Re: Draco Unredeemed and the Cabinet That Won’t Die (long)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 159135

> bboyminn:
> 
> I have no problem with Draco being redeemed as long as 
> people are clear about what 'redeemed' means in this
> context. Too many people think it means that Draco 
> becomes Ron-II; Harry's best buddy and all-time friend.
> Sorry, but that is simply not going to happen. Draco will
> always be selfish, self-centered, and self-serving. I
> suspect he will realize that supporting Voldemort is not 
> the wise thing to do, but again, that decision will come,
> not because he wants to help the good guys, but because
> he sees how hopeless it is to continue to support 
> Voldemort.
> 
> Now if Draco's actions in someway help the good guys that
> is fine and it will probably weigh in Draco's favor, but
> short of some incredably heroic act on his part, it 
> doesn't offset his greed, stupidity, or cowardice. 
> 
> Right now I'm leaning in favor of Draco working against
> Voldemort, but being against Voldemort doesn't mean Draco
> will ever be good or nice. His actions will always be for
> purely self-serving reasons. 

Magpie:
I think this is a stingy way to look at it, pre-emptively saying 
Draco doesn't get to change even if he does change because he's got 
so much to make up for he'll always be comfortably in the red when 
it comes to badness.  I have no idea where JKR will go with him, but 
I just don't think she shares fandom's desire for political 
defections from the bad side, where the person gets to retain all 
their former beliefs but work against Voldemort.  I just don't think 
you can do that in her world.  She came close in HBP with 
Dumbledore's offer to protect Draco and so allow him to be neutral, 
and she took it away.  Sirius says lots of Purebloods agreed with 
Voldemort's ideas until they found out what he was really about; but 
I think the Pureblood ideals *are* always about this.

There's nothing about Draco as a character (just as there isn't 
anything about Snape) that says he couldn't genuinely choose the 
side of good ever or ever act out of the right impulses, that he 
must always be purely self-serving and bad.  It's not like many of 
Draco's motivations in HBP weren't familiar from our good guys.  If 
asked to describe the things that separated him from the good guys 
in HBP, I don't think self-serving, self-centered and selfish would 
be the things I'd come up with, even if he can be all of these 
things.  His story was a lot about wanting to grow up, so he 
couldn't just be those things.  Peter Pettigrew is a fundamentally 
self-serving character, often demonstrated by the way he always 
chooses to kill when threatened.

Like I said, I have no idea where the character would go, but I do 
see hints that a rift between the houses must be healed, and to me 
that suggests the new generation has to learn something significant 
in order to meet Gryffindor halfway to work with them.  Not the 
familiar fandom story where Harry gets to rack up the required 
Slytherin points by working with them while everything remains 
comfortingly black and white. Also, I think JKR has been careful 
about just how much Draco "owes" to anyone--it's really not much.  
He's been consistently unpleasant, but suffers for it in every book, 
doesn't get off without punishment (often coming immediately), 
doesn't cause lasting damage.  As I believe Geoff said in some of 
the posts he linked to, no one is beyond redemption.  If you change 
your mind, you change your mind.  From then on, you are changed.

-m