challenging us to think about what, exactly, we're doing here. I wish we were doing more, not to save just a person here or there, but to do something, something big that will take down this whole rotten regime. Well, not by committing mass murder. Or at least--
Hmm....if Voldemort had been killed on that day, what then? Would the whole miserable apparatus continue to grind on, enslaving people, and someone else equally as despicable would simply step into the Lord Protector's role? What could get this yoke off our backs once and for all?
I may need to go for another walk.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 07:33 pm (UTC)But he's right. It may hurt like bubotuber pus to admit it, but we aren't.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 07:36 pm (UTC)If I stop to think about it, the sheer horror of it all would prevent me from doing the bit that I can do.
Private message to Arthur Weasley
Date: 2011-09-09 10:02 pm (UTC)Re: Private message to Arthur Weasley
Date: 2011-09-10 07:32 pm (UTC)Re: Private message to Arthur Weasley
Date: 2011-09-10 08:14 pm (UTC)Re: Private message to Arthur Weasley
Date: 2011-09-10 09:32 pm (UTC)Re: Private message to Arthur Weasley
Date: 2011-09-11 12:18 am (UTC)I'll have to think about it.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 09:59 pm (UTC)A lot of good's being done here, I can see that. But there's a lot of tentativeness too. Maybe a desire to protect the gains that have already been made is favoured over bolder moves.
Don't know if Voldemort being killed would have changed things overnight, but I'm inclined to think it would have emboldened regular folk in ways we can't really imagine. What's the Protectorate without its Protector?
In some ways, he was a fool to fashion himself as a god.