Draco: Worth the Price?

[regan_v]

Man what a week. Many people on my flist spent hours setting up shop on a second platform (or third and fourth), which has been a huge time hole. And those who maintain hp fannish infrastructure have been working their tails off; when I read those terse, organized, focused posts by scribbulus_ink (who is working long hours to try to back up all the Snupin

Comments

[pir8fancier]

I think part of the disconnect is that the book is written from a very tight third person POV. Harry's POV. This makes the book myopic. We end up loving Harry to a ridiculous amount, but it doesn't give us much opportunity to discover other characters unless it's via Harry's interaction with other characters. Like Dumbledore insisting that Snape is on the side of the Order. Most "fattening" of characters occurs in flashback scenes, like Snape's confrontation with James, which gives us a more comprehensive view of both James AND Snape. Or Snape's final pensieve scenes, which is really her only opportunity to redeem Snape. Harry's interaction with the world of adults allows us to see nuances in Snape's character. He is the ONLY Slytherin with ANY dimension of character. A flaw I have lamented about through six books

[firefly124]

I'd never really seen those parallels between Draco and Snape, but you make excellent points.

[pir8fancier]

I think there is room for discussion, certainly. I think any definitive assessments of his character is up for grabs as far as I am concerned.

[ook]

Snape followed Voldemort out of a desire for power, status, knowledge and wanting to belong to a group. Draco (who already had power, status and wealth) simply followed in his father's footsteps, taking the path of least resistance. Snape was incredibly brave (who admitted he'd made a mistake), but Draco was a cowardly wuss who was still fighting against the Light when Harry rescued him (Draco was never "redeemed" in any fashion). I can easily see why there is so much disappointment that Draco survived.

[pir8fancier]

I'd like to have asked your opinion of Severus Snape on the morning after the Potters' murder. Draco doesn't have a chance to redeem himself. The book ends when he is 17-years old. I'm not saying he's a good character. I'm saying that there is an ambiguity about this character. That the POV of this book lends itself to a limited exploration of a majority the characters, even, say, Harry's mother, who is at the end of the series, STILL a Mary Sue. That the Slytherins come off as totally evil is not, I think an even-handed treatment of them, but it might be a realistic viewpoint from the eyes of a teenage boy.

[ook]

I see your point, but Snape wasn't entirely responsible for the Potters' murders -- there was also Pettigrew and the general bungling of the Order. And Snape didn't willfully put an entire school of students (and their Headmaster) in danger like Draco did. Draco was a LOT more irresponsible than Snape and yet I did't see Draco being penitent about his crimes. I think he was just glad he escaped with his life.

[pir8fancier]

He didn't turn Harry in when he had the chance. I guess I feel that it's an incomplete character analysis. I could easily say that we never saw that scene where Draco repented and you could say that it never happened. And we both could be right! This is preciesely why I felt the last book was incomplete in a sense. Certain character arcs were left hanging and woefully incomplete.

[ook]

Yeah, DH was a VERY incomplete and unsatisfying book. It really needed another year's worth of work (as well as some actual editing). *sighs* :/

[pir8fancier]

Don't get me started! My assessment exactly. It needed another six months at a bare minimum. If she'd spent another year on it, she could have written a masterpiece. It's a first draft. At best.

[regan_v]

This is very persuasive. Because the more I thought about how one person after the other is willing to sacrifice himself for Draco (there is no other character in the book, bar Harry, who evokes that protective urge in such a range of people. At least, that we see) . . . the more I concluded that this can't be a coincidence. Really. I think she's trying, however awkwardly, to convey something there about Draco's worth. But the POV is so limiting, and it just doesn't come off.

I think this long comment (for which I thank you, dear) deserves to be posted as stand-alone meta. Not buried here.

[pir8fancier]

Another parallel between Snape and Draco. Dumbledore's insistence of their relative moral core. I've always thought of Dumbledore as the divining rod in the book. The people he trusts are the people the reader should trust. Or at least forgive.

[regan_v]

I've always thought of Dumbledore as the divining rod in the book.

I think you're right, although that might be because of the Harry POV (since Harry's journey revolves around coming to accept AD's wisdom, and following AD's instructions); therefore, Dumledore's judgement sort of has to be trusted.

And yet, this is only true during Harry's lifetime. Back in the day, obviously AD had very poor judgement. I mean, Grindelwald the Dark Lord as his close friend? There's a good story to be written somewhere, about how AD evolved during the period between his sister's death and when Harry meets him.

[pir8fancier]

Dumbledore never moved me precisely because I saw him as one-dimensional (I obviously like my characters with some flaws). And the revelation of his association with Grindelwald sort of perked me up a bit, but then the expose of Snape's pensieve scenes where he willing admits to using Harry as bait and sacrificing Snape's soul made me dislike him intensely. Even though that was sort of a subtext in both This Boy's Life and Help Wanted. The sacrifice of innocents for the "greater good." This doesn't jive with the re-emergence of twinkly, kindly Dumbledore in the "death" scene. Or at least I found it sort of clumsy. There is never any real recognition on Harry's part that he was a sacrificial lamb, and I sort of felt that the re-emergence of wise Dumbledore was a sweeping under the rug of this plot point.

Dumbledore remains problematic for me.

[imkalena]

Dumbledore remains problematic for me.

I'm pretty clear on despising him. :)

[pir8fancier]

I was all prepared to accept a less than perfect Dumbledore, and then he reprises his role from the first couple of books as the all-wise, all knowing mentor. It was a disconnect. Another disconnect.

[imkalena]

Well . . . I figured that part was all about Harry. I assumed there was as much Harry's Inner Life involved in King's Cross as there was Actual Visitation Involving Dumbledore's Spirit . . .

I didn't mind that the last incarnation of Dumbledore twinkled at Harry; I minded that Harry accepted that part of him and and chose to completely ignore any character flaws. It's a growing-up story, right? I don't understand why Harry's growing up -- which I thought was so he could become his own man -- specifically included his following Dumbledore's every order/whim. He didn't ever become his own man; he went back to earlier in his childhood and erased his new, more sophisticated (if equally one-sided) view of DD with the old, worshipful one.

And actually, if Harry had melded both views and come to the middle, *genuinely* growing up, I probably wouldn't be quite so tweaked about Dumbledore's ruthlessness. Or maybe I still would, anyway.