Elkins' Draco Malfoy Is Ever So Lame. (But not sympathetic)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 124484


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:

> Betsy:
> Ah yes, the Inquisitorial Squad.  Classic example of those not 
> excepted into the first treehouse building a bigger and better one 
> of their own.  Not one member of the DA considered including a 
> Slytherin.  Yes, I know.  That house is evil, all future Death 
> Eaters, should probably be clapped into Azkaban as soon as they 
> graduate. (Lord, but I hope JKR isn't as black and white as that!)  
> But when you exclude a group from your club, you shouldn't be 
> surprised if they set up a rival club of their own.

It's, ummm, a rather nasty 'rival club'.  It's not that they went off 
on their own to work on things, it's that they decided the best way 
to treat their fellow students was to suck up to an overtly odious 
administrator.  They seem to patently enjoy the domination of the 
other students.

What's notable is that *not all the Slytherins joined it*.  But they 
also did nothing against it.  We've been around this bend before so I 
won't repeat myself, but I think there is a world of difference 
between the nature of the DA and the IS, and to collapse them 
together is a slippery slope argument.

> I'm not arguing for Saint!Draco here.  I'm just saying that JKR has 
> chosen to write him in an attractive way, and that means... 
> something. :)

What's attractive about the IS?  What's attractive about "Malfoy was 
watching her with a hungry expression on his face.  'The Cruciatus 
Curse ought to loosen your tongue', said Umbridge 
quietly." ... "Malfoy, who was too slow to disguise the look of 
eagerness and greed that had appeared on his face".  (Both from the 
scene with the IS and Umbridge near the end of OotP).  I pick those 
out because they are, in a sense, some of the 'most recent' things 
we've seen from Draco.

> Betsy: 
> 
> [On a total aside, A.J.Hall's fanfic, "Lust over Pendle" has Draco 
> choosing to defy his father not because of any inner nobility but 
> because he's squeamish about killing. Which I could easily see 
> happening.]

It also features a very tangential relationship to any canon 
personalities, but that's another point, ain't it? :)

 
> >>Nora: 
> >I don't quite see being curled up whimpering and moaning after 
> deliberately provoking a fight (even unknowingly) or shirking after 
> getting hurt by Buckbeak partially out of his own arrogance, as 
> terribly manly.  But that's another point.<
> 
> Betsy:
> It's not the getting hurt, it's the stoic behavior afterwords.  He 
> yells after the initial slash of Buckbeak.  He doesn't shriek, or 
> sniffle, or weep.  (And I'm confused about the "arrogance."  How 
> was Draco arrogant there?)

Draco's shirking in class is certainly not stoic; it's manipulative 
and Snape indulges it because he's a favoritist.

"Easily offended, hippogriffs are.  Don't never insult one, 'cause it 
might be the last thing yeh do."

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle weren't listening; they were talking in an 
undertone and Harry had a nasty feeling they were plotting how best 
to disrupt the lesson.

...

"...I bet you're not dangerous at all, are you?" he [Draco] said to 
the hippogriff.  "Are you, you great ugly brute?"

Not paying attention in class when you've been warned the stuff 
you're dealing with is dangerous is arrogant.  Insulting a hippogriff 
is pure idiocy.  It's laid out in ways that are very, very hard to 
argue around that Draco was not paying attention, and that's what got 
him hurt.  [If something like that happened in chem lab, the teacher 
would make sure the student got aid, and then give them the chewing 
out of the ages.]  He then compounds the original offense by shirking.

> Betsy:
> I guess I haven't seen much opportunity for Draco to come to that 
> conclusion.  Everything has just sort of gone along for him.  He 
> did refuse to stand at the end of GoF when everyone stood up for 
> Harry.  But that's not really a surprise.  Draco is not Harry's 
> nemesis, but Harry is definitely Draco's.  I think the time for 
> choosing has arrived, though, so I do expect to have some rather 
> revealing scenes in the next book.

Path of least resistance is, in the Potterverse, still a path.  Draco 
*could* wake up, but I rather think that the pattern that has been 
established is the one that will hold.  Draco's malice has generally 
intensified throughout the books.  Harry initially rejected him in 
part because of what he was parroting and probably learned at home 
(some kinds better than others, etc.); Draco has let hatred build and 
curdle from that initial rejection.

That's my prediction, after all.  I like that it's going to get a 
more or less yes or no answer.  So infrequent, that.

-Nora gets back to fun with Kyriales