What Came First: Task or Cabinet? - The Plan v1 & v2

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 157750

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > See, this is what's so odd to me.  The entire discussion is about
> > whether Voldemort chose Draco or Draco chose Voldemort (who
> > approached whom) and for some reason the conversation keeps     
> > getting dragged around to Voldemort's motivations.  Why?  It's   
> > confusing and it fogs the issue.

> >>Random832:
> Eh? I'm not saying that Voldemort didn't choose Draco - i'm saying
> that it is 100% compatible with canon, and no less likely than your
> version, that:
> Draco found out about the cabinets.
> Draco went to Voldemort to tell him about the cabinets, hoping to 
> gain favor Voldemort then, AFTER being told about the cabinets,    
> gave Draco the order kill DD _as a serious attempt to get DD      
> killed_ (i.e. not as an attempt to have Draco end up killed).

Betsy Hp:
So, you *are* saying that Draco approached Voldemort; that *Draco 
chose* to put himself before Voldemort.  *That's* exactly what I'm 
arguing against.  And that's the exact scenario that has absolutely 
no canon to back it up.  (Again I state that so definitvely because 
if there *were* canon I'm sure it would have been quoted shortly 
into this thread.)

> >>Random832:
> Nobody's saying that Draco came up with the whole plan _including_ 
> him being the one to carry it out and then proposed it to         
> Voldemort.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Right.  But they *are* saying that Draco approached Voldemort.  
Which has no support in canon.

> >>Random832:
> this WHOLE DEBATE is about voldemort's motivations - whether it   
> was an attempt to initiate Draco as a "serious" death eater, or to 
> get him killed to get back at Lucius. I don't see how you can      
> claim otherwise.

Betsy Hp:
Because I'm on the other side of the argument and what I have a 
problem with is the very first premise that Draco approached 
Voldemort.  Everything else follows that one assumption, and since 
that assumption has no canon support why waste time talking about 
what gets built off of it?

> >>Random832: 
> You're setting up a straw man argument in claiming that we're      
> saying that Draco said "hey, i'll go to the dark lord and offer to 
> kill professor dumbledore". NOBODY has said that at all. That is   
> NOT what this debate is about, and I don't understand why you keep 
> saying it is.

Betsy Hp:
Erm, I haven't?  I really, really haven't.  I deny that Draco 
approached Voldemort *with the cabinet idea*.  Kind of like the 
title of this thread, which I came up with, thank you very much. <g>

What this debate is about is who approached whom.  Canon says, 
several times, that Voldemort sought out Draco.  Nothing says Draco 
approached Voldemort.

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > Who cares (at this point) *why* Voldemort chose Draco, all we're
> > trying to say is that *as per canon* Voldemort [chose] Draco.    
> > And Narcissa doesn't need to understand a thing about Voldemort 
> > to correctly interpert Voldemort giving her son a task as       
> > Voldemort, well, choosing her son to do a certain task.

> >>Random832: 
> But there's no reason for her to consider the possibility that
> Voldemort gave Draco the task _in response to_ information that   
> Draco gave him, because, well, she doesn't know he gave him       
> information.

Betsy Hp:
Yes, but apparently *no one* knows Draco approached Voldemort with 
any sort of information.  Including Draco.  Because *no one*, 
absolutely no one even hints that maybe darling little Draco made 
his own bed by putting himself before the big bad Dark Lord.  Which 
is a bit strange if JKR is trying to foreshadow that big reveal.

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > Even if Narcissa thought Draco could complete his task easily   
> > she'd still come to the same exact conclusion as to whether      
> > Voldemort sought out Draco or Draco sought out Voldemort.

> >>Random832:
> Not necessarily, if that conclusion was based on speculation rather
> than knowledge.

Betsy Hp:
Speculation that her son snuck out of the house to visit with the 
scary Dark Lord?  Or speculation that Voldemort called at her home 
to visit with her son?  That kind of speculation?  Again, where is 
any sort of hint that Narcissa was just guessing at how her son and 
Voldemort crossed paths?

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > And everybody in the room (and on the Tower, for that matter)    
> > seemed under the impression that it was Voldemort who sought out 
> > Draco.

> >>Random832:
> Because the other way doesn't make any _sense_ without the        
> vanishing cabinet. And where are we given any knowledge about what 
> anyone who knows about the vanishing cabinet thinks happened?

Betsy Hp:
Why doesn't it make sense?  How does it make more sense that 
Voldemort assigned the assassination of his greatest adversary to a 
sixteen year old?

Honestly, we're not talking about anything complicated here.  Did 
Draco bug his father's friends (or his newly returned Auntie), 
figure out where Voldemort was staying, and then take himself there? 
(Nothing in canon even hints to this occuring.) Or, did Voldemort 
descend upon Malfoy Manor and call Draco before him? (Which is what 
everyone at Spinner's End takes as a given, and how Dumbledore 
thinks it went down, and how Draco presents it to his friends.)

Betsy Hp