[HPforGrownups] Re: Draco

Sharon Hayes s.hayes at qut.edu.au
Wed Sep 26 08:26:23 UTC 2007


No: HPFGUIDX 177421

>   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

Sharon:
Brilliant analysis Carol. I agree wholeheartedly and do not even have anything to 
add!


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