[HPforGrownups] Re: Cabinet FIRST! One last time. (Long--sorry!)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 157846

Pippin:
> Because that's what he does, in canon, when the cabinet plan doesn't
> work. The plans he comes up with are to kill Dumbledore, not to
> get backup in some other way. That suggests to me that the need for
> backup didn't originate with Draco.

Magpie:
Why does it lead logically to the plan for backup not originating with Draco 
just because Draco turns to an attempt at individual murder when he can't 
get the Cabinet working?  He can think of alternate murder methods, he can't 
think of alternate methods of getting back-up into the castle. It makes 
total sense--more sense than trying to fit the necklace and mead into the 
plan where Voldemort told Draco to get DEs into the castle via the Cabinets.

Pippin:
> Nor do I think he would  have made panicky feints like the necklace
> and the mead if he'd been cooly planning to do away with his
> Headmaster since the beginning of the summer. To me, he acts
> like he expected he wouldn't have to think about killing
> Dumbledore till he'd fixed the cabinets, so he wasn't troubled about
> it.

Magpie:
I think that's because his own idea is the Cabinets, he's concentrating on 
that.  He'd rather do that.  When it doesn't work he tries other methods to 
just kill DD, also his own.

> Pippin:
> Erm, Voldemort is the villain. His strategic planning is *supposed* to
> dominate events.  Voldemort  didn't and wouldn't, IMO, mean to leave
> anything in Draco's hands. But the plot of the book

Magpie:
Voldemort has one plan that sets things in motion, but he's not the most 
important character.  He's put the ball rolling by giving Draco this 
assignment.  haracters we actually care about are reacting to it in their
own ways.  Voldemort is behind Harry in the TWT, he's not controlling 
Harry's story, forcing Harry to deal with the TWT exactly the way he does, 
getting credit for anything that comes from Harry.  The times Voldemort is 
interfering, like through Moody giving him hints, are ultimately revealed at 
the end. Which I think this would be, if it happened.

Pippin:
IMO, Draco  conceived the plan to fix the cabinets and carried it through, 
despite what I see as his growing realization that Voldemort never expected
him to do it. For that, he won Dumbledore's praise.

Magpie:
I think Dumbledore's got more reason to praise Draco's coming up with a 
creative thing that's not fulfilling Voldemort's orders. It's already less 
of a thing to praise since he's just doing what Voldemort told him.

So we're left with basically the book starting out with us being told 
Draco's been given an impossible task, one his mother thinks he might be 
killed doing.  Snape takes a vow to do it if Draco looks like he'll fail,
and says he thinks he's expected to do it "in the end."  At the end Snape 
kills Dumbledore.  Dumbledore speaks of how he knows Draco was assigned to
kill him and expected Draco to die in the attempt.  Draco isn't described as 
completing half the plan by getting the DEs in--he's stuck there not doing
what he's supposed to do, as if killing DD is what he's been ordered.  All 
the stuff about the Cabinets is spoken about in connection Draco, with no
mention of Voldemort caring about them, or telling him to do it, or caring 
about it.  Draco tries to other methods that don't involve Cabinets when 
they take too long, as if he can pick any method.  Which is why to me the 
book still seems to be saying Draco
was assigned to kill DD any way he could.

-m