[HPforGrownups] re:Names-Christianity

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 154014

Catlady:

<< Malfoy is definitely bad faith, a meaning which became more clear
when Draco Malfoy's story in HBP actually illustrated the meaning of
the term as Sartre used it. Apparently people had suggested the Sartre
meaning before, but people didn't think much of the theory because
until then it didn't show much about canon. >>

You might want to explain the Sartre meaning. Before HBP, I assumed
that the Malfoys had 'bad faith' as in, they lie a lot and betray
people who thought they were friends.

Magpie:
Sorry, yes--I will try to explain it as I understand it.  pre-HBP I thought 
the "bad faith" of the Malfoys meant that they had faith in the worst 
things.  If you think of the Pureblood ideology like a bad religion.

Okay, the Sartre "bad faith" is a form of self-deception.  It is to believe 
you have no choice in the way you behave, to adopt a role and live your life 
according to it whatever your own real feelings might be.  Most importantly, 
it is an abandonment of responsibility.  You don't acknowledge your freedom 
to act, because you are a mere thing, a tool of fate, you are what your role 
in life is.  The mantra of a person living in "bad faith" is "I have no 
choice," which is what Draco says in the Tower.

As Elkins first pointed out years ago, Draco in canon even before HBP shows 
signs of conflict within himself.  The moments he's at his most DE-ish he 
shows signs of problems; he's flushed, feverish, quivers.  This is not to 
say that his "real self" is a nice guy while he pretends to be bad.  In 
Sartre there is no "inner self" to judge a person by as opposed to what he 
does.  We *are* and then we *act*.  The way we act shows who we are (it is 
our choices that show who we are).

The self-deception lies, often, in choosing not to decide, to pretend one is 
a role and is not able to choose freely.  Seeing the truth is often 
connected with mortality--we realize that when we die we are only ourselves, 
not part of "them" or whatever role we have chosen.  HBP, I think, really 
takes Draco carefully through a story that leads him to that moment of 
truth--to the edge of it, that is.  He's confronted with mortality, his own 
and others, throughout the book after five books of stressing how unreal 
death is to him.

Draco in the Tower is all about the Bad Faith--he keeps saying he's going to 
kill, but doesn't act.  When he finally says, "I'm the one with the wand..." 
and all that, I think that's the dawning of understanding of free choice. 
It's important that his wand going down even a fraction of an inch happens 
after Draco recognizes that he has a choice, that he's come this far and 
doesn't *have* to choose one way or the other, and when Dumbledore has given 
him a concrete offer.  It's all about what he wants to choose himself. 
That's as far as he gets in HBP.


Catlady:
Except by Mrs Weasley sending candy Easter Eggs to the kids ... they
also get a few days off classes.

Magpie:
Sorry, I totally forgot that when I wrote that.  We do have references to 
Easter in canon.

-m