Barty Crouch Jr. artwork (⚠︎ TW: Hanging)
The time-lapse, close-ups, a version without the text, and some rambling below the cut:
Close-ups and a no-text version:
The song ends with asking their true love:
Slack your rope, hangman Slack it far and wide I think I see my true love comin' Ridin' many a mile True love, have you brought me hope Or have you paid my fee? Or, have you come to see me hanging From the gallows tree? Yes, I have brought you hope Yes, I have paid your fee For I've not come to see you hanging From the gallows tree
I don't think Barty is suicidal. Actually, I think he's terrified of death. He's terrified of a lot of things. Of his father's disapproval. Of his mother's suffering. Of being alone in a world that never once told him he was enough. As a child he made himself small and palatable for a father who never once looked at him and said "good job."
He is dependent on judgement. He does not have a stable self outside someone else’s gaze. Every terrible thing Barty does is still addressed to his father. Even if it's subconscious, his actions say: look at me.
Look at how much I can hurt.
Look at how much I can destroy.
Evan is not a savior in shining armor. He's an enabler, because he never tells Barty to stop, never says "revenge is consuming you." And he's also a victim. Barty's war with his own father is the reason Evan dies.
Before Barty, I think Evan didn't care much if he lived or died. He protected Pandora and shouldered a lot of responsibility as the sole male heir (I think the Rosier's were very rigid and traditional, almost cultish). But the distance between them had grown wide over the years. Not because they didn't love each other. Because they did, and they learned that distance was the safest thing they could do to make sure their parents couldn't use one of them to get to the other.
When Evan met Barty, he had someone he felt like he needed to protect again. Someone who needed him close instead of far away. And it saved him. It really did. He wanted to live. He wanted a future, something he'd never allowed himself to imagine.
Barty keeps going even after Evan is gone. He keeps going after his father gives in to his mother's pleas and drags him out of Azkaban. After he locks him inside the house for a decade and pretends he doesn't exist once again.
His father is still the center of his universe. The rage is still there. The need to prove something, to hurt back, to make him feel even a fraction of the pain he feels.
Would an apology have felt cathartic? Would it have been enough?
When someone nearly destroys themselves to get that apology, I think it would feel contaminated. What he really wants is for Crouch Sr. to look at him unprompted and understand the wound because a father should understand, not because Barty finally made himself too grotesque to ignore.
An apology would not free Barty. And his father could never apologize in the right way. He does not understand.
Barty does everything his father fears and still it's never enough.
He kills him, but even that's not enough.
Time-Lapse:
Drawing time: 7.5 h
Rate my life choices on the autism scale: 1 being 'that's a perfectly normal amount of time to spend on foliage' and 10 being 'You need an intervention'. I spent almost 4 hours on a tree on a Friday night instead of hanging out with people (which are people I don't really like anyway, so I tell myself it's fine). And I can't drink because of my medication. So it's just me and this tree. We're in a committed relationship now.
