Unsentimental JKR (was re: Snape Culpable and the Three-part Interview)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 134965

Magda Grantwich <mgrantwich at y...> wrote:
<SNIP>
> Remember how she went on about people getting too fond of Draco 
after 
> OOTP came out?  How she couldn't understand why people liked him 
and 
> said it must be Tom Felton's fault?  Could a woman who was so down 
on 
> Draco have given us the more-human (still a little prick but 
> nonetheless three-dimensional) Draco we saw in this book?  Scared 
and 
> crying and quick to refute the suggestion that he invited a 
werewolf 
> into Hogwarts where his friends lived?
 
 
As for your question with regard to Draco and could JKR right him as 
he was in HBP if she really meant her comments, my answer is "Yes, 
indeed."  After all, in the three-part interview, conducted AFTER HBP 
was released, she not only continued in her excoriation of Draco but 
expressed her concern about those who favored him in the most 
detailed explanation yet of her views.
 
Why would she do that?  I suspect it's because her views of 
redemption and who is deserving of sympathy are rather different 
than those you often find in fandom.
 
JKR is very, very unsentimental about her characters, with the 
probable exception of Harry himself.  I'm guessing (and it is of 
course purely a guess) that she might say of HBP!Draco, "What is so 
redeeming about him?  Why is he deserving of sympathy?  Because he 
broke down and cried in a bathroom?  That doesn't carry much weight 
considering he's guilty of two attempted murders.  He was shocked 
about letting a werewolf into Hogwarts?  He wasn't very shocked about 
letting in known killers.  Draco isn't a hardened DE, it's true.  
That in and of itself doesn't make him redeemed, nor is it worthy of 
seeing him as anything other than what he is -- a vicious and amoral 
little brat who tried twice to commit murder and who allowed hardened 
killers into a school full of mostly defenseless children.  It is 
true that his heart might not be in the killing.  That doesn't let 
him off the hook for what he has done, nor mean that anyone should 
weep tears over the fact that actually showed some shreds of what 
is, after all, only basic human decency."  
 
And that would explain why she is pefectly able to write Draco as she 
does in HBP, and still state honestly in the strongest terms yet why 
she is worried about his popularity.  JKR's morality doesn't appear 
to be the soft kind.  In fact, it seems she can be hard as coffin 
nails when she feels it's appropriate.
 
I don't know how this will play out with regard to Snape.  But I 
wouldn't be surprised if the various "good" and "redeeming" things 
Snape has done don't hold nearly as much weight with JKR as they do 
with some members of the fandom. 
 
Lupinlore