Cabinet FIRST!

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 157950


> Sydney:
 
> If you discount Narcissa's take, you enter the train scene very, 
very
> differently, and I think, to the detriment of the arc as it then 
plays
> out.  First of all, you would have no idea what's going on-- 
there's
> no dramatic irony because you've decided to ignore what Narcissa 
and
> Snape give you.  The scene that way is, IMO, less interesting, more
> vague, more just some stuff going on, than something that follows 
in
> an interesting way from the scene before.  More critically, you 
would
> see Draco as actually being part of the Big Plan that he's bragging
> about.  He's a *threat*.  He really *is* an important DE and not a
> slightly ridiculous 16-year-old.  Also, everything is his own 
fault--
> it's a 'hoist in his own petard' thing rather than a 'person 
oblivious
> to looming threat thing'.  There's no start of pity from the 
audience
> and his emotional breakdown and Dumbledore's mercy don't follow, 
in my
> opinion, as clean a line as if the audience's pity had been 
allowed to
> start there. 

Magpie:
That's why I think it's also significant that many later ideas that 
are built on the Cabinet!First assumption that I've read in this 
thread continue shift the element of Draco's personal agency to a 
different place.  It is his personal decision to act either by going 
to Voldemort with the Cabinet Plot or by spilling the beans about 
the Cabinet Plot and so giving Voldemort a reason to order Draco to 
fix the Cabinet so that he can get DEs into the castle and kill DD 
that is his biggest contribution to the plot. (One that nobody ever 
deals with, though to me it would seem totally central to 
everything.)

So in this version Draco's own personal, unique action is important 
in causing Voldemort to make a plan to kill Dumbledore via getting 
DEs into the school.  (The alternate methods of killing Dumbledore 
are either irrational acts on Draco's part since he's been ordered 
to fix the Cabinets, or Draco proving that the Cabinet Plan couldn't 
be his own because the fact that he does them when the Cabinets 
don't get fixed fast enough means he really would have done them 
first all along if Voldemort hadn't taken him by the hand and said 
to fix the Cabinets and then kill DD.) 

The place where it seems to me Draco's uniqueness comes in is 
*after* he's been given the task.  That, to me, goes right along 
with JKR's usual view of the second generation.  Every time older 
people try to manipulate younger people they just never are what the 
older person is so sure they are--because they're new, individual 
people.  That's, imo, part of the hopefulness of the series.  
Whenever people try to make parallels to the last generation they 
never quite work--Neville might be a nebbish like Peter, but this 
one surprises with acts of bravery after being isolated while Peter 
was tough when he was with stronger people and folded when he was 
alone.  Remus Lupin might keep things quiet to keep his friends 
since he's been friendless, but Hermione Granger doesn't have to 
make the same choice.  

The Cabinet follows wonderfully from that: Both Voldemort's plan AND 
Dumbledore's and possibly Snape's plans are messed up simply because 
this kid, when tested, turns out to not be quite the kid in quite 
the situation that everyone can imagine.  He happens to have heard 
about what it's like in the Broken Vanishing Cabinet *because he's a 
kid* and so among those listening to Montague's tales of escape.  
His mind happened to make a deduction that nobody else's made for 
whatever reason.  (It's the type of thing Hermione would have 
realized and kept to herself until she could use it.)  He had 
personal reasons for not wanting Snape to help him with it.  Then 
when he gets a taste of murder he's got more reason to hide things 
from Snape--but also a reason to persevere with the Cabinet because 
that is his reaction to the threat to himself and his family.  

Basically, the whole story turns on how, once again, it's harder 
than you think to manipulate a young man who's never been tested, 
because it's only in the testing you're going to find these things 
out.  (And Draco throughout canon is always very adamantly not 
tested-He's not like Neville or the Trio who have already found 
themselves in difficult situations out of which they couldn't get).

Dumbledore says it's our choices that show who we are, and this 
story seems to be a lot about that.  If the choice Draco makes is 
simply to go to Voldemort or open his mouth to Voldemort to get 
revenge or get power, then no matter what his success with the 
Cabinet is he's still just the same thing he was, a cog in 
Voldemort's machine who put himself there like most people do and is 
doing Voldemort's bidding.  His being able to fix the Cabinet (as 
opposed to being able to kill or unable to kill) isn't a revelation 
about character, it's just a mundane shop project it's not so 
shocking he could accomplish. It also, as I said, puts Dumbledore in 
the position of praising Draco for the very thing he used to cause 
all the mess, and for fulfilling a straightforward task for 
Voldemort instead of being able to praise the Cabinet Plan as part 
of making Draco value himself as an individual who doesn't need to 
impress Voldemort.  Voldemort sees Draco as only the offspring of 
the adult Lucius.  Dumbledore sees Draco as an important individual 
in himself even at 16.

Which is why I keep harping on this subject.  Not only because 
everyone's words and actions in canon support it (and without 
contradiction why wouldn't I take that dialogue as exposition?), but 
because as a story arc these changes muddy what's clear and weaken 
what's strong.  

And what I'd actually love to talk about to bring it back to Snape, 
is Snape's reaction to this!  I mean, I agree with I think it was 
you who said Snape's probably going crazy watching Dumbledore let 
Draco make his own mistakes instead of just letting Snape step in.  
For all I think Snape is loyal to DD he's never understood this in 
him.  But he does it.  What I wonder is, given that Snape has always 
been linked to this kid (though fandom has very often not taken that 
at face value and assumed Snape was just pretending to like Draco 
and sometimes hate Harry as part of his spy cover) and has been 
playing his DE mentor all this time, how surprised is he at this?  
He's shown looking afraid at the Christmas party--is he less 
confident that there's nothing to fear from Draco just because he's 
an unknown quantity?  He's bound up in all this, after all.  He 
himself became a DE--how does he see Draco as one?  Has he always 
just seen him as a joke in that regard, somebody who obviously 
didn't have the stomach for this sort of thing?  Did he think he 
could avoid ever having to face him trying it out?  Did his "sudden 
move" when Harry named Lucius as one of the DEs indicate Snape 
thought that would be bad for him (Snape)?  

-m