[HPforGrownups] Draco and Dumbledore on the Tower WAS: Re: DDM!Harry and Snape/Grey!Snape

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 162868

> Alla:
>
> No, I do not think that you have forgotten anything. :)
> What I am disagreeing with is your interpretation that it is just
> not in the scene - Draco's readiness to kill Dumbledore at first,
> before he lets himself be convinced otherwise.

Magpie:
I think if it was in the scene we could all point to it easily. I also don't 
see Draco getting convinced out of killing in the scene. If he was being 
convinced out of being ready to kill, he should be shown ready to kill and 
then have a change so that he isn't. I don't even get why he stops being 
ready to kill in this scenario. Where is he going to do it and what stops
him?

Doesn't Dumbledore encourage him to take his shot?  Like when he says, "Ah, 
you're waiting for your reinforcements," (as if that's the reason he hasn't
tried yet) or tells him he'd better hurry up? That seems to me transparently 
something you say to someone when you're trying to get them to admit they're 
not really going to kill you. It's not too helpful a thing to say to someone 
who's actually going to do it.  Dumbledore then goes over the whole year 
telling
him how his attempts to kill have been feeble and maybe *suggested* that 
Draco's heart wasn't in it.

I can't see a Draco who's actually ready to kill being confused about his 
own feelings by that kind of talk by Dumbledore. He's not written as being 
confused--I seem to recall him more making desperate declarations that make 
Dumbledore seem right. It's just this whole scene with the boy who's going
to kill and gets convinced out of it by Dumbledore is so clear and so not 
anything I can see in the actual scene.

Alla:>
> To me Draco's pointed wand symbolises exactly that - his readiness
> to kill at first, till he listens. He was pointing his wand whole
> time AFAIR, Yes, but he has to **point** it sometime, yes?


> That is what for me equals Draco's intention to kill DD. He never
> goes through with it, but he **points** the wand before he lowers
> it, if it makes sense?

Magpie:
But...but...why? Of course Draco's pointing his wand. He'd be pointing at 
Dumbledore even if killing was never introduced in the storyline at all in 
case Dumbledore makes a move of his own. Regardless of whether or not Draco 
is actually ready to kill him they're not just having a chat. Draco is the 
criminal here and Dumbledore is his prisoner. He has no problem with 
pointing his wand at the guy. If pointing his wand is the closest he gets to 
killing then I don't think he's close to killing at all.

Alla:
> I mean, to you it is necessary for Dumbledore to call atention to
> that. Why? I see it without any additional attention being called to
> it, just as I see DD doing everything possible to stop Draco from
> following through.

Magpie:
Because that's what Dumbledore's doing throughout the scene is calling 
attention to Draco's state of mind. He's narrating bits of it for us. That's 
why I said I *thought* we would have had Dumbledore making some reference to 
this big change moment if it happened, but I did not say that I needed it. 
What I need is the actual moment, whether or not Dumbledore says anything 
about it. That's the kind of moment JKR does really well, imo--and in this 
case it would be one of the most important moments of the scene and the 
story, so it would be there. (As would that moment where Dumbledore realizes 
Snape's betrayed him before he pleads if that existed.)

Alla:
ETA:Are you saying that unless JKR wrote the scene differently from what you 
think it **has to be** written to be interpreted differently, the different 
interpretation for that scene becomes less valid?
What I am trying to say is that I do not find the fact that scene was not 
written this particular way to foreclose the different interpretation.

Magpie:
No, I'm not saying that at all. Anybody can have any interpretation they 
want, but all interpretations aren't equal, and what's written is what we're 
judging it by. If there's no place where Draco is going to kill and then 
*changes* in reaction to something in the scene, how can that be what the 
scene is about?

This isn't about me saying she has to write it the way I think it should be 
written--she would write it however she wanted to write it. But of course 
I'm not going to interpret a scene as having a major shift that the author 
didn't write.

I mean, she did write this scene, actually. She wrote it in PoA when Harry 
realized he didn't want to kill Sirius. I don't think anybody missed it 
then.
-m