Being Good and Evil

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 154638


> Alla:
> 
> Um, not quite. I just don't buy the argument ( not necessarily 
> yours) that seems to absolve Draco from all personal 
responsibility 
> BECAUSE his parents are so bad.

Magpie:
I don't think that Draco's absolved of responsibility at all 
either.  Every person has things that influence him, but also acts 
himself in response to those influences.  As a character I don't 
think Draco's ever been let off the hook this way.  Sure we know his 
Dad's a DE and he's been raised with certain beliefs, but it's not 
Lucius who feels the results of his behavior, it's Draco himself.  I 
thought that was a lot of what HBP was about was Draco coming to a 
place where he was seeing the reality of this.  If he goes through 
life acting a certain way, believing certain things, that's his life 
and no one else's.

Alla:> 
> IMO everybody first and foremost learns their morality, their 
views 
> from their parents and if Draco would have been raised in vacuum 
and 
> have not encountered ANYBODY but his parents and friends, then I 
> would have probably understood that argument.
> 
> But he is NOT. He is not even going to Durmstrang, where arguably 
> Dark Arts are more thriving, etc. He is going to Hogwarts and he 
has 
> to be SO blind IMO to not see the difference between how 
Dumbledore 
> behaves and how Voldemort behaves and by extension how Draco's 
> parents behave.

Magpie:
But he doesn't need a vacuum.  He doesn't cling to the beliefs and 
feelings he was raised in because he has no idea there are other 
people who believe differently, he clings to them because of a 
combination of who he is, who he loves, how he sees them, what he 
holds dear and what he's experienced.  I would guess that an 
objective moral judgment's probably pretty low down the scale a lot 
of the time for Draco, that he's more heavily influenced by the 
emotions he feels for the people involved.  As Harry and others 
often do as well.

Alla:
> 
> All the examples that were given are those that IMO Draco is VERY 
> likely to hear about.  For example I did not give the example of 
> Harry being tortured at Graveyard, although I am thinking that 
> Lucius could have described that to Draco in great details too, 
but 
> Okay, Draco was not there, BUT Draco hears that Cedric was killed 
by 
> Voldemort ( by Peter, but it is the same for purpose of the 
> argument).

Magpie:
Some of these things he would hear about and, with the bias he has, 
and be unlikely to look at them the way we do.  He's not sitting off 
detached and making a rational judgment, he's reacting in the moment 
to different knocks and jolts.  We are, I think, dealing with a kid 
far more influenced by his emotions about the people involved.  
Which is not supposed to be an excuse for his behavior either, it's 
just not surprising.

> 
> Alla:
> 
> He is worse than Harry precisely because he is on Voldemort side 
> IMO, I am not even getting into his personality, because as I said 
I 
> am not really tempted to look behind personality of the bigot 
> unfortunately.

Magpie:
But then you're you're not looking at the character.  He's a bigot, 
so on a scale of bigots vs. non-bigots he fails.  


Alla: 
> It is a very low threshhold for me to overcome and Draco passes 
with 
> flying colours. Draco was raised to believe in Voldemort, sure, he 
> was, but how does that make his beliefs not worse?

Magpie:
Not at all!  His story, imo, is very centered on just how bad his 
beliefs are.  I think that's what the author is often interested in 
with him.  A lot of fanfics are happy to have Draco switch sides for 
political, self-preservation reasons, but I don't think JKR is 
interested in letting him get away with that.  His beliefs could 
very well kill him.

Alla:> 
> Does he not know that Voldemort at very least killed two people 
and 
> left a baby an orphan? And I am assuming that Draco did not hear 
> anything about Voldemort's first reign of terror, which is IMO not 
> possible.

Magpie:
But lots of people passionately support causes and people who have 
done awful things like this, especially if it's for the "right" 
reasons.  Draco's belief seems to center on the idea that it's 
*good* that Voldemort did these things.  His belief system puts 
these horrible acts in a context that makes them at worst necessary 
evils.  In fact I think all along there were signs that the 
important thing about Draco wasn't that he professed to believe 
these things but that this was, underneath, exactly what he had 
trouble with.  According to his beliefs killing Dumbledore should 
have literally been glorious.  First hand experience suggested that 
it wasn't, and perhaps neither was the murder of the Potters or 
Cedric or anyone else.

Alla: 
> He wants to help Heir of Slytherin commit murder, he has no 
problem 
> with the mudbloods dying. Yes, I'd say that it makes him MUCH 
worse 
> than Harry.

Magpie:
Yes, I would never argue that Harry does not share any beliefs like 
thinking it's okay for a whole group of people should die.  However, 
also remember that saying and doing are two different things 
(especially at 12).  Ultimately Draco doesn't want to help the Heir 
of Slytherin commit murder, at least. 

Alla:
> And yes, he winds up helping the Heir, I do hope that this was the 
> lesson that would stick with him, but what I am not buying is that 
> Draco bears no personal responsibility because he was raised in 
the  bad environment. 
> As I said I am not sure that this is your argument.

Magpie:
Definitely not my argument. If Draco has no personal responsibility 
his story was meaningless and went nowhere.  It seemed like a lot of 
what he was meant to learn had to do with personal responsibility.

> Alla:
> 
> You see, I am not sure I understand you. On one hand the argument 
> acknowledges that Draco's side is objectively bad, on the other 
you 
> do seem to imply that since this is the morality Draco was taught, 
> he bears no responsibility for what he did
> 
> Could you please clarify? We all get our views from somewhere, as 
I 
> said I think Draco SAW things that should have forced him to 
reflect 
> upon it earlier before he tried to commit murders. I hold him 
> responsible for not doing so.

Magpie:
I'm not saying that he has no personal responsibility for what he 
does because of his family, but rather saying that you can't 
understand his actions without taking that into account. I just 
don't see anything that should have forced Draco to reflect upon 
this stuff earlier at all. In every book before HBP there's some 
reference to the fact that death isn't even real for Draco, much 
less something he's reflecting upon.  It becomes real for him in 
HBP.  Sure it would have been great for him to have reacted to 
Cedric's death by changing sides, but it doesn't bother me that he 
didn't.  I find the character a lot more compelling the way he's 
written.  Had he changed sides earlier, in fact, we would lose a lot 
of the punch of his personal responsibility because he would just 
have been an observer on the sidelines.  Who cares which way the 
Malfoy kid leans unless the Malfoy kid is a player?

Alla: 
> There are characters who do see that their prejudices are wrong , 
> they evolve and grow. Ron snarks at Lupin "get away from me 
> werewolf", so it seems to me that either Molly and Arthur shared 
to 
> some extent this prejudice ( which I do not find very likely, but 
it 
> is of course possible), OR Ron got it from some other source.
> 
> I do not see anywhere in OOP from Ron's interactions with Lupin 
that 
> he somehow prejudiced against him.
> 
> Does Draco shows anything like that? As I said, I surely hope that 
> he will, but the fact that he was raised by Lucius does not 
absolve 
> him IMO.

Magpie:
Interesting comparison, because Ron changes his mind about Lupin 
based on experience, doesn't he?  It's through knowing Lupin that 
Ron comes to think werewolves aren't bad.  Lupin has treated Ron 
really well up until that point--and the two of them aren't just 
teacher and student.  Molly likes Lupin just fine, but is nervous 
around werewolves in general because they're contagious.  (I believe 
she doesn't like Arthur sharing a ward with one in OotP.)  In the 
end it still seems to turn on the same thing Draco does, which is 
personal relationships.

> Alla:
> 
> Dumbledore does his best to not make them prevalent in Hogwarts 
IMO. 
> Does Draco listen? As I said, one example is that he employs 
Hagrid 
> and Lupin. Hagrid, who was unjustly expelled and Lupin, who cannot 
> get a job otherwise. Does that teach Draco any kind of lesson? Not 
> IMO.

Magpie:
I'm not sure what Dumbledore's hiring of his personal favorite group 
would do one way or the other.  Lupin was a great teacher, but Snape 
disliked him and I don't know if Draco had any thoughts about 
werewolves after he left.  I can't imagine Hagrid doing much 
positive good on that score.  I can very easily see how Hagrid comes 
across outside Harry's pov.  Probably most kids in Harry's class 
went through classes with both these two with little or nothing 
changing about whatever personal prejudices they might have had.

-m