Malfoy's Redemption

[Haggridd]

No: HPFGUIDX 25344

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., cassandraclaire at m... wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Haggridd" <jkusalavagemd at y...> wrote:
> > --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Eric Oppen" <oppen at c...> wrote:

> 
> 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

Perhaps it was just that lack of foreshadowing in Pettigrew's case 
that prompted the New Yorker criticism.  I must disagree with you 
about foreshadowing in general.  It is just this foreshadowing that 
makes the better mystery stories work as well as they do, it is this 
foreshadowing that allows the reader to see that, if he or she had 
been perceptive enough, they would have realized what was really
meant by the earlier passages, and that the author didn't pull a 
surprise out of her ear, the old "deus ex machina."  JKR's use of 
foreshadowing, such as:  the overheard conversations with Quirrel-- 
such as the false Moody's not knowing the rules for disciplining 
students; such as Snape's acting honorably from Book I forward in 
contradiction of Harry's opinion of him-- is her strength, not her 
weakness.  Draco may yet turn out to be good, but if JKR writes this 
without having laid a proper foundation, it will be a tired old 
rabbit-out-of-a-hat-magic-trick, and not the real magic we all know 
she can write.

Haggridd