Draco

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 177441

Again, thanks for the responses.  Definitely stuff to think on.

Carol:
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. 

Prep0strus:
This is very true.  I will say, that for the most part, I think Draco
is the character I identified with LEAST As a character, (and i'm
including the Dursleys and Voldemorte in that statement).  I'm sure if
I really thought about it I could find some time where I did... but
mostly, I REALLY didn't like him.  But, especially after HBP, I was
VERY interested in him.  You mention later in your post how DH was
disappointing for some and realistic for others... perhaps it was both
for me.  I was hoping for something realistic that wasn't
disappointing, maybe. I never expected him to 'replace' Ron in any way
- not with Hermione, or Harry. And I never expected him and Harry to
become best buds.  But I was surprised that Draco never really
acknowledges his mistakes, or that he never does anything to help the
'good' side.  I always thought he and harry would have a dislike for
each other, but... i wanted more from DH.  HBP was so focused on Draco
- for me, he was the main focus of the story, more than Snape, more in
many ways than Harry.  It really felt like she was going somewhere
with him, and then in DH... that story drifts away.  Maybe it's
realistic.  Maybe that's how things often happen.  but it was
immensely unsatisfying.

Carol:
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.

Prep0strus:
Boy, is that true.  He's a coward, through and through, and I often
wonder if it is some sense of morality that keeps him from becoming
more of a Death Eater, or simply cowardice and fear.  Like Lucius, I
think he just wants to be a slimy rich racist, content to live his own
life, spew filth, and not get his hands dirty.  There are moments when
he wanted some glory, and moments where care for his friend
overwhelmed his own fear, but for the most part, I don't wind up
seeing anything to admire in him, because I think it is as valid an
interpretation, with the series finished now, that he did not become
fully evil because he's a wuss as much as it is that he did not
because he has good in him.

Carol:
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.

Prep0strus:
I think this is why I'm so disappointed in JKR.  He is the chief
representative of his generation.  He's the chief possibility of
redemption and change.  Snape never interested me as much because it
was done.  I was pretty sure he was 'good' and had been since before
the series started.  Whatever happened, happened in the past.  Draco
was this generation's chance to make a mistake and redeem that
mistake.  He was everything we could loathe, but also, everything that
could possibly be turned around - and perhaps before some of the more
grievous mistakes Snape made before he turned.  and instead... draco's
story goes nowhere.  I see no reason to think he wouldn't have
remained 'loyal' to Voldemorte if he had won.  Draco was not good, not
wholeheartedly evil - he was nothing but a coward.  Harry certainly
does gain understanding and compassion - even as I did a little in
HBP.  But after DH, I'm left unfulfilled.  Like Slytherin, Draco is
left as a remnant of something worse... not fully bad, but certainly
not good.  Mostly just dormant, probably ready to do something wrong
if it advances him and doesn't cost him too much or involve too risk.
   He's not an impetuous child anymore, but I don't see that he's not
any less selfish or cowardly... just a little more mature.  And, in
the end, that makes him less interesting to me.  I don't see change in
him.  And I don't even think his flaws are that interesting. 
Cowardice and selfishness are something that can be seen any day of
the week. I wanted more from Draco.

Magpie:
Well, I can't speak up for identifying with him if by that you mean
there are ways that I look at Draco and say, "Yup, that's just what I
would do/say" or "He's cool!" I have heard plenty of people who
identify with him because they did have some of his worse qualities
when they were younger and grew out of them (sometimes they were raised
by racists etc.).

Prep0strus:
That's a really interesting point.  I think, for them (not that it's
JKR's duty to make little moral statements, even though she does) it
might have been nice to see Draco grow up a little or recant some of
his beliefs.  I see nothing in the story that makes me think he does
not still harbor a superior attitude and resentment toward
Muggleborns, or even that he thinks the basic ideals of the Voldemorte
regime are wrong.  he just doesn't want to have to act on it himself.
 Laziness and cowardice aside, seeing him grow out of being a little
bigot I think would make him more relatable as someone raise wrong who
was able to overcome that.

Magpie:
But for me it's not so much identifying with him but he's my favorite
character because he has the most compelling issues for me. I think
he's in a greatly difficult situation in canon--even before it happens
you can see it's coming when Voldemort returns. That he's not an
admirable person to begin with just adds to his trouble. Nothing ever
goes right for him, but I can see certain things that he cares about
that aren't just stupid and evil. It's not a subversive reading, as
far as I can see.

I mean, one might as well ask JKR why she felt that way, since she
gave him a somewhat sympathetic storyline in HBP especially. I doubt
she felt badly about herself for feeling sorry for him and creating
him and not killing him off for his sins.

Prep0strus:
I certainly don't think he should have been killed off... but I do
think JKR gave him that sympathetic storyline, and then bailed on it.
 I don't know what that means at all.  To me, it was really dropping
the ball, and I don't know what to make of it. My feelings for Draco
at the end of DH are very different from how I thought they'd be
looking ahead when I had finished HBP.  He was compelling at that
point, but the way his storyline ended... I no longer cared.  He
didn't seem to have moral issues, because I never saw him face them. 
I know that it is harry's story, and just because we did not really
see Draco confronting them, does not mean it didn't happen.  And I do
think it's a valid interpretation.  But I think Draco simply being a
selfish cowardly git is also a valid interpretation.  I wanted a
little more from JKR, and not given that, I no longer find him likable
OR interesting.

zgirnius:
I have a great deal of difficulty holding him responsible for
his 'genocidal' views. With his family background, I imagine he
learned these ideas from babyhood, and associates loyalty to these
ideas and Voldemort, the leader of the movement, with loyalty to his
parents. (A loyalty he has always exhibited, and which I find a
positive trait as well). That others with similar backgrounds made
different choices as kids does not impress me as a reason to dislike
Draco. Most important, however, is that when he must act on these
beliefs, he suddenly finds that he does not really want to. Which
tells me that despite his lip service to, and outward pride in, these
beliefs, he has no interest in genocide.

Prep0strus:
This is true, and yet also doesn't make me want to like him, either. 
Just because he cannot follow through on performing a gruesome act
himself (and I maintain, if he had succeeded from afar with a potion
or item, as he tried to, he would have still been proud and full of
bravado) does not make him admirable.  He still supports these actions
as done by other people.  He is, primarily, a coward.  he does not
want to have to face ANYTHING.  I am happy he was not able to kill
dumbledore, but his support of the basilisk, of his parents... not all
evil is done simply by the people who do the deeds.  And I don't know
that he wouldn't do them if he didn't have to look the person in the
face while doing it.  Maybe it makes him less of a sociopath than
voldemorte, but I don't think it makes him a good person.

zgirnius:
It's been said before (by me among others), but Draco is the Wile E.
Coyote of the wizarding world. I always loved old Wile E. better than
that obnoxious Roadrunner, and always hoped for an episode in which
he might, for a change, win in a cartoon way. (Rowling even wrote me
the scene in HBP, though I was too worried about Harry being *gasp*
killed to fully appreciate it).

Prep0strus:
Yeah, this is funny and interesting - but I do think Draco wins
smaller battles all the time (or, at least, he thinks he does).  He
does get to be on the Quidditch team with his brooms, he does get
special treatment when 'recovering' from the buckbeak episode, he does
stomp harry down.  There are times he watches Harry get punished when
he gets away, and plenty of times he just gets to be a rich kid doing
his thing.  he's not the consummate loser that the coyote is.  It's
just that we, as the audience, relish when he does lose, because he
'deserves' it.  Really, in the big picture, in the end, he wins.  Is
there another character that wins a happy ending that is so
undeserved?  Perhaps Lucius.  But what does Draco lose? A friend, who
kills himself, when attempting to murder someone.  And he winds up
with the same happy ending - he's at the train - he has a wife, a kid,
he's still rich.  His parents and family unit (unlike almost everyone
else's) remain alive and and intact.  Harry has lost both his parents,
his godfather, two other father figures, multiple friends...  all the
'good guys' lose so much, and fight so hard, to have their 'happily
ever after'.  Draco does nothing to earn it.  The best things people
manage to say about him are that he didn't want his friends to die
(other would be murderers) and that there were times he could have
been more evil, and wasn't.  But throughout the books he supports the
side of evil, and even when he cannot follow through, he does not help
the side of good at all.  Even in the final battle he's trying to say
'i'm one of you!' and if the DE had listened, who knows what he'd be
doing.  Though, probably nothing - the big coward.  and yet, he's a
big winner at the end - just as much as Harry.  He gets the reward
Harry has wanted his whole life, and hasn't done a thing to earn it. 
I think Draco has his roadrunner and eats it too.

zgirnius:
I could, in my own view, be describing Sirius Black in the above
paragraph (saving the reference to love of parents, naturally). Oddly
enough, there seems to be a reader or two who identifies with this
character. <eg>
<SNIP ME>
Oh, now I am even more happy I attempted a parallel with Sirius! We
know Sirius would have risked death for James, and we also know what
he would do if, say, the situation were different and it was Severus
who was in danger. (Nothing. Exactly what he *did* do when it was).

Prep0strus:
I love how you can bring in an example to support your point, and I
can completely disagree with you - and yet still love the example, but
think that it supports my point! <g>  I think Sirius and Draco have a
lot in common - as well as with Ron, which I've said before.  these
pureblooded wizards, raised in families unhit by tragedy... they do
have a lot in common.  There is a stubbornness, an arrogance, a set
worldview.  But there are also fundamental differences.  Sirius and
Ron are not 'the hero' (more on that below), but they are also not the
villain.  they are the sidekicks.  Draco tries to be the villain,
pretty much fails, but winds up being... the villain's sidekick. 
certainly not the hero's sidekick.  Sirius is a great example because
his upbringing was so similar to Draco's - and this has been discussed
ad infinitum, but my opinion is that he made a fundamentally different
choice.  he is still amazingly flawed - arrogant and reckless and
petty.  but he is brave where draco is cowardly, strong where draco is
weak, and righteous where draco supports bigotry and evil.  Sirius
fights for the right side, not just for his friends, though they are
important, and he risks his life and dies for them.  And what he did
with Severus, again, discussed ad nauseum... is he opened a door.  and
Severus, with hubris and schadenfreude ran through it.  Draco enchants
necklaces and makes poison to try to kill.  These are fundamentally
different.

zgirnius:
So are you saying that he would need to be the hero to be redeemed?
And yet, you say you expected him to be redeemed? It seems to me that
after just barely avoiding becoming a murderer in HBP, for Draco to
be shown as a person with an aversion to torture and murder with the
courage to risk his life for a friend and some desire to get way
from/interfere with Voldemort (his refusal to indetify Ron and
Hermione), is a huge step up.

Prep0strus:
No, I don't think he'd have to be the hero, exactly.  Like I said, Ron
also isn't the hero.  But... well, harry is THE hero.  and then there
are all those who fight alongside him.  and then there are those who
sit out of in and speak up for the good guys, then there are those who
sit out of it and say nothing, then there are those who sit out and
support evil, then there are those who actively support evil, and then
there are true villains.  Draco was somewhere between those who sit
out and support evil and those who actively support evil.  The latter
is what Severus was.  It takes more for redemption if you were on the
evil side of the spectrum than to even return to the middle.  It takes
repentance, and likely action.  I see no evidence that Draco even
repented, no less took action on the side of good.  I think he
realized he didn't want to actively support evil - but I think he
would have been perfectly fine sitting it out and talking about
mudbloods and enjoying his money.  Again, I don't think that caring
for a friend - a murderous, evil friend - is the same as being a good
person.  I don't think 'the bad guys' have to have no ability to have
real relationships.  It doesn't change the way Draco sees the rest of
the world.  I see Draco's actions as cowardice, not a change of heart.
 that can be interpreted different ways, validly, but to me, yes, he
would have to be a little of the hero in order to be redeemed.  Never
as selfless or brave as harry, but he should show something.  


> Prep0strus(earlier):
> I don't want to kill
> him either, exactly - just smack some sense into him.

zgirnius:
I see no need, Rowling did a fine job of it for me.


Prep0strus:
And for me, she really didn't.  The coyote and roadrunner metaphor...
some admire his perseverance.  I lambaste his stupidity.  It's
admirable in some way to do the same stupid thing over and over again,
for the wrong reasons?  and, it all turns out ok for our coyote
friend.  Gets the family, and maybe he stops chasing after the
roadrunner.  It's like one day he gave up, and said, ok, I guess i'm
not gonna catch the roadrunner, and then that is the most wonderful
thing he ever did.  he went off, had a life, and if the roadrunner got
hit by a bus he's probably laugh about it, but it's not his problem
anymore.  he stopped being so stupid, but he didn't get any nicer.

I don't think Draco gets sense smacked into him, because he doesn't
really lose very much.  And we never see his internal conflict.  He
winds up at the end a person who I think would do whatever is best for
him at least risk.  I don't think he's learned a lesson a bigotry or
even evil.  i think he's learned something about death, and how it is
not to be taken lightly... but more I think he learned that he doesn't
want to get his hands dirty.  Not the lesson i was hoping for after
finishing HBP, and certainly not enough to make me forgive the years
of inflicting pain on others for his own amusement.

~Adam (prep0strus)