[HPforGrownups] Re: Elkins' Draco Malfoy Is Ever So Lame. Yet Sympathetic. And Dead, Too.

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 124492

Hi,

There were so many interesting posts on this subject, that I couldn't even
begin to try to figure out how and who to snip!  So, I'll just try to
express how I see and react to the character of Draco Malfoy.

I find him completely unsympathetic.  It isn't his hurt/comfort
possibilities for me, but his actions from the beginning.  I don't care
either way if he's whiny when hurt, or if he's quiet and strong.  He's still
a miserable creature.  He is hurt by Buckbeak because of his attitude and
dislike of Hagrid and Harry.  Hagrid makes it very clear how to approach the
hippogriffs, but Malfoy in his desire to outdo Harry and be contemptuous of
Hagrid doesn't listen and gets wounded.  The only person to blame is Draco.


His attitude from the first meeting with Harry was arrogant and insulting.
if he'd ever had a chance to change that first impression, he blew it by
insulting Ron before the sorting.  Ron was the first friend Harry ever had
and I don't see how he could befriend anyone who insulted him.

As far as the fight in the Quidditch match in OOTP is concerned, well, I
believe Harry and George were wrong for attacking him, but a part of me
doesn't blame them either.  This was hardly the first time Draco had
insulted their families, especially the mothers.  He had repeatedly insulted
the Weasleys and made cracks about Molly.  What boys are going to listen to
that for years and not blow up someday?  He wasn't very hero possible to me
by insulting Molly and Lily.  

And he picks on Hagrid.  He's got rich powerful parents, and he uses his
influence with his father to try to hurt an innocent person.  He constantly
insults anyone who is different, not pure blood.  Hagrid, Lupin, Hermione.

And about Hermione and others like her, muggle born witches and wizards.
Draco repeatedly calls her a name that we are led to believe is absolutely
filthy and disgusting.  In my upbringing, it would have been comparable to
something like "nigger".  I wasn't raised to use words like that about
anyone.  I grew up in California with many Hispanic classmates, and I'd have
had my butt beaten if I had ever called them or African American classmates
any derogatory names.  However, my siblings who were raised by my mother and
stepfather--I was raised by my dad--were raised in a very bigoted
environment, hearing nasty disgusting comments about people of other races
all their lives.  Yet they still managed not to grow up as bigots.  They
chose not to think like their father, and they chose it before they were
adults.  So, I don't excuse Draco because of his upbringing.  I know that
counts for some things in our attitudes and behavior, but we still make our
choices.

Draco seems hardly to have matured in five years, still the annoying,
arrogant, prejudiced git he was in year one.  I am usually the one who
reaches out to the underdog, and my circle of friends has always included
people that others might consider not quite normal or acceptable in some
ways.  But I can't find a bit of sympathy in me for Draco.  Well, except
that I am sorry he was raised to hate as he was, but he is nearly an adult
now and could have chosen differently.  At this point, I see nothing in
canon to show me that Draco might end up a good guy someday.  I actually
believe JKR when she says Draco is just evil.  I know I don't have the exact
quote right, but she says people are confusing Draco with the actor who
plays him, and that Draco is not going to be a good guy.  I'll take her word
for it, because she hasn't shown me any tiny glimpse of a possible change in
Draco Malfoy.

Sherry