sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2006-05-13 09:16 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2006-05-13 09:16 pm
The Good Death Eater
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.
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.
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At least not in canon where he had no time to heal. The experience of twelve years in Azkaban might turn to be source of wisdom if nothing else. Sirius is a hanged man bearing knowledge of seeing the world from a different perspective than the so called normal people.
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I know that us people reading the books can see that there might (only might!) be more to Snape than meets the eye, but I'm not sure how Harry is supposed to see this. (Unless he does what most of fandom berates him for: takes Dumbledore's word for it!) His hatred of Snape and Malfoy hasn't done as much damage as their hatreds of him. Surely Harry already knows from the Dursleys, Gilderoy Lockhart, Rita Skeeter, Fudge, Umbridge, even Slughorn that the world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters. Actually, I think the whole wizarding world is a grey area to Harry.
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Hmm. I don't know that I'd agree there.
Harry's hatred of Snape and vice versa has clouded both their minds to more important issues - Harry could have spotted several villains quicker if he'd not focussed on Snape as being his eternal scapegoat, and while Snape's motives are foggier at this point, he could certainly have gotten more done whether as a DE or an Order member, ironically!
As for the boy's hatreds, I would consider that Harry's hatred of Malfoy has done more harm at this point than vice-versa, both in seriousness of injuries of those around them so far; and more importantly, to his moral character.
Malfoy we see less of, so his feelings can recieve either the benefit of the doubt or censure, depending on our opinions, for being clouded - we don't know whether he feels guilty over any of the hurt he's inflicted on Harry (doubtful, imho.)
However, we do know Harry's reaction to nearly killing Malfoy, and again, this is down to opinion, but I'd say it's minimal enough to make me doubt whether JKR can convince me to his future development, especially him having the power of 'love' (this is, of course, not entirely based on this one dynamic; but his characterisation overall, but since this is what we're discussing...)
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Seriously, on Harry cottoning on to the plot quicker if he didn’t suspect Snape, is that really true, and is it really possible for him not to suspect Snape? Like I said above, I know that us readers can wonder about Snape, but in the books what does Harry know and what has he experienced that could lead him to consider that Snape might share his aims or have his interests at heart?
On Malfoy, I guess we could disagree long into the night about whether his hatred of Harry is more hurtful or vice versa! Perhaps it’s possible to agree that Harry’s hatred is reactive while Malfoy’s is active. I don’t remember Harry specifically setting out to hurt Malfoy but I think Malfoy has repeatedly taken action with the specific intent of hurting Harry.
It’s funny, but I have no difficulty with the mistakes Harry makes. He clearly regretted the sectumsempra incident and knew it was wrong but JKR didn’t have him mull over it. Instead she wiped out the mulling opportunity with the Ginny kissing – the whole thing becoming a reversal of the Cho kissing/Mr Weasley biting in OotP, interestingly. I prefer to look at HP as a story about humanity rather than morality. Isn’t love about humanity too, and shouldn’t morality come out of love not vice versa? I think it’s important too that love isn’t only something you give, it’s also something you receive.
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Very little, I presume. I meant more that Harry tends to trust people who dislike the same people as him (see Moody as the most obvious example) and who impress him in certain ways, rather than questioning their actual morality.
Perhaps it's possible to agree that Harry's hatred is reactive while Malfoy's is active.
I think it comes down to whether you consider instigation to be verbal or physical. Malfoy usually has the first insult, Harry usually casts the first hex/punch.
Isn't love about humanity too, and shouldn't morality come out of love not vice versa?
Hmm. A complex issue! I think love should inspire morality, and so far I've not seen much love in the books at all.
Since we're discussing H/G at present, I would hesitate to call their relationship 'love', and I would certainly disagree that they inspire each other to be better morally - I see them as encouraging each other to be worse, if anything.
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An indication of how lightly we should treat morality in HP is given by Malfoy's breaking of Harry's nose at the beginning of HBP. I was horrified when I read it. "How brutal, nasty and wrong!" I thought. Harry was merely embarrassed! This doesn't mean that the real evil of Voldemort should be laughed at, just that some things aren't important and some are.
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Yeah, I thought it was kind of impressive how well he took that. I was all ready to be outraged at the hypocrisy if he'd railed about it, considering how many times he's beaten up Malfoy (the Quidditch pitch fight in OotP horrified me also. I guess 'Muggle fighting' does seem worse - hexes are a little more removed.), and it certainly took the wind out of my sails.
What harm does it do? All they do is laugh and snog and feel happy.
I guess I feel like they're not great influences on each other. (Of course, this could be extended to a lot of the relationships in the books, so I wouldn't single them out as the unhealthiest or anything.)
Ginny was a much nicer person, imho, in Books one to Five than she was in HBP.
And her reaction to the Sectumsempra didn't particularly bode well, imho, considering that apparently one of the things JKR was aiming at was that Ginny is a girl who won't accept bad behaviour from Harry. Harry already has a tendency to rationalise his own behaviour as acceptable, an extra person to encourage him to think of nearly killing someone as 'good' seems the last thing he needs.
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I have high standards for characters presented to me as heroic/especially kind or good, specifically; and I would consider most people not to be tough enough.
(But reversing that, I'm sure there are characters and indeed, other series people might think I'm way too excusing of.)
Still, I guess it's better to be too picky/not picky enough about fictional character's behaviour, rather than people irl! ;)
Once he does know what's going on he'll just naturally do the right thing in the circumstances like he always does
LOL! I shall take that as sarcasm for my own peace of mind's sake.
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slinkhard
2006-05-17 01:16 pm UTC (link)
Heh, it's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
I have high standards for characters presented to me as heroic/especially kind or good, specifically; and I would consider most people not to be tough enough.
(But reversing that, I'm sure there are characters and indeed, other series people might think I'm way too excusing of.)
This is highly hypocritical, but then again, we all sin from that particular kind of hypocrisy, specially in real life. While we accept certain behaviour from some, we condemn it in others, specially if their personalities attract or irritate us.
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No matter who's being discussed, there's usually a character being excused from bad behaviour, and one being judged too harshly; in every fandom. Fandom mainly seems to be arguments over which, sometimes!
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I don't know. It's weird to see people asking so little of the "bad characters" and yet so much of the "good" ones.
It's true, that morality should --should is such a naive word isn't it?-- exist whether or not love is present, but it's a little more difficult to ask it to appear once hate is making its rounds.
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