Draco the Nutter (WAS: Fan Readings & Subversion)

[ms_superhero]

No: HPFGUIDX 35121

This was a very interesting, well-thought-out post, but I have a 
slightly different take on the following and thought I'd run it by 
you
--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "ssk7882" <theennead at a...> wrote:
> But what about JKR's idiosyncracies that I *haven't* consciously 
> noticed yet?  Are they leading me into erroneous assumptions as a 
> reader?
> 
> "Being Driven Right To The Brink of Sanity Draco" is another 
example 
> of this.  I have a strangely divided mind when it comes to those 
> scenes which illustrate The Very Worst Of Draco Malfoy.  The two 
that 
> leap to mind are these:
> 
> The very end of Chapter Eight, CoS: 
> "Then someone shouted through the quiet.
> "'Enemies of the heir, beware!  You'll be next, Mudbloods!'
> "It was Draco Malfoy.  He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his
> cold eyes alive, his unusally bloodless face flushed, as he grinned
> at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat."
<snip>
> And then this, towards the end of Chapter Thirty-seven, GoF:
> 
> "'So,' said Malfoy slowly, advancing slightly into the compartment
> and looking slowly around at them, a smirk quivering on his lips."
> <Draco's horrific "I tried to warn you" speech follows shortly
> thereafter>
> 
> Now, I'm almost certain that I'm supposed to read both of these
> scenes as a Just Plain Mean kid being spectacularly horrid.  And 
yet,
> my instinctive reading of Draco as he is described in both of
> those scenes is "stressed."  In the CoS passage he looks half-
crazed
> to me and not (as I suspect was the intended impression) with 
sadistic
> enjoyment, either.  He looks *febrile,* like someone who is being
> pushed to the very limits of his own sanity.  And similarly, in the
> GoF passage, that single word, "quivering," acts to undermine 
> completely for me the impression that I suspect JKR was actually 
> trying to convey.
> 
Actually, maybe she *is* trying to convey the impression of someone 
is on the brink of insanity?  These are the scenes where the Muggle-
hating fanaticism that was bred into him really come out.  Nasty as 
he is, he has to be a little nuts to be celebrating/gloating on both 
of these occasions (petrification of a cat/murder of a fellow 
student).  
Just a thought.
Elise