This Harry Potter Villain Buried Himself Deeper Than Albus Dumbledore Ever Could

Summary:

• In The Goblet of Fire, Barty Crouch Jr. develops and executes a complex plan to deliver Harry Potter to the graveyard for the ritual.
• After assuming Alastor Moody’s identity, he could have simply kidnapped Harry without ever entering him into the Triwizard Tournament.
• With the ritual complete, Crouch Jr. could have even wiped Harry’s memory and returned him to Hogwarts to keep Voldemort’s return in secret.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is one of the most interesting and captivating parts of the series, especially on your first readthrough/watchthrough. The intricacy of Barty Crouch Jr.’s plot and the chain of overwhelming revelations in the finale are great, but let’s face it: the disguised Death Eater went way further than needed.

Barty Crouch Jr.’s overthinking became his demise in the end, because a plan as convoluted and multi-layered as his was pretty much bound to fail from the start.

Crouch Jr. Needlessly Complicated His Task

For his resurrection, Lord Voldemort needed very little: Harry Potter present at the graveyard at any time. The Dark Lord recruited Barty Crouch Jr., his loyal Death Eater, for this task, and the latter was eager to prove himself to Lord Voldemort. He happily jumped right on it, developing and executing an infinitely complex plan.

From assuming Alastor Moody’s identity for an entire year to entering Harry Potter into the Triwizard Tournament under highly suspicious circumstances and guiding him through all three tasks in the hopes of the boy’s survival, Crouch Jr. made his life much harder than it realistically needed to be. His entire plan was the perfect illustration to his nature: brilliant, but utterly insane.

Crouch Jr.’s Task Was a Simple Kidnapping

If we get rid of all the mystical mumbo jumbo, the essence of Barty’s task was as simple as it gets: he had to kidnap a person. The person in question was also not the brightest bulb, which only made the circumstances look better for the Death Eater.

The part with assuming a Hogwarts teacher’s identity and becoming a trusted person to Harry Potter was clever, we’ll give him that. But the rest of the plan was utterly excessive: Crouch Jr. already had Dumbledore and Harry’s trust and the perfect distraction. He didn’t need to enter the boy into the Tournament to begin with.

Using the Triwizard Tournament as a distraction, Fake Moody could have simply kidnapped Harry one afternoon, using a portal and an excuse of teaching The Boy Who Lived to shake off the Imperius curse. Then, after doing the deed with Lord Voldemort, he might have even wiped Harry’s memory with Obliviate and dropped him back at Hogwarts to keep Voldemort’s return in secret.

But no, he had to play fancy. It’s a miracle that plan worked at all, and Barty’s being caught was the least drawback. Well, apart from the Dark Lord sharing Harry Potter’s blood out of pure ignorance which Barty could have never known about.