[HPforGrownups] Re: DDM!Harry and Snape/Grey!Snape

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 162880

a_svirn:
Yet I seem to remember Hamlet killing Polonius, Laertes, and Claudius with 
his own hand and arranging for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's murder. Not a 
bad record for someone who can't act.
We can as well compare Draco with Macbeth.

Magpie:
People compare him to Hamlet for the "I can't act even though I feel like I 
should" idea--it's specific.  I'm not seeing what I'm supposed to get out of 
comparing Draco and Macbeth. Macbeth's murders don't prove that the scene on 
the Tower is about Dumbledore trying to save his own life.

> Magpie:
> Right--but as I explained in more detail in another post, I think
that's
> enough.  If it was only luck that kept you from seeing someone die
(like the
> fact that Harry was unconscious when Quirrel did), you wouldn't be
able to
> see Thestrals. Likewise I think the fact that Draco hasn't crossed
the
> barrier still holds, even if it's only by luck. It's magic.

a_svirn:
"Convenient, eh?" But that means that Draco's becoming or not becoming a 
killer does not depend on his heart or his innocence, but on the blind luck 
and Dumbledore's mercy. That's holding innocence
rather cheap, don't you think?

Magpie:
One could say that it held innocence rather cheap, yes. But that's a matter 
to take up with Dumbledore, since he seems to say it. Draco has not yet 
actually killed anyone on the Tower--owing a great deal to luck, yes. But 
the choice of killing another human being for the first time is still before 
him. (And I think those close-calls had the effect of putting him off it.)

When Draco arrives on the Tower making the choice to actually kill does not 
seem realistic simply because the text seems to keep underlining how much 
he's avoiding that. Honestly, to me that seems about as hard as looking at 
the climax in PoA and saying Peter's trying to sacrifice himself heroically 
or something. It's just so at odds with the character's description.

So it still reads to me like a slightly different scene than the one you are 
describing. It's not even that unusual a set up in that sense (the 
non-threatening would-be not!killer). Same situation in some ways, with a 
person who has been put in a situation where he feel he must kill or be 
killed. Only it's a different character facing the situation. Which is why 
when I read it I got plenty of suspense, but not a trace of it came from 
"will Draco kill Dumbledore?"

a_svirn:
By the way, Dumbledore ultimately died as a result of the plan conceived and 
executed by Draco. Does it mean that the barrier was crossed?

Magpie:
I think canon makes it clear that no, it wasn't. Draco didn't kill 
Dumbledore. Snape did. You have to kill the person yourself, not just 
contribute in a roundabout way to that person dying. That can certainly 
cause guilt of its own, but by the way these things seem to be laid out in 
canon it doesn't make you a killer. Any time you choose not to kill is a 
choice not to kill.

As with a lot of this kind of stuff in JKR's work I think it's kind of 
instinctual, like the circumstances that make up a Life Debt. But I think 
it's only when you try to dissect them they get confusing. Within the story 
they usually comes across fairly clearly to me.

a_svirn:
Setting aside that for the better part of the scene Draco and Dumbledore 
discussed his options in a most practical and unspiritual vein, I have a 
more general problem with this reading. If, as you say, Draco has no options 
at all, and, consequently, makes no choice whatsoever, what, if anything has 
changed from the beginning of HBP? The book starts with Draco being an 
innocent victim of the circumstances that are out of his control, incapable 
of killing, but quite capable - in his innocence - of arranging for people 
to be killed, and it ends with much the same Draco still innocent and
incapable of killing, but still quite capable of orchestrating 
assassinations. The only difference is that this time his careful 
arrangements bore a fruit - Dumbledore got killed.

Magpie:
A discussion of killing is different than the action of killing. That 
distinction is the thing that gets called attention to it in the scene (and 
throughout Draco's role in the books, I suspect), because that's the 
conflict Draco is facing. He can talk about killing, and Dumbledore is happy 
to talk about it with him. But killing is not done by talking, it's done by 
doing. It's Dumbledore's who keeps bringing the chat to the same place: so 
why don't you do it? And Draco doesn't (which doesn't surprise Dumbledore).

At the end is that Draco now admits and knows who he is, and knows what he 
is not. I think the scene is trying to lay out very clearly that in terms of 
the story he is *not* a killer (as DD means it) and now he's dealing with 
the reality of who he is--which is a big deal given who he is and his 
situation. Going from being a boy who thinks killing is easy and is planning 
on climbing the ranks of DEs to a boy who knows he does not want to kill and 
knows that he's not got the stuff to be a DE (when he pretty much already is 
one) is an important change.

It's a change for Harry too, who's thinking about the lowered wand at the 
end (which I agree with Pippin is Draco's acknowledgement that Dumbledore's 
view of his character was correct). I think Harry's seeing that Draco could 
be talked out of murder would mean a lot less than Harry seeing that Draco 
is not a killer (as Dumbledore would say it). He saw the choice showing who 
he was.I think this is a more dramatic continuing situationfor the next book 
as well. In terms of the story I think it's a more useful one that Draco 
just deciding not to kill this guy in this place. That wouldn't carry over 
as something part of who he is.

 Magpie:
> Not divine absolution, but offering love and compassion and a safe
haven to
> someone who's been trying to kill him--the forgiveness is implied
and part
> of what makes it such a strange idea to someone like Draco, imo.
One doesn't
> have to be Christ to offer that kind of mercy. I can't see
Dumbledore
> basically just telling Draco to come over to his side because
Voldemort will
> kill him and Dumbledore will not. He wants Draco to have made a
choice based
> on who he really is and wants to be, not threats of what will
happen to him
> if he's the wrong person and makes the wrong choice.

a_svirn:
But you just said that choice is not Draco's to make. That he simply CAN'T 
kill, and therefore such option is off the table.

Magpie:
Without the choice of murdering Dumbledore (which he doesn't have not 
because physical circumstances forbid it but because it doesn't seem to be 
something this character can or will do) the options remaining are to take 
the offer of mercy or do nothing either way and just be acted upon (which is 
what Draco's doing elsewhere in the scene). (In what I was saying we were 
also discussing just choosing Voldemort or Dumbledore, I thought.)

In lowering his wand Draco is acknowledging himself as not being a killer. 
He's choosing to put his family under Dumbledore's protection and choosing 
to accept Dumbledore's mercy. He's breaking out of that frozen place he's 
been in the whole scene.

I just don't see how you can inject any resolution to kill into a character 
when the actual description in the text is all about "Malfoy made no move to 
kill him...again, he made no move to kill him...he seemed compelled to keep 
talking...he looked like he might throw up..." etc.

a_svirn:
The way I see it, it is actually a very unchristian view of the matter. 
After Christ suffered death to atone for the original sin, He left us 
responsible for our own sins. But in your interpretation Draco isn't 
actually responsible for his actions. His becoming or not becoming a sinner 
depends on other people's mercy.

Magpie:
He is responsible for his own sins and actions. He is responsible for 
poisoning Ron and hurting Katie and letting DEs into the castle. But 
Dumbledore is offering to treat him mercifully anyway. It's not absolution, 
it's mercy. I don't get where Draco's being a sinner or not has anything to 
do with mercy.

I don't see why acknowledging that Draco in the scene is portrayed as 
someone who is not going to commit the murder he "must" commit makes him not 
responsible for his own actions. Having Draco be ready to kill and having to 
choose whether to do it or not is not the only way to have something happen 
in the scene or in the story. I think the author set up something slightly 
different because it's what she needed to get to the end of her story (in 
the next book) and to illustrate her themes and that this kind of 
distinction between superficial similar characters is important in her 
series. I don't think she's interested in a choice of sides that's just 
about going with the best practical offer for one's hired gun.



-m