Draco as Victim in GoF (was: Re: The Huge overreactions...)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 150287

Carol:
> To return to Draco, who at the end of HBP has what may be his only
> chance to choose a path different from his father's, my hope is 
that
> Snape will steer him in the right direction. He doesn't seem 
capable
> of choosing for himself. (Lowering the wand ever so slightly to me
> indicates wavering and indecisiveness, not an admission that he has
> chosen the wrong side. DD is still in his mind a "Mudblood lover" 
and
> "a stupid old man" and the enemy he ought to be killing if he were
> doing his job. Draco just can't get up the nerve to kill him in 
cold
> blood.) Nor do I see his statement that he didn't invite Greyback 
as
> anything more than grasping at straws, the one crime of which he 
can
> truthfully claim to be innocent (as opposed to two murder attempts,
> manipulating Rosmerta into becoming an accessory to attempted 
murder,
> and letting the DEs into Hogwarts). It's interesting, though, that 
he
> would even want to defend himself to DD and that his defense 
consists,
> in essence, of "I do too intend to murder you, but I didn't mean to
> let *him* in!")

Magpie:
I disagree this is just "wavering" on Draco's part, and I think 
that's why Harry recalls it at the end of the book and JKR said 
outside the text that Harry was right and he "wouldn't have killed" 
Dumbledore.  I think what we are seeing with Draco in the Tower is 
the moment that the Tower card often represents--the death of old 
orders and the start of the new.  It's too much to say that Draco 
has changed sides or committed himself to Dumbledore, but I think it 
is too little to say he's still locked in his delusions.  
*Something* happens in Draco's story, and I think this is it.  
Dumbledore does, imo, crack him.  It's the last thing he does in his 
life. Up until then Draco is certainly fighting him, but that's why 
I don't think we have to believe that, for instance, Draco's calling 
DD a "stupid old man" during the scene means that that's what he 
feels at the end of the scene.  

Dumbledore (or JKR through Dumbledore) seems very intent on getting 
Draco to the point where he has to make a choice about killing or 
not.  Throughout the scene all his delusions and denials are taken 
away until we're finally down to the most basic truth of the scene: 
it's the threat to his family that's the real reason he has to kill 
Dumbledore. Dumbledore offers him a choice, a way out.  Draco goes 
over the reasons *not* to take the offer--he's come this far, 
Dumbledore is at his mercy. So I just can't see the lowering of the 
wand as a non-moment, just yet another sign of indecision.  The 
scene leading up to it is about indecision.  The lowering of the 
wand is a sign of *some* realization.  It's not a total change of 
sides, but it's a point of no return just the same, which is why 
it's referenced again later, imo.  We and Draco know at the end of 
HBP what Draco *isn't.*  We/he just don't yet know what he is.

To go back to the idea of Draco's problem being that he's not able 
to kill Dumbledore in person seems to me again a step back.  Draco 
attempted to kill from a distance earlier in the year.  I think 
getting him face to face with a helpless Dumbledore where literally 
all he has to do is point a stick and say the word to wish him dead 
(leaving aside the question of whether he could actually cast the 
spell) is an attempt, imo, to make the killing as easy as possible, 
not harder.  It reduces the whole thing, magically, to the desire, 
because that's what the magic is.  Does he desire to kill DD or 
not?  He doesn't.

Carol:
Nor do I see his statement that he didn't invite Greyback as
> anything more than grasping at straws, the one crime of which he 
can
> truthfully claim to be innocent (as opposed to two murder attempts,
> manipulating Rosmerta into becoming an accessory to attempted 
murder,
> and letting the DEs into Hogwarts). It's interesting, though, that 
he
> would even want to defend himself to DD and that his defense 
consists,
> in essence, of "I do too intend to murder you, but I didn't mean to
> let *him* in!")

Magpie:
I don't see that line that way at all.  It takes place *after* 
Dumbledore's line about mercy and the fractional lowering of the 
wand.  Draco is not here saying that he does intend to murder 
Dumbledore, he's not speaking about killing DD at all.  I'd say it's 
more than interesting that Draco would even want to defend himself 
to Dumbledore--I think it's the whole reason the line is important.  
Not only did Draco never claim to be innocent of the near-murders of 
Ron and Katie, he insisted he was committed to the attempts at 
Dumbledore's life that resulted in them.  This Greyback line is a 
complete change of perspective.  He could claim to be fine with 
Greyback's presence (what a DE should do) or just keep quiet (also 
acceptable).  Instead surrounded by the people he supposedly wants 
to impress as a murderer he pipes up to assure DD he didn't know 
Greyback was coming.  Either it's important enough that DD know that 
he didn't do this that he speaks up or he's working out the kinds of 
bad consequences his actions can have.  

Either way Draco is DDB here--by which I don't mean he's switched 
sides in the war.  I mean that the connection made between them on 
the Tower has not broken.  Dumbledore is influencing him even in the 
midst of the DEs (I believe his eyes never leave him, he's like a 
lifeline). Draco's spent all of canon wanting to appear a DE.  This 
is the first time I can remember he's ever shown a more normal 
desire to be seen as less than heartless and he's got every reason 
not to do it.

Carol:
> 
> I don't much like Draco, and unlike young Snape, he was never 
on "our
> side" and consequently can't "return" to it (to quote DD in 
GoF, "The
> Pensieve"), but this is (ostensibly) a children's series, so it 
seems
> likely to me that Draco will be redeemed as a message to young 
readers
> that even bad kids can be turned away from the path to evil. 

Magpie:
Snape was never "on our side" either before leaving the DEs that I 
can see.  I think when Dumbledore talks about Snape "returning" he 
means that all his children/students start out as on his side as far 
as he's concerned because no child can be born to Voldemort.  Snape 
was always associated with the Dark Arts and even if it wasn't until 
fifth year or so that he started using blood superiority rhetoric I 
don't see how he can be said to have *chosen* Dumbledore's side 
first. I think the language here is slippery--obviously Draco has 
always identified himself as being on the DE side, something that 
Snape presumably only ever did later, but while their backgrounds 
make the two of them different I don't see that it's that big of a 
deal.  Either one of them seems to me equally able to show that bad 
kids can be turned away from the path to evil.  We just don't see 
Snape as the bad kid because we're not reading MWPP-era Hogwarts. 

Carol:
The only way I can see for that to happen, though, is for DDM!Snape 
to be the agent of Draco's redemption. I don't think Draco's going 
to do it on his own.

Magpie:
Snape has always been an important influence on Draco and whatever 
he chooses I think Snape will figure into it, but it seems like 
you're saying here that Draco can only be a passive project of 
heroic DDM!Snape and I think that goes against the way Rowling sees 
and does things.  No one can redeem another person or be their agent 
of redemption, really--not enough for the person to avoid doing it 
on their own.  Particularly in HBP Dumbledore seems determined to 
give Draco *freedom* because he feels this is the only way he can 
possibly get the experience, courage and wisdom to be able to make a 
choice.  It's only through rejecting help that Draco becomes someone 
who might be valuable later.

Maybe this just goes back to what I was saying earlier, but the 
adults in this series have made their choices and have to live with 
them.  The heroes are not going to be the adults fixing things for 
the kids.  The whole concept of "Bad Faith" is about making our own 
choices and so I'd agree that this is a challenge for Draco.  His 
very name says that he's tempted to define himself as "one of them" 
instead of making true choices, but it seems like HBP put him on the 
path of waking up out of that. And I think Rowling enjoys doing that 
to him.:-)

Really, I just can't think of any adults in this series who are 
really in any position to fix the kids.  They're all trapped by 
their own natures, their own mistakes and choices, all the things 
they *didn't* fix about themselves--and of all the adults, Snape is 
probably the one who's fixed the least about himself.  To have DDM!
swoop in and be responsible for saving Draco seems to go completely 
backwards to me. It's this generation that will heal the last. In 
fact, it seems to me that Draco has already avoided some of Snape's 
own pitfalls (and even if Snape's own actions have contributed to 
that, so does Snape seem to contribute to the ways that keeps Draco 
on the wrong path). Adults often feel they should be the ones acting 
and try to just influence the kids or work around them, but that 
seems to always fail.  I really can't see how Snape could be the 
agent of Draco redemption in a way that did not require Draco to be 
the one making his own choices.  How do you see this playing out?

-m