Draco the Nutter? (was: The Dullest Redemption Subplot Ever -- Draco the Nutter

[errolowl <nithya_rachel@hotmail.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51730

 

Draco the Evil I can deal with...but so far we've also had him up
for the post of nincompoop, a coddled nancy boy (Vernon does use some 
interesting terms), and a candidate for the loony bin. Give the guy a 
break!

MadMadMad!Draco
Oh goody! what fun Elkins...now we can have a duel with fake wands.
<g>

Elkins:
>>Well, first off, I don't see Draco as having very much in the way 
of emotional resilience. <snip> He loses his temper easily. Although 
he verbally provokes others all the time, he can't stand being 
verbally provoked himself. Not only can't he take what he dishes out; 
he actually loses his *head* over it. He flushes, he blanches, he 
shrieks; he spits out racial epithets; he goes for his wand. His 
emotional control would seem to be virtually nil.
So I do see him as rather unstable, I guess.<<


Hmm, that's how Tom Felton played him in the movie, true. Ok,
lets look at a few confrontations.

I can't resist our introduction to Draco at Diagon Alley –
"a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool"
"Hello" said the boy, "Hogwarts too?"

A right friendly greeting to a stranger. And he keeps the 
conversation going even when he gets monosyllabic responses – it
only turns uncomfortable once they disagree about Hagrid. Draco here 
is inflexible, prejudiced. So convinced in his point of view that he 
now begins to sneer at Harry for standing up for Hagrid. A stubborn 
person, but not necessarily a nutty one. He has a "slight
sneer" and responds in a "bored, drawling voice", I
don't see himlosing his temper at the first signs of disagreement 
here. Ok, he wasn't provoked enough...so lets see...

There's the meeting on the train, where Draco introduces himself,
and Ron sniggers. Draco responds with an insult – but there is no
sign that it was a heated exchange. Draco insults Ron almost 
casually, turns back to Harry and offers to shake hands. When Harry 
declines, Draco doesn't go ballistic, or even red in the face. In 
fact,Rowling draws attention to that fact.
"Draco Malfoy didn't go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his
pale cheeks. "I'd be careful if I were you Potter" he said
slowly." 
A misguided parroting of his father's attitude, angry but
restrained. 

And the rememberall incident. He's nasty and taunting, and then 
worried when Harry proves to be a bigger opponent than he would have 
imagined. So he gets out of the situation as smoothly as he can by 
throwing the ball. No panic, rather slick. Except for the fact that 
Harry was a ready made seeker, it would have worked, making Harry 
look inadequate.

Next there's a Ron/Draco fight at the Quidditch match. Draco, Ron
and Neville are exchanging insults here, and then "Ron snapped.
Before Malfoy knew what was happening, Ron was on top of him, 
wrestling him to the ground." Draco did manage to give Ron a 
nosebleed there. 

You mentioned wands, but in that GoF scene its *Harry* who gets out 
his wand first. And Ron's done it at least twice.

I could mumble on, but let me look at the scenes Elkins has a 
particular problem with:

>> He's not just a coward; he also seems to be somewhat prone to 
hysteria. He fled screaming from that scene in the forest, for 
example. Even Neville, who is canonically established as not only 
quite timid but also as very easily flustered, was able to 
keep his head enough to send up the flares when *he* had been 
frightened. Draco, on the other hand, just went completely to 
pieces.  <<

Well, Harry panicked too! He just froze in place, couldn't move
for fear. And Draco yelled and ran, and admittedly, he's not as
brave as Harry. (He's not even in Gryffindor now is he?) None of
this makes him Hysterical. And neither of them sent up sparks. We
don't know how far Draco ran, or if he then stopped to send up 
sparks. Draco is not mentioned in that scene again. 

If anything, this detention shows that he can deal with fear. Lets go 
back to when the detention starts. Filch tells them about it,
- - - - -  - - 
At this, Neville let out a little moan, and Malfoy stopped dead in 
his tracks.
"The forest?" he repeated, and he didn't sound quite
as cool as usual. "we can't go in there at night –
there's all
sorts of things in there – werewolves, I heard."
<snip>
"I'm not going in that forest" he said, and Harry was
pleased to hear the note of panic in his voice.
<snip>
"but this is servant stuff, it's not for students to do."
<snip Hagrid telling him he has to>
Malfoy didn't move. He looked at Hagrid furiously, but then he 
dropped his gaze.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ok, so he shows fear here. He was "not quite as cool as
usual" – that doesn't imply he lost his cool. Harry is
pleased to hear the fear in his voice (and gleefully notes it as 
panic) but that fear is valid. There are horrible things in the 
forest, and Draco has always shown a healthy sense of self 
preservation. He even asks for Fang for company not knowing he was 
useless. But once he accepts it, he enters the forest and unwinds 
enough to revert to his normal self – he spitefully jumps at
Neville. 
He might have been trying to prove that there was someone more scared 
than he was, but it is not a panic reaction, nor hysteria. :)


Elkins:
>>Two years later, he showed the same failure of nerve on the train, 
when confronted by the dementor. We know that he is proud and 
arrogant, and that his family holds the Weasley clan in utter 
contempt, yet he fled into the train compartment occupied by *Fred 
and George.* That *had* to have been a rather serious failure of 
nerve, I'd say. For Draco to have done that, I think that he must 
have been seriously panicked. <<

Dementors affect people, and they're horrible around kids, if
Poppy Pomfrey is to be believed. Harry Fainted, Draco got out of 
their way. Yes he was upset, so was everyone else who came in contact 
with them. If you were in a narrow corridor and saw & felt a dementor 
come towards you in the dark, wouldn't you get out of it's
path and into the nearest compartment/ bay? You wouldn't know who
was in there till you got *in* there right? I'm assuming by
`compartment' here they mean one of the closed bays off the
corridor. (I've noticed JKR uses it for both the bays and the
coach/
carriage as a whole.) So though Fred and George put a negative 
connotation to it to cheer Harry up, I'd say it was a natural 
sequence of events. There's nothing to indicate that he fled the 
length of the train till he found Fred & George's compartment and 
huddled whimpering behind them!! <g> (That would have been fun though)

More Elkins:
He doesn't recover too well from trauma either. Long after the 
Bouncing Ferret incident, he's still jumping and blanching at even 
the sound of Moody's *name.* "Twitchy little ferret," yes?

Oh, oh! I'm not sure how I'd react to trauma! Having an
involuntary reaction to the reminder of a malevolent, powerful wizard 
who transfigures and *bounces* him around when he least expects it, 
and then threatens him still further -  I kind of sympathize with 
him. Maybe the trio wouldn't have reacted that way, but
they're way above average in dealing with such situations. I can
see Seamus reacting along those lines, or Dean, or Colin Creevy
or
.
That does not make him specially neurotic. He flushes with anger when 
Hagrid threatens to do the same. 

Elkins:
>> I do see him as rather unstable, I guess. Mainly, though, what 
interests me about that aspect of his character is that it often 
seems to be at its *most* pronounced when he is also on his very 
*worst* (and most "Junior Death Eater-ish") behavior.
When he pushes his way to the front of the crowd to deliver his gloat 
over the writing on the wall in CoS, for example, he is described in 
oddly febrile terms, "cold eyes alive, his
usually bloodless face flushed." Perhaps this is meant to convey 
merely sadistic excitement. To me, though, it always reads like he's 
tottering on the brink of his own sanity. His demeanor at the QWC, 
while the Muggle-baiting is going on, is similarly peculiar, and even 
slightly reminiscent of Snape: he is ostensibly relaxed, even 
nonchalant, but there's a strange intensity to his dialogue and "his 
pale eyes" are "glittering." <<

<G> Are you implying Snape is Nutty now? ;-)

You said it yourself – a flushed face could be meant to convey 
excitement. Even triumph that his prejudices are getting support. 
It's a strong reaction, but there is nothing with that
description to imply nervous excitement, a shrill voice, manic 
laughter...you get my drift? Now, I'm not arguing with you
Elkins...I quite admire your points. I just don't buy them! :)

Don't think I don't see what you're trying to do. If you
can prove insanity, he just might get out of serving time at Azkaban 
way in the future eh?... or perhaps avoid even that teeny weeny 
repentance due now? <bg>

Errol
Who gives a yelp of surprise when the rubber wand squeaks and turns 
into a Draco action figure.