Draco vs Ron (Was Re: Musings on Draco0

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 35405

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "uncmark" <uncmark at y...> wrote:
> I posted on my Nephew's idea on a Draco/Hermione match because he 
> says Draco warned Hermione at the World Cup. 
> As I remember it, Draco warned Harmione to "Watch out if you don't 
> want everyone to see your knickers!" 
> 
The incident brought to mind a son of a Grand Wizard 
> reveling as his fathers group of Klansman milested a black woman. 
If 
> he warned a black girl that she would be next would that show any 
> feelings but the basest?
> 
Malfoy . . . boasted "But I know one thing -- last time the Chamber 
of secrets was 
> opened, a Mudblood died. So I bet it's a matter of time before one 
of 
> them's killed this time.... I hope it's Granger," he said in relish"
> 
> Doesn't sound too subtle or hidden. Draco would like H dead. > I 
think her treatment of the Malfoy's might be JKR's greatest 
> challenge. It's easy to write racists, It hard to write multi-
> dimensional characters. ) 
> 
> Still if we see a full wizard war and Draco is forced to become a 
> participant, he will have to make a difficult choice... And as 
Dumble 
> dore told Harry in ChofS Ch. 18, "It is our choices, Harry, that 
show 
> ehat we truly are, far more than our abilities."
> 
Appealing as the Draco redemption scenario may be to drive home the 
choices-make-character message, the Draco we have seen to date is, 
IMO, too flat and one-sided to make a credible about-face.  As your 
evidence makes clear, Draco is generally presented as a cowardly 
aristocratic racist snob, though an intelligent one (and therein lies 
a basis for hope).  But he's worse than that:  the death wishes for 
Hermione that he expresses periodically, as you point out, go way 
beyond mere adolescent bullying and veer sharply in the direction of 
the sociopathic child who if left unchecked may take Daddy's arsenal 
to school one day for a murder-suicide rampage (though, in another 
glimmer of hope, he never threatens to carry out the threats 
himself).  And I cannot read his watch-out-for-your-knickers remark 
to Hermione to suggest any feelings toward her other than violence.  
Turning women upside down in the air to expose their knickers is 
probably the closest you can come to rape in a book that is sold in 
the children's section of bookstores.  I'm not an expert on this 
subject, but I do seem to recall that the sociological take on rape 
is that for the rapist that act is about power and control over the 
victim, and not in any measure about feelings.  

Finally, the end of GoF offers no evidence that there has been any 
change whatsoever in Draco's apparent desire for Hermione's 
death.  "He jerked his head at Ron and Hermione.  'They'll be the 
first to go, now the Dark Lord's back!  Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers 
first!'"  What's interesting about this is that, instead of the usual 
response to Draco's threats, where Ron pulls out his wand and the 
others stop him, saying it isn't worth it, this time Harry and 
Hermione join Ron in cursing Draco, as well as Crabbe and Goyle.  
This seems to me to ratchet up the antagonism toward real violence, 
and does not bode well for the shades of gray that I would need to 
see to make Draco's redemption credible.

Of course, we do have a model of redemption already in the person of 
Severus Snape, who is so deliciously nuanced and complicated to have 
spawned reams and reams of posts full of fascinating speculation 
about him and what prompted him to abandon the DEs, just in the last 
few weeks.  History could repeat itself, but I haven't seen anything 
in Draco's development to date -- except his cowardice -- that would 
lead us to believe he would abandon his father's side. (I can see him 
being unable to carry out the death threats, but that would be far 
short of a redemption.)  

Debbie