Malfoy's Redemption

[cassandraclaire at mail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 25342

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Haggridd" <jkusalavagemd at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Eric Oppen" <oppen at c...> wrote:
> 
> Eric, that was an insightful catalogue of some of the origins for 
the   many unresolved conflicts that, sadly, persist to this day.


*Nods at Eric.* I agree -- that was an amazingly insightful post and 
you made some excellent points regarding the kind of reasons an old 
wizarding family like the Malfoys might have not to trust Muggles. 
(I'm not excusing their attitudes, just thanking Eric for providing 
those attitudes with a possible frame of reference.)


Hagridd: However, hen I speak of Draco's irredeemability, I do so not 
as a matter of 
> personal preference, but as a result of my conclusions after 
reading 
> what JKR has had Draco say and do.  Whatever charitable impulses I 
> might have for a person like Draco, as a character in a narrative,
> JKR has created Draco without any good side.  There has been no 
> foreshadowing of his redemption in the books to date." 

Well it wouldn't be much of a redemption if it had been foreshadowed
would it? There wasn't a heck of a lot of suggestion in the first two 
books that Scabbers the rat was in fact a deep-dyed villain either. 
He was a nice little rat without a bad side and then, bam, he was a 
slithering evildoer. *blink* In fact, I've seen the New Yorker cite 
the fact that JKR gives her plot twists so very little foreshadowing 
at all as being a weakness in the series. (I don't agree it's a 
weakness but I will agree she does it.) I maintain that while D. has 
shown no good side, he hasn't killed or maimed or done anything that 
would render him irredeemable via a trial by fire yet. And as Eric 
pointed out, he's all of fifteen (fourteen, I thought, actually?). I 
do think his extreme youth buys him a few inches of leeway.

Cassie