sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2006-09-16 08:51 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2006-09-16 08:51 pm
H/D with two protagonists
I was reading a post today which linked to a discussion about H/D that got me thinking. I didn't actually read the discussion; only had time to skim it, so this isn't a real response to that thread. It just got me thinking. I believe the premise of the discussion was on the question of doms and subs in H/D, and which was which and why, but it got me thinking about
The H/D Dynamic in general and how it changes in HBP.
This is the thing that's really exciting about HBP in terms of the ship, though it's also something that makes the whole thing really challenging in a different way than it was before.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lunacy recently mentioned Elkins' classic "Draco Malfoy is ever so lame" post, which though it was written post GoF continues to work, as do its sequel posts like "Draco the Nutter." One of the main points of those essays, of course, was how Draco just didn't work as strictly a villain because he was too weak to ever really score anything off Harry at all, and that weakness has always been a big issue amongst Draco-centric and H/D-centric fans. I'd suggest many fanon!Dracos are a response to it as well, providing the antagonist or equal that canon didn't.
But the thing is, what HBP really finally made explicitly clear was not only that Draco wasn't there as just an obstacle, villain or bully, but that his weakness was partially due to the character's fundamental conflict: what he tries to be is not what he is. Not in the sense that many bad H/D fics did it with Draco being good or nice on the inside and bad on the outside, crying over having to pretend to be mean. It's harder to describe than that, but clearly something the author has always seen as fundamental to the character, which she described as a "natural" Occlumens because of the repression he practices in order to be what he is. He's not "what you see is what you get" bully Dudley, exactly, which is probably also why, as many readers note, we just don't see the same kind of bullying from him. Again, that's not meant as a way of saying he's only weak because he's covering up his good side so feel free to write him as superman now-not at all. I'm saying that as a character we've got a central conflict for sure now-JKR almost always has conflicts at the center of her characters-and that means the character can stand on his own instead of standing only in relation to Harry.
So where this relates to H/D is not about Draco's being repressed (though it's a fun thing to play with, surely!), it's about his function as a character. HBP is really unique in the way it gives a student other than Harry a transformative storyline--and I mean transformative, not just one where he gains strength and confidence, like Ron or Neville. Draco had everything about himself attacked in HBP--the dark night of the soul type stuff I'd always hoped for! And I think to really write the character at this point you have to acknowledge his role as a real protagonist in his own story because of it.
Pre-HBP Meta discussions about Draco were generally about what exactly his function in the narrative was--was he the school bully that Harry should outgrow? A minor lesson in the dangers of resentment and envy? An obstacle Harry would eventually have to kill or work with? Some of those questions are still open, but not in the same way, because the last book suddenly gave Draco this completely independent world to operate in that brought with it motivations that had nothing to do with Harry because they were generated within the character himself. We no longer have to understand him only through how he reflects or can be contrasted to Harry. That's why I think many conversations about roles in H/D are doomed to fail. It's no longer just a case of deciding whether you're going to use Draco one way or the other with regards to Harry, because he now exists more fully and independently of Harry. You can, imo, deal with them both as completely different people instead of just contrasts to each other, or one person obsessed with another who's not interested.
And I do mean completely different people, even if they can have things in common. I'm not describing this well, but think of taking away the context of canon and thinking of both boys as characters in two different books in which he is the protagonist. Instead of it being Harry and Draco in HP, or Harry the hero boy and Draco the bad boy, imagine if they were the stars of two different books. One is a boy marked for death that he survived as a baby with the evil wizard still after him. He must kill him or be killed, so he's growing to be a warrior (even if ultimately his weapon is love). Then there's this other book we have to imagine where the protagonist is the son of a wicked nobleman who pledges himself to uphold the family honor, only comes to see that everything he understood about honor was wrong. As Harry was marked with a scar at birth that forces him to become the man he had to be, this character is “cursed” with the inability to ever be the man he thinks he has to be.
They make an interesting contrast since in some ways they seem like opposites of each other, but they're not quite, or they don't have to be. They can just be two different characters from two different stories that any fic author can explore however s/he wants. I think that can free H/D fans from the compulsion we (me included) often have to slot the two of them into roles: Harry is the X one and Draco is the Y one, because as it turns out neither of them were created to be that static. For instance, it's not, as was very often portrayed especially after GoF, that Harry was the compassionate one and Draco was the cruel one. It's that they're both sometimes compassionate and sometimes cruel but have shown these qualities in different circumstances unique to them-which is not in any way suggesting that they are the same, btw. I'm talking about the potential qualities one could use in a fic, not weighing them against each other on the cosmic scale of good/bad attributes and finding them equal. Draco's “story” in this hypothetical other book depends on his starting at the black end of the scale.
Obviously, what I'm saying it's news to H/D fic-writers. They have been writing this kind of thing for years, where the two characters have different lives. It's just that before they had to create Draco's inner life from hints in canon, and now we've actually got the information from the author (and it's pretty great, imo). We've got the core of the character the way we never could when he his core had to be his feelings towards Harry because we couldn't see anything else. HBP shifted his center to himself, and once that happens the possibilities for putting him together with anyone are multiplied.
The H/D Dynamic in general and how it changes in HBP.
This is the thing that's really exciting about HBP in terms of the ship, though it's also something that makes the whole thing really challenging in a different way than it was before.
lunacy recently mentioned Elkins' classic "Draco Malfoy is ever so lame" post, which though it was written post GoF continues to work, as do its sequel posts like "Draco the Nutter." One of the main points of those essays, of course, was how Draco just didn't work as strictly a villain because he was too weak to ever really score anything off Harry at all, and that weakness has always been a big issue amongst Draco-centric and H/D-centric fans. I'd suggest many fanon!Dracos are a response to it as well, providing the antagonist or equal that canon didn't.But the thing is, what HBP really finally made explicitly clear was not only that Draco wasn't there as just an obstacle, villain or bully, but that his weakness was partially due to the character's fundamental conflict: what he tries to be is not what he is. Not in the sense that many bad H/D fics did it with Draco being good or nice on the inside and bad on the outside, crying over having to pretend to be mean. It's harder to describe than that, but clearly something the author has always seen as fundamental to the character, which she described as a "natural" Occlumens because of the repression he practices in order to be what he is. He's not "what you see is what you get" bully Dudley, exactly, which is probably also why, as many readers note, we just don't see the same kind of bullying from him. Again, that's not meant as a way of saying he's only weak because he's covering up his good side so feel free to write him as superman now-not at all. I'm saying that as a character we've got a central conflict for sure now-JKR almost always has conflicts at the center of her characters-and that means the character can stand on his own instead of standing only in relation to Harry.
So where this relates to H/D is not about Draco's being repressed (though it's a fun thing to play with, surely!), it's about his function as a character. HBP is really unique in the way it gives a student other than Harry a transformative storyline--and I mean transformative, not just one where he gains strength and confidence, like Ron or Neville. Draco had everything about himself attacked in HBP--the dark night of the soul type stuff I'd always hoped for! And I think to really write the character at this point you have to acknowledge his role as a real protagonist in his own story because of it.
Pre-HBP Meta discussions about Draco were generally about what exactly his function in the narrative was--was he the school bully that Harry should outgrow? A minor lesson in the dangers of resentment and envy? An obstacle Harry would eventually have to kill or work with? Some of those questions are still open, but not in the same way, because the last book suddenly gave Draco this completely independent world to operate in that brought with it motivations that had nothing to do with Harry because they were generated within the character himself. We no longer have to understand him only through how he reflects or can be contrasted to Harry. That's why I think many conversations about roles in H/D are doomed to fail. It's no longer just a case of deciding whether you're going to use Draco one way or the other with regards to Harry, because he now exists more fully and independently of Harry. You can, imo, deal with them both as completely different people instead of just contrasts to each other, or one person obsessed with another who's not interested.
And I do mean completely different people, even if they can have things in common. I'm not describing this well, but think of taking away the context of canon and thinking of both boys as characters in two different books in which he is the protagonist. Instead of it being Harry and Draco in HP, or Harry the hero boy and Draco the bad boy, imagine if they were the stars of two different books. One is a boy marked for death that he survived as a baby with the evil wizard still after him. He must kill him or be killed, so he's growing to be a warrior (even if ultimately his weapon is love). Then there's this other book we have to imagine where the protagonist is the son of a wicked nobleman who pledges himself to uphold the family honor, only comes to see that everything he understood about honor was wrong. As Harry was marked with a scar at birth that forces him to become the man he had to be, this character is “cursed” with the inability to ever be the man he thinks he has to be.
They make an interesting contrast since in some ways they seem like opposites of each other, but they're not quite, or they don't have to be. They can just be two different characters from two different stories that any fic author can explore however s/he wants. I think that can free H/D fans from the compulsion we (me included) often have to slot the two of them into roles: Harry is the X one and Draco is the Y one, because as it turns out neither of them were created to be that static. For instance, it's not, as was very often portrayed especially after GoF, that Harry was the compassionate one and Draco was the cruel one. It's that they're both sometimes compassionate and sometimes cruel but have shown these qualities in different circumstances unique to them-which is not in any way suggesting that they are the same, btw. I'm talking about the potential qualities one could use in a fic, not weighing them against each other on the cosmic scale of good/bad attributes and finding them equal. Draco's “story” in this hypothetical other book depends on his starting at the black end of the scale.
Obviously, what I'm saying it's news to H/D fic-writers. They have been writing this kind of thing for years, where the two characters have different lives. It's just that before they had to create Draco's inner life from hints in canon, and now we've actually got the information from the author (and it's pretty great, imo). We've got the core of the character the way we never could when he his core had to be his feelings towards Harry because we couldn't see anything else. HBP shifted his center to himself, and once that happens the possibilities for putting him together with anyone are multiplied.
no subject
OMG YES!! I wish I could somehow emblazon this in the minds [and fics] of H/D shippers, Christ! Heheh, that is totally it, it's not personal like we could imagine it was with Draco [and I still think it was!! but then that's more to do with Harry pinging Draco's personal validation/etc issues anyway]. That's why Draco-but-not-H/D fans who go on about how Draco wasn't hung up on taunting Harry because he sometimes taunted the other Gryffindors drive me crazy & seem to be making such an inflammatory statement! It's like, but that personal vendetta thing is central to how I perceive Draco's character, how can you take it away & be left with Draco! [Which is also something that weirds me out/turns me off Draco in actual Draco/Hermione or Draco/whoever fics-- 9 times out of 10, he's no longer fixated on taunting Harry-- with the attendant HELLO, I'M GAY FOR HARRY POTTER!! sign that's written on his forehead in my own mind when he does that, but anyway, yeah.] It's like he's not Draco anymore if he fixates on something else, though JKR both fixed & tore that issue open with having him be fixated on the things he was fixated before [himself & his parents] except moreso or, y'know, having the dam break & his issues come spilling out.
I love that bit about Harry, though! It's totally a different thing-- it's about seeing [which is cool!] but it's definitely not about projecting (and denying) which is what it was about for both of them before!! And while that was by nature a kind of prologue to their 'real story', it did create a claustrophobic sort of 'don't let the light in!!' feeling in both me as a shipper & a lot of fics, where we both yearned for the light of a wider-scope 'seeing' and individuation and were afraid of it, 'cause... uncertainty! Growing up! Breaking up! FEAR! :>
no subject
Oh, I agree that's it. And also cause one of the thing about Draco for the first several books is that he's a child so everything is personal. He's still in that totally self-centered time of life where he's got very little else to worry about. That's part of why it's a natural but also healthy development that he wants to make himself part of something bigger in HBP, he wants to sacrifice himself in a way, even if there's the promise of glory in return. That's kind of the classic coming-of-age necessity for a boy. You have to submit to something larger, make your life an important part of an ideal or tribe.
And that fits fine with his former fixation on Harry in lots of different ways. It is personal with Harry, but sort of because Harry hits so many buttons with Draco. He's what Draco wants to be, he can hurt Draco with his rejection. He makes a great comparison to probably the way Draco sees Lucius as well. And Draco does have something that hits Harry too, just in a different way. Draco does symbolize something significant to Harry as well, just a very different thing than Harry represents to Draco. Though I think both of them manage to hit each other on the level of making him feel like a failure and a joke. I mean, you can understand why Harry gets to Draco, but understanding why Draco gets to Harry--Draco whom Harry has beaten so often and who seems so clearly desirous of Harry--is a little more complicated. That's why I am also driven crazy by the need to completely erase the way Draco gets to Harry (as well as the idea that Harry could just be anybody to Harry) because he really isn't at all immune to Draco or his taunts. There are times he's less affected by him, and those times help define his whole reaction to him in a way.
no subject
I think a lot of fics just transform Draco into a sex-god or a smooth Slytherin fiend [or something] in order for Harry's crush to make sense (that's if they even try to have it make sense, which... a number of people don't, post-HBP), maybe... but... Harry doesn't feel 'jealuz' of Draco's Slytherin cunning or masterful elite wit skillz or gorgeous body/dress-sense or whatever, y'know? That's just laughable. I think it's more to do with his position in the Wizarding world, the way he rubs family in Harry's face, the way he claims to have things Harry wants and is actually insecure about. You have to sort of deal with Harry's self-image issues, right, rather than how others perceive him in canon or in fandom [which is difficult considering a) he's the pov in the books; b) Draco/Slyth-fans have this idea like Harry's exactly what Draco claims he is, elite and coddled and adored and lucky and/or a loser who'd look up to Beautiful Sexy Draco, etc]. I don't think you could get Harry if you focused on how he's beaten either Draco or Voldemort or gotten girls or whatever... 'cause he doesn't get pride/self-satisfaction out of the things other people would think he does, or something. He's happy he's good at Quidditch and fighting and getting the girl he likes [vs 'girls', the way Ron or Draco would be] & he takes a lot of things just for granted and he just dislikes other things that some people would think are positive, too.
So yes, Harry isn't immune, of course, but most people have literally no clue how not to go from 'not immune' [or vulnerable] to 'emotionally submissive' or something. Invulnerable!Harry is actually one of my major pet-peeves [because a number of Slyth fans see him that way or just refuse to see/recognize his vulnerabilities & only see 'weaknesses' or 'flaws' instead].
Anyway, I think a year later, I'm finally starting to come to terms with Draco's um, estrangement from Harry in HBP & Draco's growing up as well :)) I really hate seeing characters grow up, ahahah, but it would be even odder if they didn't, I suppose :D That's a great point about self-centeredness giving way to wanting to make/show something of himself. I definitely always wanted to see 6th year H/D fics deal with Draco's desire to prove himself! [And of course none did... *growls bitterly* heh] When you say 'coming-of-age necessity', though, you make me think of boy-scout!Draco doing stuff like traipsing through the wilderness and having sex with older women :D :D :D
no subject
I mean, you can wonder how he himself understood his new feelings about Harry, like after the nose-breaking where he might feel that put an end to it but then it didn't. Does he just happily let go of all the ways he used to want to rub Harry's face in it, or does he consciously think about it, even wistfully. Does he think about Harry's own dealings with the Dark Lord now that he's being kind of hunted by him himself? There's so many reasons for Harry and Draco to think about each other more and differently in HBP, even if canon avoids it by possibly having them repress it.
no subject
The bathroom scene [not to mention the train-stomping scene], at least, shows that Draco -is- on the edge and continues to be so from beginning to end, and also it's closer the surface. It's like, in OoTP it was Harry losing it & becoming hair-trigger, but in HBP it's definitely Draco (and yeah, um, no one runs with that, but then they barely did even with Harry... must... keep... characters... 100% sympathetic at all times!). So actually I can see how a flustered, distracted Draco would be more likely to snap more & get angry/out-of-control more easily & that snippet of self-awareness could've had him avoid contact with Harry [not to mention relating to why he'd dropped Quidditch]. There's no way Draco would 'happily let go' of anything, definitely :D :D Ahahah, that cheers me up.
See, this sort of re-evaluation is totally why I made my post-- 'cause my relationship with H/D is all about re-accessment & growth just as their relationship with each other sort of ...um, mirrors that. And it weirds me out a bit that most people seem to be so rock-solid one way or the other! :>