Personally, I thought the problem through and did, literally, draw a map of the room with its people and creatures, before coming on here, and yet I will own up to having not come up with anything at all and not even figured out which of the solutions proposed by others seemed most plausible.
The clue about seeing the Wizengamot as PCs rather than wallpaper rather fizzled out. They still look a lot like wallpaper, and only Lucius and Dumbledore look like PCs. Though Dumbledore has developed a sudden unexpected malware infection and Lucius is just weird.
What the hell is up with Dumbledore’s preference system?? He prefers Hermione (a probable innocent) going to Azkaban above Harry going into debt, and prefers that in turn over Harry destroying Azkaban and every last Dementor. What is Fawkes doing sitting on his shoulder? Hitting him with a wing… No. Should be pecking his eyes out.
And then, what is up with Lucius? After going on so strong about why he would never trade his son’s blood debt for money (yep, taboo trade off) he then… trades the blood debt for money! Huh?
OK, there’s the phoney blood-debt to House Potter in the mix somewhere, but he knows it’s phoney, and didn’t have to accept it. If he were serious about his son’s life as a sacred value, then he wouldn’t.
The only theory I have is that Lucius knows full well now that Hermione didn’t do it. (Harry handed him the idiot ball, he quickly got the point, and updated, though of course couldn’t admit to that in front of everyone). So there is no longer a taboo in swapping one phoney debt for another; it’s now all about mundane values like political advantage, personal prejudice (sticking it to the Mudblood), trying to embarrass Dumbledore and Boy-Who-Lived with impossible proposals, the off-chance of more gold to add to his pile; all tempered with confusion about whether the Dark Lord is really reborn, what he really wants out of the Mudblood, and why isn’t he being let in on the new master-plan?? Truly a vile little worm.
I agree; Lucius knows Hermione is innocent (not that she didn’t do it) and the clue about the Wizengamot fizzled out.
However, I think Dumbledore’s preferred outcomes here seem to be the smallest disturbances of the status quo. (Fawkes needs to give him a few more thwacks.) Hermione going to Azkaban disturbs things less than Harry going into debt disturbs things less than Harry destroying Azkaban. So at least there does seem to be a consistent utility function here. (The other, highly improbable, explanation for that preference ranking is that he approves of dementors feeding on innocents in general.)
I think Lucius is mostly grandstanding, just saying whatever will make him seem most like a formidable politician and least like he’s backing down.
Personally, I thought the problem through and did, literally, draw a map of the room with its people and creatures, before coming on here, and yet I will own up to having not come up with anything at all and not even figured out which of the solutions proposed by others seemed most plausible.
Couple of things:
The clue about seeing the Wizengamot as PCs rather than wallpaper rather fizzled out. They still look a lot like wallpaper, and only Lucius and Dumbledore look like PCs. Though Dumbledore has developed a sudden unexpected malware infection and Lucius is just weird.
What the hell is up with Dumbledore’s preference system?? He prefers Hermione (a probable innocent) going to Azkaban above Harry going into debt, and prefers that in turn over Harry destroying Azkaban and every last Dementor. What is Fawkes doing sitting on his shoulder? Hitting him with a wing… No. Should be pecking his eyes out.
And then, what is up with Lucius? After going on so strong about why he would never trade his son’s blood debt for money (yep, taboo trade off) he then… trades the blood debt for money! Huh?
OK, there’s the phoney blood-debt to House Potter in the mix somewhere, but he knows it’s phoney, and didn’t have to accept it. If he were serious about his son’s life as a sacred value, then he wouldn’t.
The only theory I have is that Lucius knows full well now that Hermione didn’t do it. (Harry handed him the idiot ball, he quickly got the point, and updated, though of course couldn’t admit to that in front of everyone). So there is no longer a taboo in swapping one phoney debt for another; it’s now all about mundane values like political advantage, personal prejudice (sticking it to the Mudblood), trying to embarrass Dumbledore and Boy-Who-Lived with impossible proposals, the off-chance of more gold to add to his pile; all tempered with confusion about whether the Dark Lord is really reborn, what he really wants out of the Mudblood, and why isn’t he being let in on the new master-plan?? Truly a vile little worm.
I agree; Lucius knows Hermione is innocent (not that she didn’t do it) and the clue about the Wizengamot fizzled out.
However, I think Dumbledore’s preferred outcomes here seem to be the smallest disturbances of the status quo. (Fawkes needs to give him a few more thwacks.) Hermione going to Azkaban disturbs things less than Harry going into debt disturbs things less than Harry destroying Azkaban. So at least there does seem to be a consistent utility function here. (The other, highly improbable, explanation for that preference ranking is that he approves of dementors feeding on innocents in general.)
I think Lucius is mostly grandstanding, just saying whatever will make him seem most like a formidable politician and least like he’s backing down.