Draco's Hand of Glory (was: Re: Half-Blood Prince)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183908

Betsy Hp wrote:
> <snip> I'd have argued in the past (when I was young and foolish
*g*) that Draco Malfoy *was* a major character.  *Possibly* a step or
two  behind Ron Weasley, but certainly equal to Hermione Granger (we
learn  *far* more about Draco's home life than Hermione's, for
example; and no one ever managed to motivate Harry to do something
like Draco, back in the day).  Which means plot points left entirely
up to speculation are frustrating rather than fun.  I was reading to
see what happened to Draco.  But that's not the audience JKR was
writing for. (OotP had me worried, but I got suckered in by HBP, I'll
admit.)

Carol responds:

I know how you feel, Betsy. Snape didn't go the direction I wanted him
to go (redeemed and alive and less of a Lily worshipper). JKR had
plans for both Snape and Draco. They just weren't the plans we were
hoping for.

That aside, I think that Draco *is* a major character in the series as
a whole, but his arc climaxed at the end of HBP. The rest is falling
action, working toward the denouement. (Okay, I'm treating him as if
he were a subplot rather than a character, but I think you see what I
mean.) In terms of *Harry's* story, Draco is reduced to a minor
character who can't bring himself to lie about HRH's identity but
doesn't want to reveal their identities, either. We see that he hates
being a DE, in marked contrast to his father, who wants nothing more
(till the battle of Hogwarts) than to get back his old position as
LV's right-hand man. And we see the same thing again in the Ror--he
doesn't want Harry hurt or killed, and not just because LV wants him
alive. (He may even be playing along with Crabbe, pretending to be
loyal. I think we're supposed to see parallels with Snape in "Flight
of the Prince," though Draco is nowhere near as "cool" (brave, fierce,
cunning, talented, powerful, clever, whatever adjectives you choose).

Draco is redeemed, sort of. But, then, he didn't commit the crime he
tried to commit throughout DH (yes, he let the DEs in and Imperio'd
Rosmerta, but he didn't kill DD), so he doesn't have to undergo the
agony of remorse like Snape (and Dumbledore).

Just as Lily and Narcissa, with Mrs. Crouch and Mrs. Weasley and even
the German woman Voldemort murders, are variations on the theme of
mother love (with Mr. Lovegood's love for his daughter as a kind of
foil to these mother's love for their mostly male children), Draco can
be seen as a variation on the theme of the reluctant young DE.

Regulus loses his loyalty immediately and takes action. Kreacher, who
has suffered horribly because Regulus eagerly and naively offered him
for LV's use, is no longer in danger; Regulus takes precautions to
protect his family by enforcing Kreacher's secrecy and does what he
can in one desperate suicidal move to strike a potentially deadly blow
to the Dark Lord. Unknown to anyone except Kreacher, he heroically
sacrifices himself in the fight against Voldemort. 

Severus, too, has endangered a loved one through his eager service to
the Dark Lord, but his loved one is still in danger. He can't save her
or protect her himself, and he has no Horcrux handy to use as a weapon
against LV. All he can do is go to Dumbledore and beg for his help,
agreeing to do "anything" if DD will protect Lily, and continuing to
do "anything" to protect Harry when DD's protection of Lily fails.
(Interesting that he's no longer begging; he's the one doing the
protecting.) He continues to protect Harry and fight LV, all the time
suffering from bitterness and remorse. Ultimately, he, like Regulus,
becomes both a martyr and a hero, but only after living in infamy as a
murderer and a traitor in the eyes of his former students and colleagues.

And then there's Draco. Unlike Severus and Regulus, the people for
whom he fears are himself and his parents, who are themselves Death
Eaters and despite Lucius's disgrace, they seem to have lost little of
their loyalty to LV and none of their disdain for lesser beings like
the Snatchers and House-Elves and Goblins and "Mud-Bloods." (Not that
any of them can compare with the lunatic devotion and sadism of
Draco's Aunt Bellatrix.) Draco has learned that there's nothing
glorious about being a Death Eater. He doesn't have it in him to kill
and he uses the Cruciatus Curse with great reluctance only under
threat and coercion. It's partly that he doesn't have the courage of
Regulus and Severus, but it's also partly that Draco's loved ones are
in his power rather than presumed dead or really dead like Kreacher
and Lily. And unlike Regulus, who had the means for retribution at
hand, or Severus, who could put his skills at acting and Occlumency
and lying and spying to work for however long it took to bring
Voldemort down, Draco has no course of action open to him except to
attend school and do the best he can under the eyes of supposed DE
Snape and the Carrows. On holidays, he can only go home to his parents
and hope that the Dark Lord doesn't show up. In the end, wandless, he
tries to block Crabbe's spells but loses his wand and does no actual
fighting, owing his life (and Goyle's) to Harry (and the reluctant
Ron) and begging a DE to spare him by saying that he's on the DE's
side (a lie, but, being wandless, there's not much else he can do
except allow himself to be captured or killed). In the end, he's
important primarily as a pawn--his wand is taken from him, making
Harry the unwitting master of the Elder wand, and his mother lies to
Voldemort so that she can get into the castle to see him.

Draco is neither a hero nor a martyr, only a chastened boy who has
learned a bitter and valuable lesson. Whether he has changed his views
on Pure-Blood supremacy, we don't know, but he has certainly changed
his views on how far he'll go to support them. He has his family and
his life (and just possibly Aunt Bellatrix's wealth, if Rodolphus is
also dead). It's unlikely that Draco would have become a martyr. He's
not the self-sacrificing type. But he might have been a hero if he'd
had the opportunity. Would he have fought that DE if he'd had a wand?
Maybe not because he still feared for his parents, but maybe so, if he
thought he had a chance of winning. (A nice silent Stupefy, for
example.) And if one or both of his parents had been killed by
Voldemort, I think we'd have seen a different Draco, one who, like
Regulus and Severus, had a cause, and nothing to lose but his own life.

I didn't even go into his character development, but we can see his
change and growth, his progression toward evil and his movement away
from it, more clearly than in any other character. Just contrast the
Draco of "Draco's Detour" with the Draco of "The Dark Lord Ascending."

Carol, who thinks that Draco is much more than a plot device,
important both in terms of theme and character