Draco, Snape and Others: Castles in the air?

[whizbang]

No: HPFGUIDX 124725


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" <bob.oliver at c...> wrote:

> However, by and large,
> I would be willing to bet that in the end we will find most of her
> characterizations to have been very straightforward.  Snape is
> presented from the beginning as a bitter, hateful, petty man who 
> hates Harry.  I suspect that in the end we will discover he was a 
> bitter, hateful, petty man who hated Harry.  Draco is presented from
> the beginning as a shallow, spoiled, vicious little junior Death 
> Eater.  I suspect in the end he will turn out to have been a 
> shallow, spoiled, vicious little junior Death Eater.
(snip)
 
> Because you see it all comes down to Harry's story.  That is what
> JKR is really interested in.  Complicated explorations of the pasts 
> and motivations of supporting characters will most likely have to go
> by the wayside unless they have a very direct impact on Harry and 
> his journey to confront Voldemort.  And I doubt JKR is really 
> interested in exploring all sorts of byzantine character reversals, 
> purely because they would take the focus away from Harry, where she 
> most firmly believes our attention belongs.  Snape and Draco and 
> Remus and Neville and all the others will be important to one degree
> or another.
> But I seriously doubt they're going to be THAT important that large
> sections of the narrative are going to be diverted to get deeply 
> into the structures of their characters and to describe any kind of
> fundamental evolution of their personality.  Only Harry (not even 
> Ron and Hermione) merits that kind of attention in this tale.
> 
> 
> Lupinlore

Whiz:I tend to agree with you with one small exception.  JKR's
appreciation of Jane Austen's work suggests that there are gothic
elements in the stories.  Snape seems to be a shoo-in for Dark
Character who turns out to be a good guy, but I have my doubts.  Like
you, I think he will turn out to be exactly what he looks like.

But I do wonder about Dobby.  My thought is that one of the Malfoys
sent Dobby to Harry without the knowledge of the others.  We know
Kreacher went to Narcissa who apparently made good use of him.  We
also know that Lucius didn't want his son in Hogwarts, but rather out
of the way, in Durmstrang.  

So will Lucius Malfoy be the gothic dark character who will surprise
us in the end?  Or will it turn out to be Draco.  Either way, it helps
explain Dobby's behaviour.