Draco and Slytherin House (was: Harsh Morality - Combined answers)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 121280


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

<snip...where are those pesky cannons coming from?>

>> Nora:
>> Knowing all the information requires one to re-read the past with 
>> knowledge of the future, and to go "Well, maybe that Sympathetic!
>> Draco reading of mine really *wasn't* there".  [For a good 
>> example, search the archives and you'll find a well-known but no 
>> longer active here poster arguing that Draco was really honestly 
>> trying to warn Hermione in the DE ramage scene in GoF.  That 
>> doesn't exactly hold up with OotP Draco.]
> 
> Betsy:
> *rubs hands gleefully*  Oh, I'm not counting Draco out yet.  I 
> think the books have strongly hinted that Slytherin House is 
> needed for good to prevail (see the Sorting Hat song) and while 
> Dumbledore has his own Slytherin in Snape, Harry needs one for 
> himself.  Enter Draco.  *crosses fingers* Though I don't expect 
> him to end up lily white by series end.

Yes, but the scenario that Slytherin House is needed and the idea 
that "Harry needs Draco for himself" (so I paraphrase with slightly 
in-bad-faith intent, but yes, I am giggling at something) do not 
imply each other in any way, shape, or form.

Draco's function in the series so far is to be an antagonist, but 
more importantly, to be a poster child for what the child of a DE 
thinks like.  No Draco, no 'Mudblood' scene in CoS, which is where 
(at least I did) you go 'woah' as the world suddenly takes a 
different spin--although that was, of course, set up by Draco from 
the very beginning, with the "some wizarding families are better 
than others", etc.  Draco leads a claque within Slytherin House (per 
the inclusion of his cronies in the Inquisitorial Squad), and it 
seems to be dominant.  Draco has shown no clearly demonstrable 
tendencies to change his thinking or his ideals in five books.  The 
arguments for his sympathy are fairly tendentious, IMO.

What seems eminently more possible is the emergence of Slytherins 
who had nothing to do with the IS, and are independent of Draco's 
claque.  (The ever-enigmatic Mr. Zabini, who we have been told we 
will see more of.)  Finally given an opening by Draco's fall from 
social standing (thanks to Daddy being in the slammer), they can 
finally get the backbone to come out and say "They've done you all 
wrong, but we're not like that".  And yes, I do think it will take a 
public statement, because there are times you have to suck it up and 
say things like that out loud.  This also involves a repudiation of 
the blood standard of Slytherin House, hence my idea that Slytherin 
House will have to disavow its foundational idea to join the others.

See?   House Unity, and Draco is off in the corner plotting 
revenge.  Now, it could be him--but I'll bet anyone that it's not.

And to combine posts, this is from your post at 121262:

> Betsy:
> I *was* talking about Draco now. The very fact that there are
> theories that Draco could be redeemed and that those theories use
> cannon as support means that there are sympathetic messages towards
> Draco in the text currently.

That those theories use text does not mean that there *are* 
sympathetic messages in the text.  It means that those reading the 
text can construct sympathetic messages, because all those readings 
of the text are highly subject to "If you look at it this way, and 
put it together with this, you get a hint!"  I'm a firm believer 
that interpretation is not an utter free for all, and there are 
different levels of evidence and explicitness about such.  You may 
choose not to use the interviews: I do.  They make a very handy 
regulator at times, especially for more general perspectives and 
thematic projection.

> Which means that no matter what JKR says in an interview, as an 
> author she is *not* writing Draco as repulsively evil. And JKR can 
> write repulsively evil characters - Umbridge or Lord Voldermort 
> for example. Harry thinks Draco is bad, bad, bad. The author, 
> however, seems to have a slightly different take.

No, he's not repulsively evil.  But he is a repugnant character, she 
speaks of him as such, and while he is not evil like those others, 
you have to twist the text AND ignore large parts of it to make him 
more than neutral.  You have to ignore a lot of things, the major 
one being his ideological commitment.  He may get over that, or not--
signs are pointing more strongly to no than to yes.  But again, say 
we get JuniorDE!Draco--that pretty much means the sympathy, if it 
was there at all, was pretty fleeting.

> [As an aside: This is a really good and indepth post on Draco, for 
> those interested. 
> http://www.livejournal.com/community/idol_reflection/17096.html ] 

Admittedly a nice discussion of how and why the pernicious creature 
called Fanon!Draco exists.  I don't buy the structural analysis, 
though: if anyone is Draco's double/parallel by this time in the 
series, it's Ron, not Harry. >:) (which completely deflates The 
Major Claim of the H/D shippers.  not that hard to do...)

-Nora thinks that last one is begging for a post of its own: takers?