You're forgetting that there's supposed to be a curse on the position. I'm not sure about you but I wouldn't want to take a position that came with a healthy chance of death at the end.

 

Only Quierll died, which is ironic.

 

And so did fake Moody and Snape.

 

Snape didn't die the year he taught, though.

 

Eh, that's true. Still everyone who has taken the position was fucked in some sort of way or another.

Quirrell died. Lockhart got his memories wiped. Remus died. Barty Crouch died. Snape also died. Strangely, I can't think of anything that happened to Umbridge besides the centaur incident.

 

So the worst of the lot got the least punishment? That's totally fucked up karma .

 

She got centaur raped. She got fucked up somethin', that's for sure

 

Quaid was killed.

 

Who's Quaid?

 

Corrected slight mistake... As, if I remeber correctly, Crouch Jr. got his soul sucked out by a dementor at the end of book 4...
^ Quaid?? Huh??

 

Except for the fact that Barty Crouch, a random death eater, managed to impersonate one of Dumbledore's close friends (Moody) for an entire year without Dumbledore noticing... Yes, Dumbledore could be fooled pretty damn easily in my opinion.

 

Indeed, he and Wormtail engineered the plan, overpowered Moody in his own home, stunned him, polijuiced him, imperiused him, acted like him, questioned him to learn about his life and habits and then acted like Moody all year long.

 

Do you really think it would be that easy to impersonate someone for a whole year without slipping up? I still find it ridiculous that by simply "questioning him" Crouch somehow became an expert at mimicking his behavior. Dumbledore can use legilimency, for crying out loud. And even if he was too noble to use it, Snape would've tried to read his mind at some point. It's all quite preposterous.

 

The books were written for children,
The books were written for children,
The books were written for children,


When the plot holes drive me mad, I remember her target audience...

 

I highly doubt Snape would have attempted to read Moody's mind, he was said to be avoiding Moody, I got the impression that Moody never trusted Snape, Moody was known to be a fearsome auror (fuck DH, shit all over thet shit) and was probably versed for any legilimency attempts.

As for Dumbledore, perhaps Crouch was good at occlumency, after all Bellatrix is known to be able to teach Occlumency, so it seems that Crouch one of the other big death eaters would also be versed in the art.

 

Reminds me of a fic by Skysaber on ffnet, Gilded Life, featuring a more-than-he-seems Lockhart (though his competence the result of a self-insertion.. or something? that part confused me).

As far as canon Lockhart goes... he has to be pretty competent to trick the whole world into believing he's done all these amazing things. Fraud on that level is impressive. Where he fumbles up is during stressful situations: even a 'fight' (and I use the term loosely) with some pixies is too much for the guy.