Wherefore Art Thou Draco

[heidi tandy]

No: HPFGUIDX 37910

Because Lucius Said So.

--- marinafrants <rusalka at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "arcleveland"
> <arclevel at m...> wrote:
> 
> > 	However, I don't believe that this quote makes
> Draco 
> > hopeless.  It could make him a teenaged kid who
> has never had to
> come 
> > to terms with death and doesn't grasp the hard
> reality of the 
> > situation.  He's glad to see the Dark Lord back
> because he's
> > always been told that the Dark Lord was good, and
> so far he's 
> > never seen anything to make him question that.  
> 
--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "marinafrants"
<rusalka at i...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "arcleveland"
<arclevel at m...> wrote:
> 
> > 	However, I don't believe that this quote makes
Draco 
> > hopeless.  It could make him a teenaged kid who
has never had to
> come 
> > to terms with death and doesn't grasp the hard
reality of the 
> > situation.  He's glad to see the Dark Lord back
because he's
> > always been told that the Dark Lord was good, and
so far he's 
> > never seen anything to make him question that.  
> 
> Hi, Manda!  Welcome to the list.  You make a lot of
interesting points
> here, and I'm not quite ready to deal with them all,
but I do want to
> address this one.
> 
> First of all, I agree that Draco does come across as
a kid who doesn't
> really understand what death and suffering is really
about (which is
> one of the reasons why I don't buy the "he's abused"
theory).  But if
> Cedric Diggory's death hasn't made him start
questioning if Voldemort
> is really good, then what the heck will it take? 
Cedric was not a
> Mudblood, and while he may have been a Muggle-lover,
we don't see him
> conspicuously hanging around with any Muggle-borns
the way Ron and
> Harry do.  He's a nice, pureblood wizard from an
inoffensive house. 
> There's no indication that he ever had any problems
with Draco.  Now
> he's dead just 'cause he happened to be standing
next to Harry at the
> wrong time -- and Draco doesn't seem to see anything
wrong with that. 
> Would it have been different if he actually saw
Cedric's dead body, or
> heard Voldemort coldly saying "Kill the spare?"  I
don't know.
> 
> That said, I don't think any of Draco's actions to
date make him
> irredeemable.  Snape, after all, has probably done a
lot worse than
> make himself obnoxious in a train compartment, and
he got a shot at
> redemption, so why not Draco?  But it would take
loads and loads of
> character development, since so far I think he
hasn't been shown as
> anything more than a shallow bully.


 
 Marina (she of the FILKs) wrote: 
> First of all, I agree that Draco does come across as
> a kid who doesn't
> really understand what death and suffering is really
> about (which is
> one of the reasons why I don't buy the "he's abused"
> theory).  

A few points on the Abused!Draco question:
1. Psychological abuse and physical abuse could cause
different "reactions" to this sort of setup. In other
words, if Lucius is psychologically abusive to his son
(continuously degrades or belittles the other or
accuses the other of being stupid, unattractive, a bad
person, any similar fault, the pattern of behaviour
and attitudes towards a child that endangers or
impairs the child's emotional or intellectual
development.  Can include spurning, terrorizing,
isolating, exploiting/corrupting or denying emotional
responsiveness, or controling the child through
promises or threats) then Draco wouldn't have the same
understanding of death and violence that physically
abused children develop, but he also wouldn't
necessarily have been able to develop the emotional
well-being and perspective to think things through on
his own, independend of the prism that Lucius has
taught him through. 

I think that there would be no argument here with the
following sentence: Draco has emulated or mimicked
Lucius behaviour or thinking on various issues.

Clearly, he does when he spouts out against Weasleys
in general, or Arthur or Ron in particular. He does
when voicing sentiments against muggle-born students
(or do you think he developed that all on his own
during PS/SS?). He does when he's speaking out against
Hagrid in PoA - it's clear that Lucius is spearheading
the prosecution (does he still want power at Hogwarts
even after he's off the board? And does anyone, other
than the trio and a few teachers, know eexactly why
he's off the board? It's never made clear). 

Now, it's not unusual for children to say what their
parents do - children usually model their thoughts and
behaviours on their parents' until they are old enough
to think for themselves - usually, this happens upon
adolescence.  It's not uncommon for children, before
they reach the teen yars of rebellion, to see their
parents as infallible and beyond contradiction.  Draco
seems to be stuck in this stage - and if he's
surrounded by people in his house who also come from
homes where Muggleborns are frowned on and Dumbledore
is criticised and "liberal" or "muggle-loving"
perspectives are laughed at, it would be very
difficult to see things in another way. 

People have argued that at Hogwarts, where he's
exposed to kids from Muggle backgrounds who are
smarter than him (like Hermione) and where he is
exposed to Dumbledore's "Muggle-loving", he should see
that the world is not what Lucius described. BUt when
is he to see this? Only at the end of Book 4 does
Dumbledore ever talk about Voldemort; nowhere does
Dumbledore do a big speach about living together and
building bridges among the houses (schools, yes!
houses - never a word!) and becoming understanding of
other witches & wizards regardless of background. He
never does it. Are his housemates? And if they did,
would he listen to them over Lucius? Has Snape?
Doubtful he's done more than an official paen of some
sort - it would be too risky. 

WHich leads to...

> But if
> Cedric Diggory's death hasn't made him start
> questioning if Voldemort
> is really good, then what the heck will it take? 
> Cedric was not a
> Mudblood, and while he may have been a Muggle-lover,
> we don't see him
> conspicuously hanging around with any Muggle-borns
> the way Ron and
> Harry do.  He's a nice, pureblood wizard from an
> inoffensive house. 
> There's no indication that he ever had any problems
> with Draco.  Now
> he's dead just 'cause he happened to be standing
> next to Harry at the
> wrong time -- and Draco doesn't seem to see anything
> wrong with that. 
> Would it have been different if he actually saw
> Cedric's dead body, or
> heard Voldemort coldly saying "Kill the spare?"  I
> don't know.
We don't even know if Draco knows that Cedric was
killed simply because he was standing next to Harry.
They were told that Cediric was a good, kind boy who
was killed because he crossed the path of Voldemort -
what does that mean? The only people who saw Cedric
killed were Harry and Wormtail - I'm not sure what
Voldemort was "seeing" but he certainly ordered it.
And Lucius saw Cedric's body, saw Harry flee with it -
but he would know only what Voldemort told his
followers after Harry escaped. 

He probably didn't tell them the truth.

There's a hint at the end of GoF that there are rumors
flying that Harry was somehow involved in Cedric's
death in a way other than the horrible "accident" of
having him grab the Cup at the same time as he did.
It's entirely possible that Draco and other students
think that Harry was to blame. And on the train, he's
repearing a *fact* about Cedric - he was the first to
be killed now that the Dark Lord's returned. It's
true. He was. And everything else Draco says there is
also true. Muggle-borns and those who support Muggles
and Muggle-born witches and wizards *are* the most in
danger now that Voldemort has returned. And Harry
would probably have less threats to his life if he'd
accepted Draco's hand in friendship. The style is
sneering and nasty. The sentences are all completely
true. And if there are rumors flying about Cedric's
death, if people are saying things - and if Draco is
believing things - that aren't the truth, he might
feel justified in his words. 

It's not an uncommon thing - I've seen it happen just
this winter. If a friend of yours tells you a lie, and
you don't have any information to the contraty, will
you believe it? Or, as it's your friend, will you take
it as truth without questioning it? Or would you even
question it and your friend has an explanation, would
you believe it then?

Most likely. That's the nature of gossip, of rumor, of
those chain letters on the internet that tell you that
Bill Gates is going to send you to Disneyworld for
forwarding an email to 10 people. Why should Draco
have a different way of believing information than
anyone else?

(reminder, before someone asks: Draco did stand for
Cedric at the leaving feast; he just didn't stand for
Harry - which is consistant with the rumor thing)


Arclevel also wrote:
> The first thing to remember about Draco is that we
see him entirely 
> through Harry's limited POV, perhaps more so than
most of the
> other characters... Since JKR apparently has
constructed
> backstories and personalities for even her minor
characters, I 
> think there has to be more to Draco than the little
bit that he 
> shows Harry, and that we thus see.

True - for many other characters who we *know* have
shades of black and white (the real Moody, Snape,
Sirius, Lupin, even Wormtail) - we hear stories about
them from other characters. Sirius speaks of Moody
with regard to the Unforgivable Curses, and about
Snape's childhood. Lupin tells about his childhood and
his Hogwarts friends. We learn about Snape in the
Pensieve, and about Sirius from Fudge and McGonnagal
when they speak with Madam Rosemerta. We've never
heard a story about Draco from anyone - we only know
the interactions we've seen. And in all but 3 of them,
he knows Harry is there. ANd in one of them - at the
World Cup, he warns the boys to get Hermione out of
there - he is mean to Ron and criticises Hermione when
he does it, but he could've summoned the Death Eaters
instead, even surreptitiously. He didn't. 

And look at the way Snape describes Sirius - or the
way Sirius describes Snape. If all  you knew of Sirius
was what Snape said about him, would you think he was
a good guy, kind to his grandson, willing to eat rats
to keep an eye on him? 

> I'd like to
> see more depth to Draco's character, but I'm not
real sure how
> we'll see it, given the perspective.    

I'll lay my bets with the Goblins that we'll learn of
it the same way we've learned Snape's backstory, or
Sirius's, or even Moody's. Mostly things said by other
characters, perhaps a trip into a Pensieve or
something similar. We should get more depth, either as
an illustration of how someone is raised into evil, or
how someone chooses to turn away from it.

heidi
Follow me to FictionAlley.org - HP fanfic of all
shapes, sizes & SHIPs
http://www.fictionalley.org

=====
heidi tandy

They say its a sign of mental health to hold apparently contradictory ideas in your mind. The world of late has been a particularly exotic stew of horror and beauty. There are killers, there are saints. The trick is to find the right spot on the spectrum between abject despair and total obliviousness. And then carry on...
Joel Achenbach

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