Draco's Allegiance

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

God, I feel an idiot. When I was writing "Protean Charm" I looked very carefully at evidence for Draco's having started working against the Dark Lord. But I totally missed the biggest clue of all.



When the Trio, Dean, and Griphook were thrown into the basement of Malfoy Manor, Luna used a nail to untie the new prisoners.

And Draco fully expected her to.

When Draco was sent to fetch the goblin, he ordered the captives, "Stand back. Line up against the back wall. Don't try anything or I'll kill you!"

He expected them to be free, not tied together in a clump. And sure enough, they were; he was able to seize "the little goblin by the arm and back[] out again, dragging Griphook with him" without untying him first.

And he didn't warn his fellow Death Eaters that the prisoners were unbound, or cast Incarcereous on them to remedy the matter.

For that matter, how did Luna get hold of that conveniently large nail, anyhow? It's a weapon as well as a tool.

Comments

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

From a Doylist perspective, JKR doesn't really "get" Christianity, hence why a lot of the book's messages are incompatible with mainstream Christian theology.

From a Watsonian perspective, Dumbledore's reaction actually makes sound strategic sense. Learning about the danger to two of your followers is good, but learning about the danger to two of your followers and winning one of your enemy's followers over to your side is even better. So from the perspective of a war leader, I think Dumbledore was probably right to try and get Snape to defect.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

There are multiple possible ways of doing that, and not all of them involve being an uncaring, manipulative arse who coerces and uses other people without remorse.

ETA: In fact, given someone with a slightly stronger sense of self-esteem and slightly less willingness to be abused, behaving like an uncaring and openly manipulative arse is likely to backfire and send the potential defector away with even less reason to help you. So it doesn't even make strategic sense; it's just Dumbledore's lack of empathy and end-justifies-the-means thinking being put on display, and he ends up with Severus in his pocket only due to contingent aspects of Severus' personality.

Also, your reading fails to take into account that what Dumbledore may think is good strategy might be very far from that in reality, given that he never allows for genuine criticism or review of his ideas by anyone else.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Fair point. In this case, though, DD is dealing with someone who already knows that he is uncaring and manipulative. SS knows after the Prank that his own life means nothing to this man. The idea that Lily's - let alone James' - might not either would be a shock, but would he dare dismiss it? OTOH, would compassion or welcome have any chance of being believed?

I'm not sure how much SS would look like a potential defector anyway. He hasn't come in saying that he wants out, that he disagrees with the group's goals or methods (although we gather later that he does). He just wants to protect a specific person who is a target for his side. If DD had just taken the warning, would SS have gone back to being a loyal DE?

Your point about DD thinking his strategies are great because he doesn't discuss them with anyone is a good one, and we see that effect plenty of times in the books I think :) . But in this case, I think the strategy of squeezing everything possible out of the contact is pragmatically right. The tactic of being an open tyrant might have been risky (though I think SS was already dead if VM found out about that meeting and was therefore in no position to refuse, self-esteem or not), but in this case it did work.

(Wonder if there were other cases where it didn't? What if Regulus did contact DD but was put off? :) )

Say, do you suppose DD knows he has much less empathy than most people? Perhaps he knows he is better at sticks than carrots. (Maybe that's why he was so OTT in setting up Harry's environment!)