Ender vs. Harry SPOILERS for Ender's Game (WAS Re: JKR's Intent)

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 178882

> Betsy Hp:
> It's probably kind of telling (and not so much a surprise <g>), but 
I 
> saw Draco as reaching out to Harry for at least a good three 
books.  
> I think it's only by OotP that Draco finally gave up.  (Though I've 
> had to conclude that this was all stuff JKR stuck in by mistake.  
She 
> didn't *mean* to make Draco that deep.)

zgirnius:
I don't know about three books, but Draco definitely did make sincere 
attempts to be friends with Harry in the first book. He did not go 
about it in a particularly good way, and I felt the whys and 
wherefores of that were made quite clear in the series. To me, Draco 
shifted to rival mode in PS/SS, with his attempts to get Harry into 
trouble, and continued this in later books. What happened by end of 
GoF/start of OotP, as I see it, is not that he finally stopped trying 
to make friends, but that the rivalry had moved out of school stuff 
and into the `real world' stuff of the Potterverse, with Draco taking 
on his family's allegiance to Voldemort, expressed through practical 
actions in support of the Ministry policy that Voldemort was not 
back. (Assorted Ministry employees might have believed their own BS – 
Draco knew better).

As for how "deep" Draco is, I find him a well-drawn and interesting 
character whose motivations are depicted believably, whom we see grow 
and change, and whose arc fits into the greater themes and story 
neatly. He's certainly no cardboard cut-out that never changes, but 
without some clue as to how deep you thought he was, I have no idea 
if I agree or not. I have no idea what you refer to when you refer to 
things about him that were put in "by accident".

> BetsyHP:
> But in the end, yes, the bad guys in Potterverse were no good to 
the 
> bone, and in Enderverse there weren't really any "bad guys" after 
> all.  Which is funny because OSC was writing such a militant book 
> about war and the waging thereof, while JKR was trying to say 
> something about... I don't know... life, or something?  Anyway, I 
got 
> the sense she thought she was saying something vital and deep.

zgirnius:
In the end, Voldemort was the one bad guy who proved to be no good to 
the bone. And even for him, we were shown some whys and wherefores. 
His mother grew up dreadfully neglected and abused and unloved. He 
was conceived in a loveless marriage. He was left in an orphanage 
where no one loved him. He likely inherited some genetic 
predisposition for things a psychiatrist could diagnose, on the basis 
of what we have seen of his mother's family, and heard about her 
ancestors. And he became, yes, a monster. But we have plenty of whys 
and wherefores.

The Malfoys can certainly not be described as no good to the bone, in 
my opinion. This was signaled to us the readers in any number of 
ways – Narcissa's instrumentality in Harry's victory, the survival of 
all three members of the family, and Draco's apparently normal post-
war life are just some of the indications to me that we were not 
supposed to see them as bad to the bone. And of course, we see them 
having normal, laudable human feelings and concerns, and acting on 
them.

HP also has this class of non-villains mistaken for villains, about 
whom we also get whys and wherefores (along with the information that 
they are not actually villains at all). Snape and Regulus to a lesser 
extent, fall into this group. 

> BetsyHP:
> JKR created these "bad guys" and seemed to give them 
> depth and heart, but then in the end, figuring out the whys and 
> wherefores was silly (or unrealistic, I guess?) and her protagonist 
> just... won.

zgirnius:
I note that you seem not to object particularly to Voldemort in your 
comments, yet he is the only character I recognize in your broad-
brush descriptions of what happened in the series.  If you find the 
artistic choice of having Voldemort die unredeemed unacceptable, you 
could save us a lot of time and effort and just say so. 

Rowling presented us and her protagonist with the whys and wherefores 
of a number of characters he considered villains. Harry's victory, we 
can say based on that knowledge, was a victory not only for his side, 
but for all of those characters. Would Draco Malfoy be standing on 
the train platform with his wife and son, preparing to send him off 
to Hogwarts, if Harry had not won?

> Betsy Hp:
> Oops, yes.  I forgot about Lily. <g>  But no, a middle name after a 
> guy his kid's never heard of 

zgirnius:
How do you know that Albus knew nothing about his namesakes? To me, 
that he has no idea who he is named after or why seems highly 
unlikely. I knew the story of my naming, and that of my sister, by 
the time I started elementary school. What I can (and do) credit, is 
that he may have no idea which Hogwarts House or Houses those two men 
represent. This would be entirely consistent with what we have seen 
about adult characters in canon. The ones whose House we can name, 
are those whose actions as schoolchildren have some relevance to the 
story, (Snape's housemates, the Marauders, Lily), and the kids of 
Harry's day) or those with close family relationships to children 
whose sorting is under discussion (the Blacks, Mr, and Mrs. Weasley, 
Mr. Potter the father of James), or those who serve as Heads of House 
at the school. The vast bulk of the random adults from all sides of 
the conflict are of unknown House. It does not seem to be a necessary 
bit of information to know about an adult.

> BetsyHP:
> isn't my idea of Harry delving deep into the 
> Slytherin mind, seeing they're not that alien after all, and 
sharing 
> that news with his people.  The Slytherins are still weird, their 
> designated attributes still not seen as virtues (Severus was 
> *brave*), and they're still not worthy to breed with (as per Ron).  

zgirnius:
In my opinion, the suggestion that there *is* a Slytherin mind in 
which to delve is the mistake (and if it were not a mistake, *that* 
idea might get me to consider that Rowling has written a deeply scary 
work). The whole point is that there is no "Slytherin mind" any more 
than there is a "Gryffindor mind". This is a misconception Harry may 
or may not have harbored at some point, of which I believe him fully 
cured. There are the minds of individual Slytherins and Gryffindors, 
each unique products of their own personalities and experiences and 
choices. Harry has gained a good deal of insight into some of these 
minds. 

This is another point of non-analogy to Card's world. The buggers are 
an alien species occupying a vastly different ecological niche and 
having very different methods of reproduction and child-rearing. 
Regarding some things, there *is* far more similarity between the 
minds of different individuals of the bugger species than with the 
mind of a human. No bugger queen would consider getting into a 
spaceship and traveling to an unexplored part of the galaxy, for 
example. It's insane! While some humans might privately agree, it's 
something we can at least see as a choice for a more adventurous 
soul. And, having met us, the bugger queen may perhaps see that it 
makes some sense *for us*.