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

[vmonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 124636


Betsy:
Except that he's not. Ruthlessness and cold heartedness? Draco is
anything but. Both qualities demand a certain cutting off of emotion
and Draco is almost pure emotion. Why else has he refused to let go
of his ongoing vendetta against Harry, a vendetta that has only
brought him pain and humiliation, a vendetta that his father has
specifically frowned upon, except that he cannot temper his emotion?

And ambition? When has Draco ever expressed ambition, beyond the
childish wish to bring a broom first year (failed) and perhaps to
beat Harry at Quidditch (failed again, because of lower quality
broom)? We haven't seen him express much compassion, but then we've
never been witness to an opportunity for Draco to do so.

Draco does express the pure-blood ideology, but he's a child
parroting his parents' politics. He does hate Hermione (and I can
understand why) and he uses his ideology to attack her, but it's a
mere tool in his arsenal. He doesn't hate Hermione *because* she's
Muggle born. Her blood just gives him a stone to throw.

Harry et al think Draco is pure evil, but JKR shows us again and
again that they are wrong. Just as Hagrid contention that all bad
wizards are Slytherin has been shown, time and again, to be wrong.

vmonte responds:
You can understand why he hates Hermione? And he's not a racist; he 
is just "parroting" his parent's politics? This reminds me of all the 
Snape threads that claimed that Snape didn't really hate Lily and  
only called her mud**ood because he was embarrassed in front of her.

Draco is not a mysterious or multi-layered character. What you see is 
what you get, IMO. His hatred of Hermione is pretty extreme for it to 
just be him parroting his parents. Draco is not a nice kid! In fact, 
if Harry were to eventually save Draco's life we would probably see 
the same relationship dynamic there was between James and Snape. 

I think it's pretty obvious that Snape hated James. And we know that 
Snape turned into a DE right after he left Hogwarts. So, why didn't 
Snape target James after graduation? Do you really believe that Snape 
couldn't get back at James because of his life debt? A resourceful 
Slytherin would realize that he should go after Lily instead. This 
would be even worse than going after James because he would hurt 
James where it counted most. I'm starting to think that Snape told 
Voldemort not to kill Lily because he was somehow aware that Lily did 
some kind of protection charm. Maybe Snape wasn't able to tell 
Voldemort exactly what Lily did, but he knew enough to warn Voldemort 
that killing Lily would be a big mistake. Voldemort being the idiot 
he is doesn't take Snape's warning seriously enough.  

Draco in my opinion comes from the same mold.

Vivian