Revisiting meta about Draco...

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Did anyone else pick up on just how much Rowling's commentary about Draco seems to infantilize him? I'm totally serious--the way she writes about him he seems to be only slightly more mature and proactive than Harry! Look at the way she phrases things:

"Much of Draco's behavior at school was modeled on the most impressive person he knew--his father--and he faithfully copied Lucius's cold and contemputous manner toward everyone outside his inner circle.

...

However, Malfoy had his own moments of humiliation at Harry's hands....

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Much as the Death Eaters disliked Harry as an obstacle and as a symbol, he was discussed seriously as an adversary, whereas Draco was still relegated to the status of schoolboy by Death Eaters who met at his parents' house.

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At this early stage [of joining the Death Eaters]...Draco barely comprehended what he was being asked to do.

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Even so, he could not free himself from his conditioning: he repeatedly refused the assistance of Severus Snape, because he was afraid that Snape would try to steal his 'glory.'

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Even when faced with a weak and wandless Dumbledore, Draco found himself unable to deliver the coup de grace because, in spite of himself, he was touched by Dumbledore's kindness and pity for his would-be killer....Dumbledore was, indeed, killed [by something Draco caused]--though not by Draco's hand. [Rowling then explains that Snape lied and covered Draco's reluctance to kill Dumbledore to Voldemort].

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Draco survived Voldemort's siege of Hogwarts because Harry and Ron saved his life."


And from Rowling's extra notes:

"Draco never realizes that he becomes, for the best part of a year, the true owner of the Elder Wand.
...
I pity Draco, just as I feel sorry for Dudley." (But, crucially, to "pity" someone is not the same as giving them true sympathy)

I just think it seems like a pattern, you know? Are there any other characters she does this to? Or is Draco a special case?

Comments

Re: MIRRORVERSE!HP TIME!

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

"And I think that the sensitive, maybe sophisticated adult reader could see that Dumbledore, who had been a very, you know, a very moral student, a model student up to that point, who goes so wildly off the rail suddenly, to think « yeah, genocide, that’ll work ! ». You know — what did he feel for this person ? "

That makes no sense whatsoever. First of all, the only “evidence” we have that Scummywhore was “a very moral student, a model student up to that point” is (1) his own bragging about his wonderfulness in DH 35 and (2) the gushing about same by his sycophant Elphias Doge, who comes across kind of like one of those dolls that can be programmed to repeat a recorded, personalized message. We have no independent verification of young Albus’s intellectual or moral greatness. In fact, his other contemporaries--brother Aberforth, Auntie Muriel, and Bathilda Bagshot--all depict Albus as spoiled, conceited, self-centered, and exploitative--the opposite of Rowling’s “sanitized for her protection” description of a living saint.

As for his “suddenly going off the rails” regarding genocide, that’s also nonsense. John Douglas is a legendary FBI agent who was largely responsible for developing the agency’s profiling unit. In his book Obsession, he talks about being flabbergasted when O J Simpson got off on double murder charges, in large part because the jury thought Simpson’s being a wife beater was irrelevant regarding his potential to violently slaughter two people. This is the gist of Douglas’s remarks: “Come on, people! Nobody just wakes up one morning and says, ‘Today I begin my life of crime!’ There is always a starting point for criminal and violent behavior, and a gradual escalation to more serious crimes and greater violence over a period of years.”

In other words, there is absolutely no way Albus Dumbledore was a wonderful human being his entire life, then suddenly turned into a genocidal maniac for a few months because he fell in love with the wrong person, then went back to being a paragon of goodness once his plans blew up in his face and his lover dumped him. That’s just not how human beings behave. Rowling’s assertions are pure ass-covering fantasy on her part. They really put the arrant in arrant nonsense.

Re: MIRRORVERSE!HP TIME!

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

In other words, there is absolutely no way Albus Dumbledore was a wonderful human being his entire life, then suddenly turned into a genocidal maniac for a few months because he fell in love with the wrong person, then went back to being a paragon of goodness once his plans blew up in his face and his lover dumped him. That’s just not how human beings behave. Rowling’s assertions are pure ass-covering fantasy on her part. They really put the arrant in arrant nonsense.
Quoted for truth. I've always found that JKR's claim here makes Dumbledore actually come off WORSE, in that it implies that he is literally such a weak human being that he would throw away the most fundamental moral principles to go chasing after a genocidal maniac. (In fact, it makes him worse just on the grounds that DH didn't mention genocide. In fact, he actively claims in DH 35 that he had no idea Grindelwald wanted to torture Muggles. So if he was really going 'yeah, genocide, that’ll work!' during that time, he is canonically lying through his teeth in King's Cross - while seeming deeply emotionally affected, etc.

Not implausible, given his other behavior, but surprising that an interview should have inadvertently canonized that he was lying through his teeth...