[HPforGrownups] Re: What Came First: Task or Cabinet? - The Plan v1 & v2/Bigotry or Not?

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 157698

> Alla:

> I am just not understanding how Draco wanting to be a man dissappears
> from "cabinet came first" addition to the story. It is not like we
> can say for sure what **exactly** Draco views as being a man, no?

Magpie:
It's not up to us to say what Draco views as being a man.  The story has set 
up the situation to which Draco is reacting--so it's telling us what it 
means.  Sure you can still do a "Draco wants to be a man" story if he goes 
to Voldmort first, but you have to write that story and that's going to 
define the context in which he's becoming a man, and give him the situation 
he's reacting to.  That's what happens the way it's written now and why you 
can't just stick that onto this story, because you start one story and then 
suddenly, because Voldemort throws Draco for a loop, he changes and starts 
this other story.

Also, as an aside, the Cabinet First story has Draco *beginning* the story 
by committing the act that now is the big climax--and it gives it a 
different kind of weight as well.  If Draco goes to Voldemort and gives him 
the secret way into Hogwarts, it's done.  His personal fixing of the cabinet 
and being the one to do it is redundant.  In this story it's fine, because 
the Cabinet plot is simply Draco's way of doing the job that Voldemort gave 
him to do any way he could.  If the doorway into Hogwarts is so valuable to 
LV himself because it gives him a strategic evil victory, then Draco's 
already handed it to him by telling him about it.  Just as Snape's telling 
LV about the prophecy is enough to implicate him in LV's plot to kill Harry.

So in the Cabinet First plot we've got two transformation stories, one 
entirely off-page. You've got the one where Draco starts out with all the 
motivation that gets him to Voldemort--an incredibly huge thing for this 
character to do--this isn't going to Filch to snitch.  That's a lot of steam 
to get him in front of the guy.  But then Voldemort says "Great plan--you 
fix it, and kill DD too!"  (This is somehow supposed to be more rational for 
Voldemort because it's all about the great strategic goal of getting into 
the school, though it's completely undercut by then actually counting on 
Draco to make it work as opposed to just trying to kill him, and ultimately 
it's done in a totally half-arsed way on LV's part.)

If Draco was never expecting he'd have to fix the cabinet or kill anyone, 
then there was a bit of an "Oh s*** moment for him when Voldmort said "You 
do it and kill DD."  It suggests this is not something Draco wanted.  By the 
beginning of the book that we get, he's convinced himself this task is a 
good thing, a way to prove himself.  So we're not just talking about some 
practical details taking place off stage to explain whether Draco took the 
bus to see LV or LV came over for dinner, we're talking about a 
transformation beat or sequence where Draco goes from "Ha ha, I'll show that 
Harry Potter.  I'll give Voldemort this plan and he'll use it against Harry 
without my having to do anything!"  to "I've been given a dangerous murder 
mission and it is a chance for glory that Voldemort has given me."

So Draco has now either decided it is a good thing he was given this task 
when he originally didn't want it, or he considers it a good thing from the 
moment LV tells it to him.  That fits more what we see.  The task from 
Voldemort seems to always be presented as a good thing from Draco's pov for 
the first few chapters of the book.

If being given this task is an honor, something we hear Draco thinks it is 
and something Draco says it is himself, there's really no reason for Draco 
to change motivations at all yet in the Cabinet First Plot.  His going to LV 
was a success--LV loved the plan.  And then he even made it Draco's plan and 
rewarded him with the chance to do something else.    It's even more of a 
success than Draco expected.  In terms of character logic, Draco should 
begin the book already having had a triumph with his motivation intact and 
visible--frankly, I'm surprised Spinner's End isn't abuzz that Draco's even 
done this audacious thing of going to LV and getting some assignement (even 
if they don't know what he went to LV with)--this would not only be a hard 
thing to keep secret, but something LV probably wouldn't keep secret. 
Competition amongst DEs is a good thing (another reason Draco would 
reference it to Snape in their argument).

But even skipping Spinner's End it would have a major affect on Draco in the 
train car.  Why talk about proving himself to LV and being given something 
he can do?  He's already impressed LV with his clever plan.  He should 
already have a little glory, some hints that he's proven himself invaluable 
to LV.  Also his plan (for this is all Draco's plan now--Draco's plan is 
getting revenge on Harry by helping LV) is working.  If revenge against 
Harry was enough to get him to Voldemort, it shouldn't just evaporate 
because the plan actually looks like it might work. The nose-stomping is 
just a taste of things to come.  Desire for revenge has served Draco well so 
far.

Yet one of the unique things about this book is that this year--the year 
that allegedly Draco is working on a huge revenge plot against Harry--he 
doesn't care about Harry. Harry gets no vibes of this major burn Draco is 
planning in response to Harry throwing his Dad in prison.  Once things go 
sour, that motivation has to go sour with it.  "If I don't do it, he'll kill 
me" can still be there, of course.  But how do you forget to write that this 
is a hunter turning out to be hunted story?

As written the story is strong and consistent.  We know from the beginning, 
from Narcissa, that Draco is being set up.  We know from Bellatrix that 
Draco sees this set up as a chance to prove himself. We do need, imo, to 
ultimately know whether Draco knows he's been tricked, and we do.  In the 
Tower scene Draco reveals that he does know by that point that he was 
expected to die.   JKR is hitting all the bullet points in that Tower.

So you've got a character with a strong motivation--the motivation the 
Cabinet First theory concentrates on for Draco is all OotP (Voldmort's 
motivations are more often discussed).  To me it seems clear as day that 
Draco's OotP motivations are dealt with by the author on their own, first 
with the slug-hexing and then with the nose stomp.  She hasn't forgotten 
them.  She's just given them their own closure and then channelled 
everything about the character into this new situation.

So there's the practical difficulties relating to basic storytelling, that 
if this is part of the set up of Draco's situation it'd be in there.  Then 
there's the basic storytelling skill of knowing that you start with your 
problem and have to deal with that naturally-that's going to dictate the 
story and the character's behavior.  It's not just making it fit with 
timelines, it's making it a coherent story as well.  Voldemort's turnaround 
on Draco should be all through the text.

Ironically, also, a lot of the reasons why the Cabinet First theory is 
supposed to make more sense is that Draco is so unimportant a person 
Voldemort shouldn't be wasting time on him.  (I refrain from opening that 
out onto a meta argument.)  It makes no sense that LV would ever seek him 
out, that he'd waste even the time it takes to kill him.  Yet canon itself 
has already anticipated that and answered it with the Malfoy Revenge plot. 
Draco isn't being counted on by LV, LV didn't have to go looking for him, he 
is unimportant to LV--these are all reasons why this is happening, not 
reasons it shouldn't.  The theme of Draco's life for Book VI is how truly 
expendable he is while he's fighting to prove he isn't--and he actually does 
prove it, not just to DEs by getting them into the castle, but to himself, 
which is why he's finally able to listen to Dumbledore's wisdom and offer.

> Steve:
>> My theory brings Voldemort and Draco together. I suspect
>> Draco thought he would pass the Cabinet information to
>> Voldemort and gain the bragging rights of having personally
>> helped the Dark Lord. But Voldemort has deeper, darker, and
>> more desperate ideas, and so begins the start of the printed
>> page.

Magpie:
And that's the problem.  The basic logic of storytelling says this stuff 
goes on the printed page.  Even the way you've written it here it's 
obviously narration, as juicy as any other story dropped into canon. It 
should be all over canon, but it's nowhere to be found. Though I'm happy to 
say there is this other story in canon that's all on the page and that I 
actually think is better.:-)

-m