The Good Death Eater

[sistermagpie]

It seems that there's a storyline that interests JKR enough that she's done it 3 times--the young man who joins the DEs and at some point finds himself possibly unable to continue. It's the man who gets in over his head. She did it with Snape, with Regulus, with Draco. What's frustrating is honestly it seems like whichever one you like best somehow is supposed to only do the second part--like he had a change of heart without doing wrong first. I was frustrated recently in a conversation about Regulus, though I also hear it about Snape and I know Draco too gets this kind of defense.

They're Death Eaters. Get over it.

In Draco's case, whether or not he's marked or is officially a DE, he's acting as one in book VI. Now, obviously I love his story in Book VI and I do think it's really significant that he doesn't kill Dumbledore. I do think that it's only during the year that he comes to understand the reality of being a DE and for the first time is able to think about what is actually right and wrong, how he feels about hurting other people. Killing for glory turns out to not be a good enough reason, so a threat to his family must be added, though even that doesn't change what he's being asked to be: a murderer. I don't think it's cowardice that keeps him from killing DD--there's no part of the story where I have an easy judgment, like he's just trying to save his own skin or he just doesn't have the guts or he just wants glory.

But I do think that the story begins with Draco as an enthusiastic DE recruit who thinks he's going to kill Dumbledore and that it's going to be great. I don't think when he hears his assignment he thinks, "Oh my, but killing is wrong!" I think he was probably scared, but absolutely thought it was do-able and should be just a case of doing it right, like catching a Snitch. I don't think the moral aspect bothered him at all. After all he was doing something right, he was doing Voldemort's wishes and killing an enemy of the Purebloods etc. So yes, there is a definite element of naiveté there. Draco doesn't really understand what he's agreeing to do. He only finds that out during the year. But he does still agree to murder. It's not a truly informed consent but it is informed.

Most defenses that go too far for Draco, in my experience, are ones that want to put too much emphasis on the threat from Voldemort. I mean, I do think that the threat could have been at least implied from the beginning. Even if Voldemort didn't come right out and say he'd kill Draco and his family if he failed until later under no circumstances was it probably not scary to imagine failing Voldemort. It's just clearly canon that Draco thought killing Dumbledore was something that should have been a good thing that would make him a cool, kind of heroic person, to do. So there is canon that early on Draco wanted to do this task well for himself, not just because he was being threatened.

Now, I do think people often go too far on the other extreme with Draco and basically judge his story as bad right away and never go beyond that. People usually get stuck on "He was BRAGGING on the train!" as if this is some total deal breaker. In a way these two reactions are kind of tied to each other: both of them seem to feel that becoming a "real Death Eater" on some level means you can no longer be redeemed. Draco needs to show some sign that he really always had the same mindset as a good guy all along. I don't think that's the way the story works. To me it's more about someone who genuinely starts down the evil path, which is partially what makes it so scary. And while I don't think Draco's background, upbringing and experiences replace his own decision to join a genocidal terrorist group, it makes him interesting to me and a character I'm willing to root for to make the right choice.

Lately, though, it's the similar defenses of Snape and Regulus that tend to frustrate me. It sometimes seems like okay, we see that JKR is doing variations on a theme with all three young men joining the DEs and eventually having some conflict with them, but all the real ugly bits of the theme are represented by Draco. Snape and Regulus, by contrast, were somehow Death Eaters while never really doing anything we consider bad about Death Eaters. It's like their eventual change of heart must mean they were good guys all along.

In Snape's case the defense often centers on his never really believing the Pureblood ideology. He just wanted a chance to study Potions or something. Do his Dark Arts. Get back at the Marauders. Even in the scene where he calls Lily a Mudblood he's not really being a bigot because he's only calling her that because he's angry at her, he's not angry at her because she's a Muggleborn (which goes for Draco and Hermione too, actually, but the thing is, it's choosing to express the anger through the word Mudblood that makes them bigots). He never killed anybody, of course. And now that we know he's a Half-Blood it's even better--clearly he doesn't really like the Slytherins or the Malfoys or Draco or the Death Eaters, because as a Half-Blood he's immune to Blood Prejudice. Because it would illogical to hate Muggles or Muggleborns when your own hated father was one--especially if you called yourself the Half-Blood Prince. That must be proof he was proud of his heritage (hmm..funny how he's identifying himself with his mother's name there...).

With Regulus I've seen almost the flipside of Snape. As Snape is okay because he didn't really ever believe the Pureblood stuff the way Draco does, in Regulus' case he was better because he did believe the Pureblood stuff where Draco, has personal revenge issues. Draco was making an informed consent to torturing and killing because his father being a DE somehow transfers that understanding to him, even if we see Lucius keeping him out of it. Regulus believed in "Pureblood Rights" but was naturally allergic to murder, torture or Unforgivable curses. He and his family had no idea Voldemort would commit evil acts like that. They just wanted to, in Sirius' words, purify the wizard race and get rid of the Muggleborns and put Purebloods in charge. Err...in other words he was just signing up for the genocide and in no way condoned actual killing.

In a way it makes it seem like that's what makes Draco so damn difficult to get around. He's right there saying hateful things, using slurs, fanboy-ing Voldemort. There's really nothing cool about what he's doing, and we'd rather think of Snape and Regulus as being cool. I just don't think they were. It's not that I think all three of them were alike-- I think one can do really different, equally fascinating characterizations for all three junior DEs, and I think all those characterizations can have sympathetic elements. Certainly Regulus and possibly Snape did have a change of heart and became truly heroic. You just have to also face the fact that your boy is enthusiastically joining the DEs at some point. His change of heart or cold feet is dramatic because it's a real change of heart. The doubts were probably very humiliating for all three, which is why it took some guts for Snape and Regulus to take action. (And will take some guts for Draco if he does that.) But joining the DE is an act with certain meaning. Unless we get canon that shows otherwise, it means some very bad things about the character.

Basically, as far as we know, they all were equally clueless and all equally knew what they were getting into. Oh, and they were all fairly equally proactive. If you like Snape, it's not that Snape was forced into the DEs through peer pressure or didn't know what the tattoo was for while Regulus Petrified Sirius for trying to stop him and walked over him out the door, and Draco woke Voldemort up in the middle of the night and forced the Cabinet plot on him, with Voldemort tacking on the killing Dumbledore part on the way out (the task is to kill DD, and the Cabinet is the means Draco comes up with).

I guess in a way it's a challenge. These characters all have fans-for good reason. So it sort of becomes a challenge of whether you're going to fully accept all the bad things about them, or polish them up. Come to think of it, all the characters in HP offer that challenge. It's just as annoying to have the good characters made the innocent victim in everything as the bad guys. It's just maybe more noticeable when it's a DE that's not so bad.

Comments

[quivo.livejournal.com]

I wholeheartedly concur on this issue. All the lame excuses some authors tend to make for their favourite characters in general wear so thin after a while, especially if one is being realistic and looking at the bald facts. Bald facts in hand, Draco, Snape and Regulus all look like distinctly shady, dishonest people, if not simply because of who they joined up with to fulfil their own desires for supremacy. The mark of a good author, I think, is fully acknowledging that and still getting readers on the good side of the character despite all they've done. Sometimes, if you're writing a crackfic or PWP and don't feel like dealing with reality, it can seem superfluous. But if you want a real challenge, like you said, the best way is usually to try to tell the truth and acknowledge the characters' faults.

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I would like to agree with you and Pie, because it's such a cool opinion, but maybe because I'm a silly fangirl, I can't see Snape as a mean person. I really can't see it. He's snarky, he killed Dumbledore, he indirectly caused James's and Lily's deaths, but he's not evil. I don't believe he has killed anyone besides Dumbledore (which he did on Dumbledore's request, of course ;-), and since James's and Lily's deaths he regretted having joined the DEs. That's how I see it. Of course I might be wrong, because, frankly, we don't know much about Snape, and even less about Regulus. That's why it's easier to find excuses for them and not for Draco - because we know a lot more about Draco's story and behaviour.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Definitly agreed ! People need to get over the fact that sometimes their favourite characters are horrible person, murderers, mean, racist, whathaveyou ! So what ? They're fictionnal characters, it's OKAY to love a fictionnal character even if they have big moral flaws. Think of it as unconditionnal love ^^

The interesting thing in Severus, Regulus and Draco is the gray area. If you appologize them all, you're only left with a shade of the character. No fun.

I very much doubt Severus never killed anyone but Dumbledore. I even doubt it for Regulus, because he'd have needed time after taking his decision to investigate Voldemort's properly to know even about one horcrux.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Exactly! What's the point of a redemption plot if you didn't do anything to be redeemed from in the first place. In my view, it makes Draco/Regulus/probably Snape a greater character to have deliberately gone down the wrong path and then have the strength to say "This is enough." Harry, for example, hasn't stopped throwing Crucio at people yet. He has not looked into himself and found the moral strength to not lash out at people he hates. Draco has, finally, done this.

[ex-leianora730.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

I mean, clearly JKR wants us to think that Harry has changed, but what actually ended up happening was she hit a reset button on him, didn't let him grieve the death of Sirius, and then just made him Dumbledore's man again. Ug!!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I mean, I don't have to make them Eeeevil or anything. We don't know that they killed, tortured and raped people personally. It's just that for some reason they really did join this group, which is saying something.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

What's the point of a redemption plot if you didn't do anything to be redeemed from in the first place.

My thoughts exactly. People claim to like redemption stories, but then they don't allow them to actually happen. What they really want is "good man who was steered wrong, and forced into a situation he couldn't control" stories. Those really can be great stories (and I really wish that we saw some of them, either in canon or good fic, because there is canon justification for it), but it doesn't seem to be the story being told about any of these three.

Harry, for example, hasn't stopped throwing Crucio at people yet.

But he also hasn't truly succeeded yet. Apparently he managed to for a second or two, but not enough to really see what he's doing. I'd almost like to see him succeed, get far enough to watch someone screaming in agony under his own wand, and then have it hit him just what the hell he's doing and massively freak him out. What Harry's done to this point (in that regards) could use some redemption, but he's not as far down that path as Draco was. And much as I love Harry, the boy just isn't a thinker, at least not about moral issues, which means I really have a hard time seeing him realizing what he's doing, much less stopping, without really seeing it. Of course, he *should* have seen this with Sectumsempra, but I think the circumstances -- that he didn't technically know what the spell did and that he immediately went into a panic about the book -- kept him from looking at it as clearly as he should have. We'll have to see if it has more effect on him later.

[teratologist.livejournal.com]

I guess the reason this has never given me a lot of trouble is that I don't really believe that there's a single person on the face of the earth - not me, not my mother, not my former boss the Quaker - who couldn't be induced to kill someone or do a similarly evil action under the right circumstances. The question with Draco isn't is he some kind of Columbine kid - does he think it would be cool to kill someone, period - because he not only doesn't go for the soft targets, he seems upset right from the get-go when his actions almost kill the wrong person. He might think it's punk rock to talk about killing but he clearly isn't into it in his heart. He thinks it would specifically be cool to kill Dumbledore - who he's been brought up to regard as the enemy, who he sees as implicated in hurting his family. Who wouldn't be tempted to kill someone who hurt their family? Harry would. I would.

I have to assume that Regulus was under similar raising, and Snape - Snape has his own bonaza of issues to work through. But honestly, I find their ethical choices troubling but completely logical. (Hell, to do the Bad Thing - I find people who join white supremicist groups IRL troubling but completely logical, given how they've been raised.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was going to say that really, I think I view killing the same way Draco does in the beginning, and the way Snape and Regulus probably both did. I would think of it just as a planning issue, something I just had to do X,Y and Z and it would be done. I can't even honestly say I'd be upset the way Draco is after the murder attempts that go awry, or that I'd have done what Regulus or Snape would have done. So I can't really feel too superior to any of them, even if I haven't ever been tempted to be a white supremist!

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

I don't really believe that there's a single person on the face of the earth - not me, not my mother, not my former boss the Quaker - who couldn't be induced to kill someone or do a similarly evil action under the right circumstances.

This is very true, and this is why I also don't have a problem with thinking "Draco can redeem himself" and "Draco's done some pretty god-awful things" at the same time. I don't see that his actions put him in a class separate from the rest of humanity. I think Harry would probably do similar or worse things, given the right situation. It doesn't make it any less wrong, but it doesn't nullify any potential for good Draco might have.

[autumnised.livejournal.com]

Its interesting that Rowling has explored this theme from the opposite point of view as well, with Percy Weasley and Quirrel and Peter Pettigrew - young men who start out, more or less, on the right side, but allow themselves to be taken over by their own ambition or intellectual arrogance or cowardice. I can't think of any female characters in the books who display this sort of turncoat behaviour, though. Hermione has moments of ruthlessness, I guess, but I can't seriously imagine her turning to the dark side, as it were.

One of the things I've always liked about Rowling is her refusal to paint her characters in black and white - everyone is a little morally ambivalent, and even Dumbledore admits his mistakes are 'correspondingly huger' than anyone elses'. There's no doubt that Draco would have died from Harry's Sectumsempra, if Snape hadn't (conveniently) been close by, and for all we know, Draco might have been in the process of making up his mind to walk away from it all, when he was so rudely interrupted.

Either way, I think its important for the credibility of the story that Rowling shows that (relatively) intelligent people are also attracted to the DE movement, not just crackpot weirdos like Bellatrix; otherwise Voldemort wouldn't present half as much of a threat.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That's interesting about the female characters--I hadn't thought of that. Whenever discussions about the female characters come up I think it sort of underlines the problem with any type of minority character in literature. The best thing about being a white male character is that nobody thinks twice about having you do anything at all. You can be a traitor or a villain or a hero without ever representing your entire gender or race.

But yes, it is good to show people crossing over from one side to the other. There's something in the DE mentality that appeals to the human mind and always has.

[static-pixie.livejournal.com]

These characters all have fans-for good reason. So it sort of becomes a challenge of whether you're going to fully accept all the bad things about them, or polish them up.

Actually, randomly, the character I see this done the most with tends to be Sirius. And it's very annoying, actually, because I really like Sirius - because he was an arrogant, insane jackass, but one with a good heart despite it all. Except, because of that good heart, people tend to either ignore or completely overlook the bad things about him, like the fact that he nearly got another student killed on a whim, and then never even felt sorry for it later.

But anyway, I admit, I'm guilty of that sin sometimes. I think partially because, in fandom especially, there's already so much hatred for Draco that admitting he could possibly ever have really been the tiniest bit bad at heart is pretty much tantamount to giving up and admitting he's Jack the Ripper; people like to get bogged down in that fact because they just don't want to like him. So I think his fans tend to skip over it and get to the part where he really has a good heart because it makes defending him a lot easier. Which is sad, because I think you're absolutely right. In fact, I'm betting that Voldemort didn't add that bit in about his entire family dying until it became apparent that Draco was struggling, and I think that Draco's been protected for long enough that he maybe wouldn't even understand how much shit failing the Dark Lord could get him in. Which explains the bragging in the train car.

Although, I think there's a pretty complicated distinction to be made between having had a good heart all along and having had the good mindset. You can have one but not the other, and I think that that's true in Draco's case at least (he's always had the heart, just not the right intentions). Regulus strikes me the same way. I think that Snape's heart and intentions may not always have been good but that that doesn't necessarily mean they were bad just self-serving, which means they could be good if their being so helped him. And so, I think what's hard to bring across is the idea that the characters don't so much need a change of heart as a change of motive and intention, just because they actually have had the heart all along. Problem with most Slytherins, actually. ^^

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I think what's hard to bring across is the idea that the characters don't so much need a change of heart as a change of motive and intention, just because they actually have had the heart all along. Problem with most Slytherins, actually. ^^

Ooh, sharp observation!
And to expand on it, I think you could say that perhaps the problem with the Gryffindors is a mirror of this: they have the right intentions, but they sometimes forget the heart in their efforts to see good/justice done.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

I don't believe in erasing the unattractive bits of a character's personality so that you can turn your favorite 'bad boy' into a fluffy, innocent little dewdrop who is secretly the best of all who just 'temporarily' went wrong because he was victimized or tricked or... whatever. Feh. I truly hate that as much as I do the way that many fans blind themselves to the flaws in their favorite 'good' characters *coughWeasleyTwinscough*

I agree with you that Draco, Regulus and Snape were equally clueless and knowledgeable about what being a DE really meant; still, something in Tom Riddle/Voldemort's murderous, elitist message appealed to each of them. I am far more interested in knowing what it was and why it appealed to them than I am in trying to come up with 'feel good' excuses that absolve the characters of any responsibility for their choices.

So far as Draco is concerned, I adored the SL in HBP. I think that Draco truly enjoyed being a 'junior' DE ... for a while. He got to prove how smart he was by using the Vanishing Cabinets and planting 'cool' poisons and curses and whatnot. My, my, so clever. But when it came to actually killing an innocent, helpless victim up close, face to face, he couldn't do it. I dont' think it was cowardice that stayed his hand, I think that Draco only truly understood what it was to kill someone when he had his victim right there in front of him. It was real. It wasn't something 'clever' or flashy. It simply would have been murder, and at least as of HBP, Draco Malfoy isn't a murderer. (Though honestly? If it had been Harry there instead of Dumbledore, I think that Draco could have killed him out of sheer, furious hatred.)

You know, one thing about that entire sequence that delights me is that Dumbledore's last true moral student "lesson" is to Draco, and only secondarily to Harry (who is frozen and can only watch). It just reinforced to me that Draco's choices and his SL is as important as Harry's, and that their fates are closely intertwined.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You know, one thing about that entire sequence that delights me is that Dumbledore's last true moral student "lesson" is to Draco, and only secondarily to Harry (who is frozen and can only watch). It just reinforced to me that Draco's choices and his SL is as important as Harry's, and that their fates are closely intertwined.

Could not agree more. I'm always pointing this out-dude, Dumbledore's DEATH SCENE is dedicated to THIS. How could it not be important? The main lesson Harry is even getting there is just how important it is. He's seeing for himself how it works, not just being told to be nice to people morally inferior to you.

[artystone.livejournal.com]

Oh, God yes. The "But Sevvie was a nice DE who just stayed home stirring potions for the Dark Lord (potions which, of course, being good, he booby-trapped so they either wouldn't work the way Voldy ordered them, or would backfire on the user--timed-realeased you know) was one reason it got SO EASY to walk away from HP4GU.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Now what we really need is a take off of "Schindler's List" starring Snape.

[latxcvi.livejournal.com]

But joining the DE is an act with certain meaning. Unless we get canon that shows otherwise, it means some very bad things about the character.

*Thank* you. I'm all for the idea that Draco, Snape and Regulus are different people and thus different fans will like them for different reasons. But. They *all* made the choice at some point to join the Death Eaters and deciding to join that kind of organization *does* say something about who each of them is/was as a person. It's sophistry to claim that Snape and Regulus were somehow good all along because they *eventually* changed their minds while at the same time claiming Draco's irredeemable for making the same choice when *his* story *isn't finished yet*. Sure, if Draco doesn't change his mind in HP7, then I'll be right there thinking "Well, no. He didn't redeem himself in any way." But they all joined the DEs *in the first place* and what that act says about them can't just be *glossed over* for any of them simply because a person prefers one character to the other two.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I mean, I think the differences between the characters are all really interesting. We don't know much about Regulus but even he has the potential for a unique story for how he got where he got. It's just very hard to explain away joining the DEs for any good reason. Although sometimes it probably comes out of someone explaining stuff away all along, so joining the DEs is just one more thing the character was forced to do or didn't mean. It's not that they can't join the DEs for reasons that aren't all completely evil--wanting to prove onesself a man, avenge one's father, get back at people who were evil to you. You can include those things without avoiding the real bad thing the character himself is doing.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Draco signed up believing that this was somehow going to be glorious, and never really thought through what it *meant*. He can't even see Thestrals, he's never even been around anyone who died (not even his grandfather, unlike Neville) let alone anyone who has been killed. It's all talk on his part, and as soon as he has to *do* rather than just talk about it, it finally sinks in just how big a gulf lies between talk and action. We can figure out what was going on with Draco with some degree of accuracy.

But the fact is that we do not know zip about either Regulus's motives or beliefs, or Snape's reasons for signing on in the first place. Without more information we are pulling rabbits out of hats. Very showy, but rigged, and completely illusory.

Regulus was a Black. I think that's about the only thing that we can really say for certain about him. We know where the Blacks were allegedly coming from. For a kid from that kind of background to sign on with a movement which was all about "purifying" wizarding society might have seemed like a no-brainer to him. His parents allegedly aproved, but we do not know that for certain. We do not really know anything for certain since Sirius hadn't been in contact with his brother for about 3 years by then, or his parents for somewhat longer.

However: the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Nor is he Harry Potter's. We've been so desperate for a "good" Slytherin that we are overlooking the probabilities. Reggie taunts Voldemort on having discovered his secret. Tom Riddle has a lot of secrets, and being evil isn't exactly one of them. Reggie's apparant repudiation of all Tom Riddle's works could be based upon nothing more than a discovery that his "Master" was a halfblood. And until we are told differently, I'm going to be assuming that this is the whole reason for his turn-about, and his determination to destroy Voldemort's Horcrux before he died. We don't know whether he acomplished it, either. Reggie seems to have been very clever. We have no reason to believe that he was particularly effective.

With Snape we have even less to go on, and that is quite deliberate on Rowling's part. She has a bombshell to lob at us on this issue before the end of the series.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Part 2:

However, we saw Albus offer a choice to one 16-year-old who was on the wrong path ourselves, and there is no reason to believe that it was the first time. If the DEs hadn't barged in, there is a good chance that Draco might have agreed to fake his death and go into hiding. But by the time the offer was made it was already too late. It may not have been too late in other instances. Regulus may not be dead. Although I doubt that he is fighting for the Light if he isn't. He is more likely to be keeping his head down and staying out of the way.

And clearly, if Snape was offered such a choice, he did not choose to hide. He chose to stay and fight instead. And we have no idea of when he might have been offered such a choice.

We have three points at which such a choice might reasonably have been made. There may actually be other, better ones, but we have no infortmation of other opportunities at this time. Rowling has held that iformation back. Just when the decision was made has some input on his motives.

First, and most recently, there was the period between Reggie's death and the night the Prophecy was given. I am convinced that Snape had made his change in aleigance by the time the Prophecy was given. But if he didn't go to Dumbledore before Reggie's death, then he must have signed on with the DDEs in truth originally. And the best motivation for that was to get back at the people who had made his school years a livng hell. There's a reason that James had to escape the attentions of the DEs three times between the time that he finished school and the Prophecy was made.

Second; and this is a difference that makes no difference, there is the time that Reggie had his little discovery and wanted out. Snape may have been involved in that, and he and Reggie may have gone to DUmbledore together. There isn't much evidence to support this one, but the fact that Reggie was the younger cousin of Malfoy's wife and Snape has long associations with the Malfoys makes it inadvisable to overlook the possibility.

Third; we know that Snape and Dumbledore had some sort of discussion in the aftermath of the wererwolf caper when Snape was 16. If the choice was offered him then, and the choice of future protection and support might have been a reasonable exchange for his silence on the matter that the Gryffindor Prefect was a werewolf, then he must have deliberately gone into the DEs as Albus's agent. This would make a big difference in his motivations.

And we will not know for certain until we have Book 7 in our hands. There is nothing in the current series as it stands ither to clearly establishe this posibility *or* to contradict it.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I love all these things to think about--especially the idea that Reg could have turned on Voldemort due to finding out he was a Half-Blood. Not that we know this is the truth, it's just good to remember that desperation for a Good Slytherin, with "good" being defined as pretty much being the type of character we see Sorted into Gryffindor--can make you miss a lot of things.

I'm also glad you brought up the possibility of Dumbledore's making offers to all three of these boys. That was something I especially thought of in the Tower scene in HBP, that it wasn't just important to see how Dumbledore worked and how Draco responded to him, but that I should think about him having a similar conversation with Snape under different circumstances. If Snape changed sides it was probably more about the type of things DD brings up rather than just a smart political move. He was a different person than Malfoy with his own reasons for joining the DEs (the Marauders seeming like a the best motive we've got so far) but there are still some parallels about what Snape would have to do or understand to make the choice.

I get the feeling this also hints at why it was a good thing that Malfoy wasn't able to come over to DD's side and be hidden. Circumstances basically make Draco to have to make a clearer choice. He can't just go into hiding, perhaps excepting DD's protection to an extent without really having to change sides as much as he will have to without DD. Now he seems more in a place where his options are more limited-just being protected by the good guys is possibly off the table.

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

That's been bugging me for AGES, so I wholeheartedly agree with this post.

The Draco and Regulus stuff is more recent, but I've been reading Snape fic that whitewashes him to a sparkly shininess ever since I joined fandom. It used to be 'Oh, he never *really* killed anyone. He joined Voldemort so he could play around with potions, and the poor dear never even saw what his potions were used for!' (usually followed by 'Snape doesn't really hate Harry, he's pretending for the DE's children' and me frantically hitting the 'back' button). Of course, post-HBP nobody can deny that Snape is a killer, so all the rationalisation is centered on the reasons he joined the DE.

Because it would illogical to hate Muggles or Muggleborns when your own hated father was one--especially if you called yourself the Half-Blood Prince. That must be proof he was proud of his heritage (hmm..funny how he's identifying himself with his mother's name there...).

Funny how all the half-blood=automatically not prejudiced stuff seems to simply skimp over the fact that Tom Riddle was a Half-Blood too.

It's perfectly possible to hate somewhere you've come from yourself. In fact, from the one brief look we've gotten at Snape's father, the man would seem to fuel resentment of Muggles rather than prevent it. If Eileen's marriage was as bad as the images from Snape's head suggest, I could very easily generalise a young Severus thinking this would have never happened if his mother hadn't married a Muggle, and just kept the bloodline clean.

I do think the other factors you mentionned (a need for revenge, a quest for power/knowledge) played a part, but they certainly weren't the only factors.
Personally, I think the overwhelming reason for Snape to join was pride-a need to come out on top for once, to be respected, to no longer be humilated, but I think the blood prejudice actually ties in neatly to that stuff. For all their Pureblood rhetoric, the DE aren't above to let a Half-Blood embrace it, as long as they're dedicated to the cause.

And as for Draco, it's almost as if half of fandom doesn't know what to do with him post-HBP. I agree with your asessment-Draco was certainly down with the mission Voldemort gave him, at least initially. Partly because he bought into Voldemort's ideology, partly because it would give him (from his perspective) a chance to shine, and partly a need to take on his father's role in a sense with Lucius in prison. And yeah, along the way he found out it wasn't what it was cracked up to be, but he started off with a completely different state of mind.

I see the circumstances of Regulus and Draco joining as quite similar, in the sense that they were both continuing the family tradition, so to speak. And I find it laughable that Regulus had some naive, idealised picture of what that entailed (and Draco somehow didn't). I mean, if all the spec about the identity of R.A.B turns out to be true, Regulus is actually quite brilliant.

I have no problem accepting that characters I like have done some Very Bad Things in the past. What's the point of a redemption journey if there's nothing to redeem oneself from?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh--Yes, I've seen the Snape minus the DE part for a long time too. With Draco it mostly was gotten around by the fact that he was so young, that he was just parroting stuff his father said. And it's not that that wasn't necessarily true, it's just that there's a point where it doesn't matter how a person comes to be that way. Like with Snape it's easy to believe that Pureblood Supremecy beliefs were not something he always had like Malfoy and Regulus did, but they appealed to him at some point. Even if his calling Lily a Mudblood was the first time he ever used the word, it was obviously the start of a long road of those beliefs.

Trying to get rid of the Muggle in himself does make perfect sense given what we've seen. Tom Riddle seems to want to do the same thing (he even associates Muggles with death while demanding immortality for himself). It's funny that JKR basically gives Harry the same situation, a horrible Muggle family to hate and really no Muggles to love at all. It's just that thanks to Voldemort's crimes and his beliefs the Pureblood supremecy thing doesn't appeal to him as much!

[aewyn7.livejournal.com]

Here via daily_snitch.

Good post, and I absolutely agree with you on this. These characters have made terrible choices, they all joined the Death Eaters for what probably seemed like good reasons at the time. There’s no need to whitewash a character to like them. It’s kind of weird actually when fans always say that they like the HP characters because they are not black and white, yet at the same time many insist that their favourite character possibly can’t have any bad qualities or have made any bad choices.

Snape is one of my favourite characters, but I see no reason to think that he joined the Death Eaters having no clue what he was getting into, or that he spent his entire DE career making potions for the other Death Eaters or baking bisquits or whatever. It’s not necessary to think that he has gone on a killing rampage either, or anything like that, but like others have pointed out, there is no point to a redemption storyline if the character hasn’t done anything to be redeemed from.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I think there's a bit of difference with Regulus, though - he took huge steps to try and help the fight against Voldemort. Draco may or may not, and Snape's true colors still remain to be seen. Yes, the popular consensus is that the things he did in HBP were DD's orders, but there's no actual proof at the present, just many (brilliant) theories.

That said, I don't thnk Regulus was a nice guy. There was a reason Sirius called him "stupid idiot".

I think a lot of the problem is that people in fandom equate the Dark Side with the bad guys, and like the bad guys. They don't really think about the fact that there's bad, and there's homicidal.

Snape may have switched sides. That does not make him any more likely to, canonically, be in a romantic relationship with Harry, Remus or Sirius. Considering he killed Lily and James - not by your standards, by their standards, whether he meant to or not - and considering he abuses his students, tried to kill Sirius and may have helped him get killed a second time, it's not likely. He's a bad person.

Same with Draco. I don't think he's going to become nice.

Nor, quite frankly, do I think Regulus was nice.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Heh, for truly 'nice' people in the Potterverse, I think we have maybe...Cho? Tonks, perhaps?

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

but the thing is, it's choosing to express the anger through the word Mudblood that makes them bigots

Hmm, I have to disagree with you there. There's a very big difference between (a) hating a particular group and actually believing this group has inborn deficits which make it hateful, and (b) using a word you know will sting hard when you're furious. For example, in my dialect, the insult 'cow' used to mean 'ugly woman', but through overuse of it in the (b) context, regardless of the insultee's appearance, it's become a generic insult, and you now hear 'ugly cow' or 'fat cow' a lot, where it would have been tautologous before.

(b) perpetuates bigotry and is A Bad Thing, but I'm not sure it's actually bigotry itself, depending, and it's certainly not the definition of bigotry.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ooh--that's true--good point. I do see a big difference in the two and I definitely think it's significant in any character exactly why they're using a word that they're using. People do sometimes just use a word because it will get a reaction--they might not even think of the person as that word to begin with. I do think, though, that in the case of characters who are joining the DEs, you have to deal with them behaving as bigots. Even if the bigotry isn't the thing that really drives them, they all have to be choosing to join a group that's about that.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree with you. (And am pleased that, aside from in my dazed brain, New York has not been plunged into a lightless void.)

I recall with a shudder those stories in which Draco is just pretending to be friends with Crabbe and Goyle, or was forced by his father into all his behaviour. Removing vital details about a character from the equation... I've never understood why the authors don't write about someone else, since they wish to create a different character from the ground up.

I mean, I for one would not like Harry as much without his rampant self-centredness, or Hermione without her priggishness, and in just the same way I want the Draco who honestly thought he wanted Hermione dead when he was twelve years old, the same Draco who couldn't face killing someone in reality when he was sixteen.

Err...in other words he was just signing up for the genocide and in no way condoned actual killing.

Hee! And of course Regulus, whose older brother had just rejected them all and broken his mother's heart, he had no personal issues to deal with in the slightest. Not one! Why would you ask?

I love the way all the DEs who ended up saying 'oh shit!' are, in the details given to us, very different: the 'half-blood prince' with his dreams of grandeur, the younger less-favoured brother of the ancient and most noble house of Black (one of whose cousins at least was already signed up, and to Regulus his family at that time were clearly forming different sides - it was Bellatrix's way or Sirius and Andromeda's way, and their way was unthinkable), and Draco, the spoiled yet emotionally neglected and thus inadequate Malfoy heir. Their contrasts are as compelling as their similarities - and one of their similarities rests in their common guilt.

The one to whom the most grave guilt is allotted isn't clear yet, of course. My vote would go with Snape, since unlike Draco and Regulus it wouldn't have been possible for him to believe that diluted blood meant diluted power, or any of the other beliefs purebloods can hold from their insulated distance. Also, Snape is ruthless - the kid who made up the Sectumsempra already had some bad shit on his mind, and probably didn't falter at personal murder the way Draco did and it's indicated Regulus may have. Snape's redemption (barring Lily love) is more likely to have been intellectual rejection than emotional recoil, and JKR seems to prefer herself that emotional response.

On the other hand, Snape's atonement has clearly been stretched out over a period of years and needed a more cold-blooded man than Draco is, or than Regulus goin' out in a blaze of glory Black seems to have been. So perhaps the punishment fits the crime, and they're all equally guilty. To argue that they're not guilty is just incorrect, and of course it's less interesting. I want to see Draco atone like Snape is and like Regulus did. I want the pattern to be complete for all of them.

It is of course, brilliant people like you who have something to say for these characters just the way they are that should clue in others on the fact that not all 'apologists' are tarred with the same brush.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

La! I love these boys and all their many many issues. It's cool too when you think of all the DEs who *don't* say oh shit. I mean, Lucius has probably said it many times on one level, but not in a moral sense. Barty Crouch is just begging for more.

I recall with a shudder those stories in which Draco is just pretending to be friends with Crabbe and Goyle, or was forced by his father into all his behaviour. Removing vital details about a character from the equation... I've never understood why the authors don't write about someone else, since they wish to create a different character from the ground up.

I wonder if people don't sometimes want to build the character from the outside in. Like, they see some things that are superficially cool and just want to go with that instead--then it's more about explaining away the other stuff, not making it power the whole character.

[kylandra.livejournal.com]

Yes! There's no real redemption if they were never actually bad in the first place, is there?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL--it reminds me of something I think Elkins said once about Draco post-GoF: Draco Malfoy and the Dullest Redemption Plot Ever.

[dartmouthtongue.livejournal.com]

People who think that Draco only wanted to kill D. because of fear of V. obviously and conveniently forgot about Snape's offer to do it for him. As you said, there's an element of naivete about his own abilities, Draco is not quite heroic enough to be a full blown bad guy. He's a bully, and a bully doesn't know himself.

Those who portray Draco as a misunderstood, good guy at the bottom of his heart, forget that nobody-- wait, more importantly, I-- don't enjoy excuses, and Oprah-like psychology 101. As people have aptly said here, the trick to getting a reader -- wait, more importantly, me-- on Draco's side is to portray him as an antihero. Only by showing him at his silly petty glory, would he ever receive sympathy from me.

I disagree that change of heart has anything to do with being a good guy. The text is really explicit on this point, stating the word is not divided between good people and DE. Convenience and weakness, which to me are not the traits of a good guy, seem to be the main factors of being a born-again anti-V.

What Draco seems to lack, that Snape possesses, is admirable qualities. He is not at the top of every class, he is not rejected by most of the characters and so there's no victimization here we could hold on to in our way to explaining his mediocrity. He is a product of his parent's upbringing, an obedient brainwashed child, and so how are we supposed to think him "cool"?

The fact that a DE is not so bad, seems to be simply a result of either convenience, weakness, incompetence or hesitation. There are plenty of evil people out there who have these same characteristics, and so they end up in jail. They either go through reeducation, or learn how to use their evil in more able ways. A DE is always evil, to us, for the same reason that those who were willing Nazi's are always evil. Someone who is willing to exterminate a whole race, at least hypothetically, will never be considered a good person. At least not by me.

Of course, this doesn't mean I dislike any of the characters, most specially Snape and Draco. I just judge them as I would any other person with these characteristics, but I don't make excuses for myself by saying these people are not morally censurable.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Convenience and weakness, which to me are not the traits of a good guy, seem to be the main factors of being a born-again anti-V.

I think that would depend on the born-again anti-V. Peter, for instance, joins the DEs for what seems like these qualities, which is different from why someone else would join them. I think it's equally too simple to assume that someone having a chance of heart about being a DE must mean one has become any sort of guy at all, including a good one. I can think of plenty of reasons to not be a DE while still being a bad person--maybe even a worse person who just sees the drawbacks of being a DE.

I think Draco's story isn't really about being good or heroic. He could grow to do something heroic as anyone could, but at this point I don't think he's at that level now. He's not Snape either, as far as I see now.

A DE is always evil, to us, for the same reason that those who were willing Nazi's are always evil.

There I would disagree--I'd imagine, for instance, that many former Hitler Youth grew into good people. If someone truly changes their bad ideas into good ones, I'd judge them on what they became rather than what they were in the past. Someone willing to exterminate a whole race can't be good, but someone who once did I think could be.