What Came First: Task or Cabinet? - A tale of two Dracos LONG

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 157733

Alla:

Mmmm, I was responding to your statement ( or the way I understood
it) that if Draco went to Voldemort that means that he was being a
child asking grown ups to do a job for him and what I am saying is
that we do not know what is in Draco's head and maybe he was viewing
offering such smart plan to Voldemort as being a man.

Magpie:
Oh--sorry.  There are like three different stories in the Cabinet 
First plot and I get them confused.  I was thinking about the 
version described to me where Draco didn't want any job, he just 
thought he'd be giving information and getting rewarded.  So Draco's 
got to change in response to that.

Alla:
Sorry, lost me again, especially lost me with the analogy to Snape.
Yeah, telling LV about prophecy to me is more than enough to
implicate Snape in Potters murders, without Snape that would not
have ever started.

Magpie:
I believe what I was saying was that if the secret entrance into 
Hogwarts is a valuable piece of info for LV because it assures acts 
of evil, then once Draco has given LV this opportunity he's 
allegedly started the plan in LV's head, whether or not Draco is the 
one to fix the Cabinet.  Just as with Snape his telling LV about the 
Prophecy started the plan to kill the Potters whether or not Snape 
was the one to actually kill them.  In both cases these people are 
starting something according to the CF!theory, because they set 
Voldemort into action.

Alla:
Nah, sorry not buying. Draco is supposedly growing up with those
guys, they are his dad's palls and why is it supposed to be a huge
thing for his character to do? I mean, sure, Voldemort is sort of
one step up, but DE circles is Draco's circles IMO.

Magpie:
You're saying the same thing as Harry at the end of OotP ("He's a 
mate of your dad's, isn't he?").  Only Harry is being sarcastic, 
teasing and mocking Draco with his fear.  Draco flinches at 
Voldemort's name for all he might throw the Dark Lord around as a 
friend of his dad's.  For Draco to go to the Dark Lord himself, as 
opposed to going to just a friend of his dad's?  That takes some 
intitiative.  I think Greyback is a similar thing. Draco's exhibited 
fear of werewolves in canon, but throws around Greyback's name when 
Greyback isn't anywhere near him. He's a DE, so could have ties (be 
a "friend") to Lucius or Bellatrix.  But Draco's totally bluffing in 
bringing him up in an easy way, as we see when he's faced with him 
at the end of HBP.

Magpie:
That's a lot of steam
> to get him in front of the guy.

Alla:

As I said I don't think so - just to go and approach his daddy's
boss, that's all. :)

Magpie:
Voldemort's been dead for all of Draco's remembered life, a legend 
whose name he was nonetheless afraid to speak.  Draco may be going 
to Daddy's boss, but his dad still works for Satan--his employees 
fear him.

Alla:

Wait, wait you are contradicting yourself, I think. In your story if
Draco was never expecting that he'd have to to kill anybody or fix
cabinet, he would have been surprised to find out that this is not
what he wanted, correct? But in canon, just as you said Draco is
bragging about the task, he is happy, so doesn't it suggest that *Oh
sh*t moment* had not happened yet ,meaning that it is likely that
Draco approached Voldemort? MY head sooooo hurts again :)

Magpie:
Heh--sorry!  I'm getting tripped on the many competing versions of 
the CF!Plot.  (That's what happens when you don't have an actual 
story to analyze, just ever-changing "what ifs?")  In one version of 
this story, Draco goes to Voldemort hoping to just give information 
and skip off--but then LV ropes him into making the plan work and 
killing DD.  But, as you said, Draco begins the book happy and proud 
to have the task.  So either he went in not wanting a task, was 
surprised to get one, but then rallied to think it was a good thing, 
or we've got to go with some version where the task was always a 
good thing.  

Alla:

And why this transformation could not have happened? Say Draco
brought that plan, Voldemort gives him this mission and Draco
evaluated his glory and got more happier in progress?

Magpie:
It could happen--it's just insane that it's not on the page.  The 
version in the book is I think intentionally much simpler.  We don't 
need to imagine Draco transforming many times between books.  And 
since transformations of character are important, they tend to be 
written in in some way.

Alla:

Erm... if Draco brings plan to Voldemort that does not mean
necessarily that Draco does not want to kill DD, IMO. That means
that Draco did not **think** about killing DD, and if he did he may
have embraced that right away, so voldemort puts this thought in
Draco's head and Draco indeed thinks it is a very good thing. Where
is contradiction of this speculation with canon?

Magpie:
Again, I was describing the version where Draco got pwned by LV.  
Canonically it seems to be given that Draco never thought about 
killing DD, LV gave him the task, and he was happy to do it.  What's 
not mentioned are these extra complications where Draco *did* think 
first of getting people into Hogwarts.  And took that to LV, and got 
this out of it, which replaced his own motivations so completely 
there's no trace of them left, except in ways they would completely 
overlap with the ones he has now.

Alla:
Yeah, and he does sort of has this triumph on the train, no?

Magpie:
Actually, he really doesn't at all.  He's bragging that he's been 
given a task, not that he already impressed Voldemort by bringing 
him a great idea nobody else had thought of. Writing the scene with 
that different tact wouldn't be difficult.  I think it would come 
naturally if the author had in her head that this is what happened. 
She does this all the time, sometimes intentionally disguising one 
motivation for another--but if the real one isn't revealed there's 
no payoff.  (Though I don't think there's any disguising going on on 
the train.)

Alla:
In the TBAY, as far as I am aware ( and this is from the POV of
somebody who loved to read TBAY and hopes people will come back to
it, but never wrote it) the Faith is the personification of the
authoritarial intent, basically she accepts as given of what is
written on the page, period. Again, TBAY theorists who actually used
Faith in their essays will correct me if I am wrong.

And very often the theories in Theory Bay were checked by Faith on
whether they can sail or not :)

Magpie:
Ah!  Thanks--so it's what it sounded like.  "Faith" refers to 
reading the books like ordinary books.  But more importantly, it's 
something common to Theory Bay, and as I said in another post, I 
think the problem with this thread is two different activities 
having to do with the books crashing into each other. 

Alla:
I am especially confused about HBP proving that Faith was wrong that
Dumbledore was cruel leaving Harry with Dursleys. Is there anything
there to show that Dumbledore was **not** cruel? Wound't the Faith
position be that yeah, that was Dumbledore only choice, but she would
ask for more definite stance on that?

Magpie:
Just for the record, that would be what HBP seems to say to me about 
DD and the Dursleys.  Either way he left a kid in a household he 
could be pretty sure would be unloving, and for years knew it was 
downright cruel to Harry.  But HBP confirmed there was a blood 
protection factor too.  

-m