Draco an underdog?

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 131936

Geoff:

I am coming to the conclusion that Alla, Betsy and I are not all
singing from the same hymnsheet on the question of who is or is not
an underdog.

Alla has presented a number of cases where Harry is not "the best
thing since sliced bread" in the eyes of his house or the school. To
take a handful of cases, in PS, the Trio lose house points because of
the Norbert incident and go through a period when other Gryffindors
are quite hostile towards them for some time afterwards. In COS,
after the Duelling Club meeting where Harry is revealed as a
Parseltongue, he goes through a period when he is treated with grave
suspicion by many students from all the houses. In GOF there is a
great deal of resentment that he has managed to enter and there is a
feeling that he wangled this so that he might be able to win despite
the restrictions. And in OOTP, of course, the campaign by the Daily
Prophet leads many people to believe he is a liar and is possibly mad.

But...

None of these put him into an "underdog" situation. To repeat my
definition of a couple of days ago: an underdog is "a competitor
thought to have little chance of winning a fight or contest."

None of the above events are basically competitive. They are not
putting Harry up against someone who is more qualified than him to
actually "win" something.

Again, Harry has, in the eyes of Gryffindor, a generally good track
record. He has helped to bring success to the Gryffindor Quidditch
team, the Trio gained a large number of bonus points in PS, and he
has the "Boy Who Lived" cachet following him around.

It can be argued that, when it comes to Voldemort, he is the underdog
but he has done pretty well in facing him down. If you include Tom
Riddle in COS, the match statistics are: Played - 5. Results - Harry
5, Voldemort 0. The only place I think we have ever been encouraged
to look on him as an underdog within Hogwarts is in GOF. Matched
against Viktor Krum, Fleur Delacour and Cedric Diggory, he is
younger, smaller physically and not so mature and one might presume
that he was not the odds-on favourite. However, I stand by my belief
which I expressed in message 131908 that, in other areas, Draco is
far more the underdog than Harry.