I've been a bit annoyed with Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour lately. He was always asking Harry about what he did with Dumbledore and he tried to use Harry to up the Ministry's credibility, and perhaps that is all just because he wants to do good- but whatever he is, he's not exactly the MoM that should be in office.
Scrimgeour behaves more like an old war veteran/general than a Minister. I didn't like him for a long time but now, as a character, he's starting to grow on me. I don't like the fact that he's the Minister, but I think he's a person who would be a good military strategent. It's obvious that the Ministry is in crisis. Scrimgeour is described as resembling a lion. The comparision implies the physical strength and power of Scrimgeour, but physical strength is not what the position Minister of Magic encompasses. The Ministry seems to be grasping on to a person who is not well-endowed mentally, but instead a person who seems to thrive on physical confrontations. The limp (which is not much of a physical handicap to said Minister) Scrimgeour exhibits reminds me of that of a sustaining injury a soldier would have. Also, I find that Scrimgeour is clever- not smart, but clever. He pretends to be nice to Harry to try to get what he wants- but I don't find that to be a display of intelligence, I find that to be a display of trickery that a credible Minister shouldn't be using.
Another couple possibilities are that ol' Scrimgeour is under the Imperius or that he's a Death Eater. He was surely prodding Harry for answers about the latter's journey with Dumbledore... Then again, that must could have simply been because the Ministry wants to be involved in activity against Voldemort. I now highly doubt in my mind that he's either of the two but remember that the possibility indeed exists.
So what is Scrimgeour? Is he a well-meaning man hired because of his similarity to a war general? Is he a Death Eater in disguise? A poor man under the Imperius? These are questions that cannot definitively be determined until the seventh book is released. Ultimately though, I believe he's a good man at heart, just the wrong man for the job. He should be on the battlefield, not behind a desk.
