Draco

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 177446

> 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. 

zgirnius:
I disagree. You could be right about how Draco would feel if, say, 
Katie Bell had died in HBP (though I don't believe it, but I won't 
argue it becaue I donlt see much evidence either way). But I don't 
think he would so casually dismiss his own killing of someone else 
post HBP, just because it was not up close and personal. To me, it 
seems that the reason for not killing Dumbledore was not 
squeamishness. The AK strikes me as a 'clean' way to kill, it is 
instantaneous and the victim has no time to writhe or otherwise 
express pain or distress once it is done, and exhinbits no gruesome 
syumptoms post-mortem. A coward would have done it to avoid 
punishment.

I think his failure was not due to squeamishness or cowardice, but 
understanding. "You are not a killer, Draco", Dumbledore said, and I 
think Draco realized, as a result of that conversatoin, that he is 
not. Seeing this person there, alive and talking to him, and thinking 
about himself, ending that, made it real in a way it had not been to 
him before, and that's not something he will forget in the future, 
even if the person he is (hypothetically) killing is miles away.

>Prep0strus:
> He still supports these actions as done by other people. 

zgirnius:
Why can he not bear to look at Charity Burbage, then? Why does he not 
indentify Hermione and Ron when he has the chance? I see no evidence 
he does.

> Prep0strus:
> He is, primarily, a coward.  he does not
> want to have to face ANYTHING.

zgirnius;
Except fiendfyre. <g> (OK, he does not *want* to. My point is that he 
can and does. I doubt Snape wanted to face Voldemort either, but that 
does not make him a coward, does it?)

> Prep0strus:
> I am happy he was not able to kill
> dumbledore, but his support of the basilisk, of his parents... 

zgirnius:
Since I see Draco as a character who is dynamic and changes over the 
course of the books, the basilisk is irrelevant to me. That's Draco, 
pre-HBP, no argument. In a childish way, he wishes people he does not 
like would die. 

I would not see abandonment of his parents to Voldemort in DH as 
required, I am afraid. His father did a lot of evil, his mother 
perhaps less actively so, but they were good parents to him. They 
loved him, cared for him, provided for him, and valued him above 
their evil cause and their lives. To me, it would be pretty 
heartless, since he clearly returns their love.

> Prep0strus:
> he's not the consummate loser that the coyote is. 

zgirnius:
Only when he goes against Harry directly; then he is. It is not 
Harry's loss that Draco is Seeker for his team, it is none of his 
business (for example).

> Prep0strus:
> And what he did
> with Severus, again, discussed ad nauseum... is he opened a door.  
and
> Severus, with hubris and schadenfreude ran through it. 

zgirnius:
You seem to have mistaken my point. I am not saying Sirius is like 
Draco because he caused Severus to go into the tunnel. I am saying 
Sirius is the way you *claim* Draco is, because when he realized 
Severus did go into the tunnel, he was not interested in saving him. 
He would only take that sort of risk for a friend. (As Draco did in 
the RoR). You had asked me if Draco would have saved Harry from the 
fire. 

I actually think he would have saved Harry. Not out of any love for 
the boy (why should he like Harry?!), but Harry dead is definitely 
bad news for Draco and his parents. (Which may or may not have been 
James's reasoning in the Prank - the trouble Sev's death could cause 
Lupin, and Sirius if his role came out).

As far as saying Draco is different from Sirius/Ron because he is on 
the wrong side - in my opinion, all three boys followed their hearts. 
Ron loves his family and accepts their pro-Dumbledore politics, which 
become that much more real and important to him when he falls in love 
with a Muggleborn witch and becomes the best friend of Harry Potter. 
Sirius seems not to have a problem with Slytherin House on the train 
(he only worries that James might have a problem with him because his 
family were all in Slytherin)- he attacks Severus because the boy he 
just met, and admired, does. James becomes like a brother to him, and 
so he adopts James' views.

Draco has a positive and loving relationship with his parents, and so 
adopts their views and chooses their side in the conflict. Until the 
fact that his side requires him to do stuff that he just does not 
want to do is driven home to him in HBP. At that point, though, he's 
still stuck because of his parents.

> Prep0strus:
> 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.  

zgirnius:
I don't see Draco as needing, or having, a change of heart. In my 
opinion, he was never a true supporter of Voldemort. He joined up in 
ignorance and guided by his love for his parents, and when he saw 
what this actually meant, he realized it was not for him. And it 
never had been. He would not have killed Dumbledore when he was 
younger any more than he would have at the end of HBP.

> Prep0strus:
> Gets the family, and maybe he stops chasing after the
> roadrunner. 

zgirnius:
Lucius Malfoy had a wife and family. Why should Draco not?! Family is 
clearly something he values, and he has exhibited traits that lead me 
to believe he would cherish his wife and child. In what sense, then, 
does he not deserve them? He deserves a wife if he has found a woman 
to love and treats her well. He deserves a child if he cares for and 
loves him. That he was a bully in school has nothing to do with it. 
So was James, and I would say he deserved Lily and Harry for exactly 
the same reasons.

I think, by the way, that Rowling agrees with me, and this is why all 
three of the Malfoys survived. I think the love of family is 
important to her. She showed all of the Malfoys valued their love of 
one another above ambition, the cause, etc., and then she let 
Narcissa's choice to lie to Voldemort for Draco's sake save them.