Draco = Evil?(was: Elkins' Draco Malfoy Is Ever So Lame. )

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 124938


Betsy:
> Yes, I do think the ferret bounce went *far* across the line of 
> normal student discipline. 

SSSusan:
Yes, I think we get this from McGonagall's reaction.


Betsy:
> I expect Gryffindors would get a certain amount of pleasure in 
> seeing an enemy of their house taken down in such a humiliating 
> fashion.

SSSusan:
Yes, I believe they would **at this point** in their history with 
Draco.  Who knows how they would have reacted if C!M had pulled this 
when they were all first years.  By this point there is a 4-year 
history of nastiness between them and so, yes, I think some of the 
Gryffs likely found this scenario amusing.


Betsy:
> Draco has lost his father; his family name has been besmirched.  
> The mature response is to seperate Draco from his father's sins and 
> feel compassion for the boy who is suffering.  Again, not something 
> I expect the Gryffindors to do....  

SSSusan:
See, I have a hard time with statements like "his family name has 
been besmirched" and "Draco has lost his father."  "Has been 
besmirched" and "has lost" imply a degree of passivity which I don't 
find in this instance.  Who's besmirched the family name?  No one.  
Draco's father has brought these things upon himself & his family by 
his own choices & actions; the things didn't happen *to* him.  One 
reaps what one sows, no?  And while Draco was not involved in the 
actions directly, don't all signs indicate that he approves of his 
father's choices & actions?  

As for the mature response being to separate Draco from his father's 
sins in order to feel compassion for Draco, well, how `bout the 
reverse?  Should Draco be able to separate Harry from who/what his 
parents were [Draco's dad's boss's enemies] and feel compassion for 
this boy who TRULY lost his father... AND his mother... and not just 
to prison, but forever?

I see myself as a pretty compassionate person, a pretty sympathetic 
person and, yes, a pretty mature person.  Yet I don't think Draco 
does a thing to convince anyone they should separate him from his 
father's sins or feel compassion for his "loss."  I certainly feel 
little compassion for him as a reader.  


Betsy:
> I'm not trying to say that the Trio and Draco are on equal footing 
> when it comes to compassion, either.  Harry, for one, is quite able 
> to sympathize with others.  Hermione can as well.  Ron... I'm not 
> as sure of.  Draco is more self-involved than they are.  But to say 
> he has no compassion at all...  There isn't enough canon to say yay 
> or nay here, that I've seen.

SSSusan:
I see what you're saying – that Draco hasn't shown compassion to the 
Gryffs, as the Gryffs haven't shown compassion to him.  But I would 
ask, who started them along the path to being one another's enemies?  
Again, I think Draco has been much more active at cultivating the 
enmity than the Gryffs.


Betsy:
> I agree that Draco *wants* to be taken seriously, especially by 
> Harry.  And as he has been presented so far, he's a nasty, petty 
> little child who could well be seduced by the Death Eaters into 
> their cause.  But, JKR drops enough textual contradictions 
> regarding Draco that I wonder if there isn't more to him than 
> currently meets the eye.

> I feel sympathy towards Draco because he always loses so 
> spectaculary, and sometimes quite unfairly.  And he's been set upon 
> by a mob, which is repulsive to me.  I despise mob justice.  In the 
> Harry Potter books, Draco is the underdog.

SSSusan:
I just don't see these textual contradictions.  Draco wants to be 
taken seriously, especially by Harry, but **as a threat**, not as a 
person or an equal or a friend.  Draco is, to quote from an offlist 
exchange [::waves at Nora::], the Energizer Bunny of Schoolboy 
Nasties.  He keeps coming and coming and coming at H/R/H/N.  And he 
is the epitome of mob mentality, isn't he??  Always bringing Crabbe & 
Goyle et al. along with him while he threatens or provokes, getting a 
whole crowd to wear those despicable badges and to sing "Weasley is 
our King," setting up the fake dementor scheme in front of the whole 
school & during a Quidditch match.  There's nothing *private* or one-
on-one about his attacks (except for that very last one in OotP – 
which I took quite seriously indeed because it was so different from 
all the others, but that's another post perhaps).  

Draco is not the underdog of the HP books any more than he makes 
himself one by his own behaviors.  *Harry* has the awesome burden of 
having to take on Voldemort & his DEs repeatedly, hence *Harry* is 
the underdog of the HP books.

Siriusly Snapey Susan