Draco and redemption potential (long)

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 38053

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., heidit at n... wrote:
> In a message dated 4/19/2002 11:03:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
> lucky_kari at y... writes: 
> > 
> > Now, whether he can come back is another question. But I think 
he's 
> > already crossed the crucial line.
> 
> What crucial line is that? The Line of Saying Obnoxious Things? The 
Line of 
> Being Cruel?  Or the Line of Coping With Things One Cannot Really 
Comprehend 
> by Joking About Them, which a lot of teens then would've crossed 
>after 9/11. 

Having just experience a young teenager crossing the crucial line a 
few days ago, I'll probably be extremely emotional about this.

My good old brother Stephen, who is learning to control his temper, 
but can't keep out of arguments had a very nasty Draco-like experience 
recently.

One of his classmates said something like, "Oh, that's so Jewish," in 
which "Jewish" meant "idiotic." Stephen and several other classmates 
took them up on that, along the lines of "Excuse me? What are you 
saying? Decent human beings don't talk like that." 

This person then turned on my brother and said, "Are you Jewish?"

My brother, being a little too honest, said, "No. I'm not, but my 
ancestors were, and my last name's Jewish."

"I hate you. I hope you'll die too with all the Jews."

That is crossing the line, in my opinion. That is evil. I don't care 
if it's a teenager who says it. It put a chill down my spine when I 
heard it, given the current climate of anti-Semitic violence. And, 
it's about the same thing as Draco says.

Now, it puzzles me that Draco redemptionists don't really want him to 
have anything to be redeemed from. 

> ANd I also don't really think that it's a significant degree of 
cruelty for 
> him to have been set against Hagrid after Buckbeak struck him in 3rd 
year. 

Well, I agree there. Too bad Buckbeak had to suffer for Hagrid's 
stupidities.

Eileen