Draco

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 177396

There’s been a lot of discussion about Draco, and I’d like to know
what would make anyone identify with him or like him.

There are a number of people who seem to identify with both Snape and
Draco, and this I really don’t get, other than the desire to defend
the guys who seem mean but might not be.  I sort of get why some
people respond to young Severus â€" poor, tough family life, weird
clothes, possibly unpopular, bullied to some extent… I mean, I still
think you could better find a connection in these areas with aspects
of Harry, Ron, Neville, without the whole Death Eater thing.  But I
don’t get where the connection to Draco comes from.

Draco, in many ways is the opposite of Snape â€" rich, with an
influential family (who does love him).  And there are so many reasons
to dislike him.

Rich, arrogant, spoiled â€" buys his way onto the Quidditch team.
He mocks people for being poorer than him, for having less pure blood,
for their physical attributes, and is cruel about it.
He has little respect for life â€" either of other species, or human. 
Not only does he try to get Buckbeak killed, he cheers on the
Basilisk.  Plus there’s everything in HBP â€" he may in the end not want
to kill in person, but he certainly doesn’t seem to mind (at first)
his assignment to kill a man who has never harmed him, or that in
trying to do so he nearly kills two other innocents.
His parents’ ‘boss’, and to a lesser extent, his parents, were
genocidal, pureblooded manics.  Draco not only admired this, but
strove to join them.  He relished in the pain that was visited on many
of his classmates.

Look, I know the Nazi/Hitler analogy is played out, but I think many
people feel that this is what JKR was going for, and so it’s not my
personal analogy, but hers, when I say… how do the people who identify
with Draco see themselves? 

I mean, does anybody say, ‘Yeah, I was rich and spoiled.  I was mean
to poor people.  I was racist and prejudiced and wanted people to be
killed.  My dad worked for Hitler, and I couldn’t wait to work for him
too.’

There’s been a lot of discussion on who was the instigator, who was
the bully, and I don’t want to get into that. I have my own opinion,
but really… I think Harry would have left Draco alone if Draco had
left Harry alone.  I think Harry for the most part is fighting for his
honor, for his friends, for ideals that are right, and Draco is
fighting to be cruel, to bring pain, for his own amusement.  And while
I think arguments can be made for Draco being bullied, I think they
are weaker than Draco being a bully… and really, it seems more like a
nasty rivalry.  I don’t think it’s the main issue, so much as who
these boys are, what they stand for, how they treat others that aren’t
each other.

But without a subversive reading that makes down up, light dark, good
bad, and chocolate ice cream taste like Brussels sprouts… how does one
identify with Draco without feeling bad about the person that they
are?  At his best, he’s a misguided little spoiled twit who likes to
have fun at the expense of others.  At his worst, he’s a genocidal
monster in the making.  I don’t think a funny comeback or two makes up
for that.

~Adam(Prep0strus)