ACID POPS and Teenager Draco - Motivation?/Re: CHAPDISC:HBP19,Elf Tails

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 157543

> bboyminn:
> 
> Sorry but your wrong, or at least as wrong as I am. 

Magpie:
No, these two versions of events are in no way equal.  Mine is based 
backed up by things that are said in the text.  Yours takes that 
information, sweeps it aside, and then proceeds to make stuff up 
that's not referenced anywhere.  That's what gives my version more 
weight.

bboyminn:
What 
> is the very first thing that occurs chronologically in 
> the book? Not the first thing the books reveals to us, but 
> the first thing that occurs chronologically. Anwer: Draco 
> figures out that there are two connected Vanishing Cabinets; 
> one inside Hogwarts, one outside. This occurs late in the 
> previous school year or over the summer. I think it is a 
> fair interpretation of canon, that the entire Draco plot 
> grows from that piece of information. 

Magpie:
No, it's not fair interpretation of canon, since the core of it is 
made up of important scenes, events and decisions never referenced 
anywhere in the actual book.  The fact that Draco figured out that 
if fixed the Cabinets provide a secret entrance into Hogwarts in no 
way means the reader gets to put events together any way we please.  
There is nothing that says that Draco took this idea to Voldemort 
and then Voldemort turned it around on Draco--and there's plenty of 
places where that should be if it occurred. 

bboyminn:> 
> Knowledge of the Vanishing Cabinets is valuable 
> information that Voldemort would definitely want to know.
> He has a secret way into Hogwarts that has not yet been
> discovered in 1,000 years. He has a way to get DE's into 
> the castle so fast there will be no time to mount any 
> resistance. As events unfold, the resistance that was 
> mounted was barely standing their ground. > 
> It make far more sense for Draco to get in, THEN get in 
> over his head, than for Voldemort to single him out and 
> dump the whole task on him. 

Magpie:
So you would prefer it to have happened this way because it makes 
more sense to you.  That doesn't produce canon with references to 
this happening.  All canon references is Voldemort's anger at Lucius 
and plans for Draco.  

bboyminn:

Yes... yes... Lucius... 
> diary... angry... etc.... 

Magpie:
"Lucius...diary...angry...etc." is everything canon has to say on 
the matter.  You just brushed it aside and jumped into your own 
story.

bboyminn:
But Voldemort knew about the 
> diary over a year ago and he still trusted Lucius with 
> the Ministry Raid.  His anger wasn't even remotely 
> 'terrible to behold' until Lucius messed up the Minsitry 
> Raid and lost him the Prophecy, all compounded by Lucius 
> getting himself and several of Voldemort's best Death 
> Eaters landed in prison. Sorry, but you can't base this 
> all around the Diary.

Magpie:
We don't actually know when he found out about the diary.  He may 
have only discovered it when Lucius went to prison and he went to 
retrieve it.  However, none of this changes the fact that there is 
actual text referencing Voldemort's anger at Lucius' screw ups being 
the reason for Draco's task.  Poking holes little holes in how angry 
Lucius was when doesn't produce the alternate scenes in canon that 
you need for the other version.  

bboyminn:>  
> Certainly NOW Draco's task is ultimately to kill 
> Dumbledore, but what is his means for doing this? It's 
> getting the Vanishing Cabinet working. The cabinet leads 
> to an attack on Hogwart, which in turn leads to an attack 
> on Dumbledore, which ultimately leads to Dumbledore's 
> death. Since knowledge of the cabinet is the first thing 
> to occur, and it represents critically vital information, 
> it make sense to me that it is the seed around which the 
> whole plan is based. 

Magpie:
Who says that as a reader you get to decide the seed around which 
the plan is based?  The text gives us the opposite sequence of 
events by having at least three knowledgable characters in canon 
link the task to Voldemort's anger at Lucius' screw ups.  

bboyminn: 
> True you start your premise based on something presented 
> in the books, but then you expand it with nothing but 
> speculation and claim it as canon. The books say that 
> Voldemort gave Draco the task of killing Dumbledore. You 
> say that is the one and only absolute task Voldemort gave. 

Magpie:
I don't think I've expanded on it at all.  I have never had to talk 
about Voldemort having to give absolutely only one task. Why would I 
think of things Voldemort didn't say--that seems to oddly come out 
of the vague notion that I must prove that the text specifically 
rejected an idea in order for it to not be potentially canon.  What 
I have said was that in canon we know Voldemort told Draco to kill 
Dumbledore, and the simplest reading says the Cabinet plot always 
seems to be connected to that, and that if that's all there is I'm 
not going beyond it.  I don't have to make anything up.  When the 
DEs show up they take care of security and then stand around until 
Dumbledore's dead.  Then they run out.  

bboyminn:
> I take the same information, and say that Draco provided 
> Voldemort a way into the castle, and out of spiteful 
> gratituded, Voldemort expanded the task beyond anything 
> Draco expected. Those theories are both based on the 
> /same canon/. Though I feel mine presents a reasonable 
> progression of events that takes Draco in far far over 
> his head.

Magpie:
You and I are doing completely different things.  I've taken things 
that are actually said in canon and stuck with them.  You've taken 
certain events, glossed over or brushed aside stuff said in canon, 
and hurtled on to a different story creating a lot of scenes never 
referenced by anyone, that you prefer.  Provide me with canon 
referring to any of this.   

> bboyminn: 
> 
> True the Dark Lord gave Draco the task of killing 
> Dumbledore and wasn't too concerend with Draco's safety 
> in the process. But that is where we end, not where we 
> start.

Magpie:
Actually, it is where we start.  In Spinner's End this is the 
dilemma that Narcissa brings to Snape.

bboyminn:
 Why? Because even with Draco dead, Voldemort still 
> knows the secret of the Vanishing Cabinet. Voldemort 
> could have killed Draco on the spot and he really wouldn't 
> have lost much. He could have gotten someone else to fix the 
> cabinet, and still had it as an avenue for attacking Hogwarts. 
> Keep in mind that to Voldemort everyone but himself is 
> expendable. His DE's aren't people they are fawning admiring 
> tools that he casts of casually on a whim. With Draco dead 
> or alive, the Cabinet is still the seed of any plan to attack 
> Hogwarts or Dumbledore. So, if Draco succeeds-fine, but if he
> fails and dies-still fine, Draco's information is still the 
> foundation for attacking Hogwarts. I claim that as a reasonable 
and logical sequence progression of events, my scenario makes more 
sense than 
> your, and it is based on the same canon.

Magpie:
That it's more reasonable and logical to you does not make it 
canon.  Really, it doesn't.  Nor does it seeming to make more sense 
than mine does to you.  The point is it is *not* based on canon, 
it's based on what you think is reasonable and logical or just plain 
better given some of the events of canon.  You're not talking about 
any of this being what's written, but imagining Voldemort and this 
world as real and imagining things based on that.  

bboyminn:and 
 Keep in mind that 
> my scenario doesn't exclude yours. In fact, to some extent, 
> it definitely includes yours. It is actually your scenario 
> that denies mine, and further denies logic to some degree.

Magpie:
It's good your scenario includes mine--mine is the actually what's 
in the book.  Then you deny it's important and build your own stuff 
on top of it.  I don't think my scenario denies logic. It just 
denies Voldemort having the priorities and thought patterns that you 
would apparently have in his place.  My scenario makes perfect sense 
given the motivations people talk about Voldemort having in canon.  
It's one of his better plans.

bboyminn:> 
> We start from the first thing we know, Draco's knowledge of 
> the secret of the Vanishing Cabinets, and we proceed from 
> their in an orderly fashion. 

Magpie:
The problem being you're not supposed to be proceeding from them in 
an orderly fashion because you're not being asked to write your own 
story based on this beginning.  You're supposed to be reading the 
text and letting it tell you how these things go together.  

bboyminn:
> 
> In the end, as vehemently as you defend your position, it is 
> based on the same canon as mine, and just as mine is, it 
> fills in the blanks with a lot of speculation and 
> interpretation.> Your telling use where we end, I'm telling us 
where we began;
> that's the difference, but the canon is the same. 

Magpie:
I think my interpretation fills in blanks only between the things I 
actually have in canon.  Your change in "the way we began" 
fundamentally changes the entire story.  It's not something you can 
just add on to what we've got.  The canon should be completely 
different if your story happened. So when you say, "We need to 
remember that Draco went to Voldemort first etc..." it is, imo, very 
important to say that no, we need to remember that that did not 
happen.

Mike:

But why should we? Where do you or Magpie get your basis for
pronouncing "Squib" is a *bigoted* or *racial* slur? ... IMO, it is 
irresponsible to pronounce something bigoted, or worse, a
racial slur without some very strong *proof* of what you propose.
Sensitivity to prejudice is admirable, accusing another of prejudice
without conclusive justification is reprehensible. That is another
lesson that children should learn.


Magpie:
I didn't pronounce it a racial slur.  I described it just the way 
Steve described it, as referring to Filch's physical limitations.  
Like calling him "wheelchair boy."  Which I think any child would 
recognize in this context as choosing to attack someone's disability 
or their status as a member of the underclass instead of whatever 
you're angry at in order to put them in their place, and that's 
inappropriate.  

-m