Draco

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 177407

prep0strus wrote:
>
> 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…<snip>  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. <snip>

Carol responds:

First, I hope you don't mind my leaving in the ’s (etc.) rather than
changing them to apostrophes. I thought you might want to see how the
post actually appears and consider using a different program or
posting directly from the list to avoid the problem.

With regard to Draco, being interested in him as a character and
identifying with him are two different things. Draco has a moment or
two when we can identify with him if we're honest with ourselves. Who
hasn't made a mistake, sometimes a serious one, because they weren't
listening to the teacher's or the boss's directions? We may not have
been foolish enough to insult a hippogriff, but we've all been rash or
foolish and paid the consequences. And I can find a number of reasons
to fault Hagrid's teaching (and Dumbledore's hiring practices) in that
incident as well. None of that means that I identify with Draco in
general or even like him much, but I can understand why he acts as he
does.

Also, however obnoxious he may be, he *is* attacked twice by
Gryffindors and/or DA members without actually having done anything.
The second (OoP) could be considered a preemptive strike since his and
his friends' wands are out, but the first (GoF) is an attack with
wands in retaliation for verbal taunting. However you may feel about
that incident, some of us consider such conduct on the part of our
heroes questionable or at least worthy of examination. No one is
defending Draco's behavior, but some of us are trying to understand
it, to figure out what makes him tick.

On the whole, the Draco we see in the first five books is not
particularly interesting or likeable. It's not his fault that he's
rich (so is Harry and so was James), nor should we hold that against
him. Nor is his upbringing his fault (though we can certainly hold it
against Lucius and Narcissa). But his touting of his father's
influence and his use of it against a teacher he doesn't like (Hagrid)
is unlikely to arouse the reader's sympathy (even if we don't much
care for Hagrid or Buckbeak, either). The pureblood ethic (which I
think harks back to the days of witch-burning by Muggles and perhaps
also reflects a fear of Squib offspring as the result of marrying a
Muggle or Muggleborn) has been indoctrinated into him to such an
extent that he sees Muggleborns as inherently inferior and
contaminated beings who deserve to be exterminated. IOW, he's a little
bigot who would be happy if "the Mudblood Granger" were killed by a
Basilisk.

Unlike Snape, who has a certain mystique and ambiguity (and who is
still disliked by our heroes even after they find out that he saved
Harry's life and was thwarting Quirrell), Draco is who he seems to be
for the first five books, as we discover when Polyjuiced Ron and Harry
talk to him in his own common room. True, they were wrong about his
being the Heir of Slytherin, but they weren't wrong about his
anti-Muggleborn (and anti-Dumbledore) sympathies. There's no mystique
about Draco. He's good at Potions and Quidditch and clever at making
badges and song lyrics and (maybe) at manipulating people, but he's
spiteful, jealous of Harry, and not very brave.

Had it not been for his father's arrest and displacement by Snape as
Voldemort's right-hand man (Snape's true loyalties being irrelevant
here), Draco might have remained as he was, a less-than-model Prefect
(turned Inquisitorial Squad member under Umbridge) who nevertheless
cared about getting good marks on his OWLs and beating Gryffindor at
Quidditch and making a laughingstock of Harry or Ron, content to gloat
that the Dark Lord is back and that he's on the winning side but not
yet ready to become a Death Eater himself. But the world is turned
upside down for Draco when his idolized father is sent to Azkaban.
Quidditch and school no longer matter. Even his rivalry (or whatever
it is) with Harry no longer matters once he gets his revenge by
Petrifying Harry and stomping on his hand--until Harry finds him
crying in a bathroom, at which point their schoolboy duels suddenly
metamorphose into a battle between enemies. Something significant has
happened to Draco, who is experiencing fear and failure on a grand
scale. Harry, seeing Draco lying in his own blood on the floor through
a spell that he foolishly cast, is only dimly aware of the change in
him, but at least he realizes that he doesn't want Draco dead,
especially by his hand. There are more changes to come; Draco learns
that he's not a killer; Harry's contempt for him is mingled with pity.

Disappointingly for some readers, realistically for others, Draco
remains in this state of indecisiveness--hating the reality of being a
Death Eater, fearing the consequences to himself and his family of
refusing to obey the Dark Lord--for much of DH. The scene in the RoR
can be differently interpreted, but the echoes of Snape's words and
reasoning suggest that Draco, too, is pretending a loyalty he does not
feel, trying to protect Harry (and the diadem?) from his would-be DE
friends, especially Crabbe (Goyle, perhaps following Draco's lead or
confused by Crabbe's rebellion against Draco, does nothing more than
point his wand at Harry).

Draco may not be the "good Slytherin" that some of us hoped for, but
he's a most reluctant and disillusioned Death Eater and much more
human and pitiable in HBP and DH than he was in the earlier books.
Harry at first thinks that he's going to be thwarted by Draco, Crabbe,
and Goyle in the RoR, but he ends up saving Draco's life, while Draco
and the reluctant Ron save the unconscious Goyle. (Harry even regrets
Crabbe's death; Ron holds the more usual view that Crabbe got what he
deserved.) Even when Draco, now wandless, begs two DEs not to hurt him
and claims (untruthfully, IMO) that he's on their side, Harry again
saves him while Ron punches him and calls him two-faced. The reader
can choose between Ron's and Harry's views or even sympathize a bit
with both. Draco will never be brave (in marked contrast to Snape),
but at least he has no relish for the life of a Death Eater, for
murder and torture and coercion.

If Draco can change so drastically from the arrogant bully of OoP and
the revenge-seeking would-be murderer of early HBP to the reluctant DE
who deflects Crabbe's Unforgiveable Curses, surely he has learned some
valuable and painful lessons(?) If Harry can forgive him, surely the
reader should consider doing the same(?) Draco's curt nod to Harry
stands in marked contrast to Lucius's taunts and even fisticuffs with
Arthur Weasley, his slightly older contemporary and schoolfellow. With
Harry's words to Albus Severus about Slytherin being okay and a
Slytherin headmaster as the bravest man he ever knew, chances are that
Albus and Scorpius won't get off to the same rocky start as James and
Severus or Harry and Draco. And in yet another generation, the DE-free
Slytherin House may be able to put its past behind it as Germany has
put its Nazi past behind it, and old wounds may be fully healed.

I'm not arguing for my interpretation. I'm only trying to show why I
consider Draco and his character arc, especially in HBP and DH, to be
interesting and significant, not only for Draco himself and for
Slytherin House, for which he is the chief representative of his
generation, but for Harry as he gains understanding and develops
compassion for a boy he once despised.

Carol, whose sympathy for Draco's plight in HBP and DH does not blind
her to his own responsibility in helping to create that predicament