From HPforGrownups - Draco as Darcy? (Was: Re: FF: Speculation - a matter of perspective)]

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 38826

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., heidit at n... <heidit at n...> wrote:
> If anyone wants to get into a more extensive discussion of Pride &
Prejudice
> we should move that over to OT Chatter...

I think I can manage to keep this on topic.  I hope so, anyhow, since
I don't read OT Chatter...


> Darcy is in his late 20s, a gentleman whose father has died at least
five
> years before the novel begins. Draco is, when we last see him,
fourteen years
> old and still quite under his father's (eye/control/thumb/financial
> grip/demands) (choose whichever one you feel most appropriate). 
Draco's
> father is abusive, at least to the servants (slaves, if you prefer
Hermione's
> term) and many see him as also having been at least emotionally
abusive to his
> son. 

All the more reason why the first character cannot be used as a basis
of comparison for the second.  What do we know of Darcy as a child? 
Mrs. Reynolds says she's known him since he was four, and "never had a
cross word from him," and that he was "good-natured," "affable to the
poor," and "the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted" boy in the
world.  I doubt any of the Malfoy house elves would give a similar
testimony to Draco.  I certainly can't see young Darcy cheating at
sports, arranging a duel and failing to show up, or faking an injury
to get an animal executed just because he wants to cause distress to
the animal's owner.

Draco's problem is that he has the overweening pride of aristocracy
without the corresponding sense of noblesse oblige.  He doesn't feel
that his inborn superiority requires him to behave with superior
virtue.  It never occurs to him that the Malfoy name may be ill-served
by such crass actions as using his father's wealth to buy a place on
the Quidditch team, or spreading rumors about his rivals to a tabloid
reporter.  Now, I realize that this is mostly Lucius' fault for
setting such a crappy example.  But given that Draco is what he is,
and was brought up the way he was, what will motivate him to change? 
For Darcy, all it took was Elizabeth pointing out that he wasn't
behaving like a gentleman; his own conscience did the rest.  It will
take a lot more than that to spur Draco's conscience to action.  His
parents won't guide him to better behavior; neither will his friends. 
His head of house can't do it without risking his cover, and his other
teachers are taking a hands-off approach.  I suspect that if Draco is
to be redeemed, then life itself will have to be his teacher.  Some
future sequence of events will have to break through his selfishness
and arrogance and force him to start caring about how his actions
affect other people.  

> Perhaps it's just that I see Draco as the foil and
> not the villain that I don't really find it easy to make such
parallels either
> - he hasn't actually *done* anything evil, so I find it hard to
parallel him
> to characters who have done evil things. It just doesn't fit. 

He has not done anything evil, but he has certainly done things
Hermione considers to be immoral and/or unjust. And we know how
strongly she reacts to injustice. I think the persecution of Bugbeak
will always be a sore point with her.  She worked her little
Muggle-born butt off for most of the school year fighting for
Bugbeak's acquittal, putting in huge amounts of time and effort on top
of an already insane academic load, all because she truly felt that a
miscarriage of justice was being perpetrated.  Then all her efforts
came to naught, and the best she could do was help Buckbeak escape
into hiding.  It's no coincidence that the only time Hermione was
spurred to a show of violent anger toward Draco was over Buckbeak's
conviction.  She will shrug off any number of insults to herself, but
it will take a hell of a lot to get her over an injustice done to
another.

Note that Darcy was innocent of the one truly unjust action Elizabeth
believed him guilty of.  Her prejudice made her believe Wickham's
story, and for as long as she believed it, Darcy was disqualified as a
suitor, regardless of anything he might have said about Elizabeth
herself or her family.  If Darcy had been guilty, it wouldn't have
made him evil -- it's not like Wickham was accusing him of murder or
rape or something -- but there's no way he would've gotten the girl.

I think it's worth reiterating at this point that I'm not arguing
against the possibility of Draco turning good.  I just think that
setting him up as the Potterverse Darcy glosses over his flaws and the
obstacles that stand between him and redemption.  Darcy, stung by
Elizabeth's accusations, goes off to do some soul-searching and voila!
-- returns as a suitable love interest.  Why is he able to do it so
easily?  Because he was a fundamentally good person all along, brought
up right from early childhood.  Draco's been brought up very, very
wrong.  In a way, I think comparing Draco and Darcy does Draco a
disservice; if he redeems himself, it will be a far greater feat than
what Darcy managed.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com