Does JKR want us to hate Draco?

dumbledore11214 dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com
Mon May 30 17:56:04 UTC 2005


No: HPFGUIDX 129737

Dungrollin:
<SNIP>

So, to my mind, asking "What will it take for you to condemn Draco 
utterly" is a non-question. I don't think anyone should be condemned 
utterly, and never given another chance to see if they can do 
better.  Voldemort's only an exception for me because JKR says he 
is.  
 

Alla:

Right, but to me the issue is not that whether anyone should be 
condemned utterly( I agree that they should not), but whether writer 
thinks that certain character is doomed. You said that Voldemort is 
an exception for you because JKR said so.

Well, even though I said that I don't need interviews to decided 
that Draco is a bad person, I do take interviews as evidence of 
authoritarial intent. JMO, of course.

I could not find an interview where JKR says that "the worst is 
coming " for Draco, but I did find Albert Hall interview after OOP, 
where she says things about Malfoy,which to me do not point out to 
the direction that Draco is going to see the light. Again, just my 
opinion.

Here are some bits and pieces of this interview from Quick Quotes.

" JK Rowling: Malfoy is a made-up name but you could say it was old 
French for bad faith. It really suits him.

Stephen Fry: Bad Faith
Malfoy
perfect isn't it. 

<SNIP>
Stephen Fry: They are. Everything is more complicated now as Harry 
gets older. When he entered the wizard-ing world after a horrible 
time at the Dursleys he expected Wonderland. He almost immediately 
he wandered into Draco Malfoy and found out that some wizards are 
racists. Slowly but surely he found out many people in power in the 
wizarding world are just as nasty and corrupt as in our world.

JK Rowling: That's because it's about human nature and people
with 
less pure motives have wands too. A lot of time is trying to 
legislate for them.

Stephen Fry: Exactly, politicians and journalists. It's also true
in 
the real world. People say we haven't got a magic wand to cure
all 
ills of the world but what you show is that even if you have got a 
magic wand it doesn't cure all the ills.

Another question now from Daniel Joseph, Croydon (UK)

Video "How do you decide what the baddies would be like?"

JK Rowling: This is going to sound awful but I've met enough
people 
I didn't like in my life to have a fairly shrewd idea of what I
want 
baddies to be like. I think from letters I get from people your age 
that nearly all of you here knows a Draco Malfoy and girls will 
almost certainly know a Pansy Parkinson. We all grow up with those 
sort of people and certainly as adults we've all have met people 
like Lucius Malfoy and some of the other characters.

Stephen Fry: Malfoy, Goyle and Crabbe are almost irredeemably bad
– 
certainly there's almost nothing attractive about about Goyle and 
Crabbe, repulsive – Malfoy is reasonably stylish


JK Rowling: Malfoy is certainly stylish in the film –

<SNIP>

Stephen Fry: It is another one of the most horrible and brilliant 
inventions of the books is this snobbery this idea of purebloods and 
mudbloods and this idea of mingling, mixed breeding which is a 
reflection of some of the things like racism and intolerance that we 
have in our world. Is that deliberate or did it come to you in a 
flash again or did it just suddenly


JK Rowling: That was deliberate it was always there from the 
beginning as you saw with Draco – even from first book with Draco 
Harry discovers him first being rude about Muggles. 
<SNIP>"

Albert Hall, June 26, 2003.

So, even though JKR does not say  the words "Draco Malfoy is not 
going to be redeemed", to me it sounds as if she clearly considers 
this character to be a baddie. :-)

Just my opinion,

Alla.








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