Prettyveela's Poll - long!

[sistermagpie]

prettyveela has put up a poll here asking people to pick a side in various HP canon conflicts. As usual I have trouble actually picking a side, but I did eventually vote in all of them. What I keep thinking about after doing it, though, is not which side I chose but exactly why I picked one or the other. All the situations are so different that although it seems like it should be easy to come up with rules for all of them, that's not what happened. Reading the comments it wasn't usual to for instance, see two situations judged in ways that seemed completely opposite (I do it too). In situation A X acted with malice but Y was really stupid! So Y is at fault. But in situation B Y was stupid but X acted with malice. So X is at fault.



You can see the canon quotations for each conflict in the original post, so I'll just name it by incident. I seem to have the most to say about Percy and Arthur.

Arthur vs. Percy
I've always been totally with Percy on this one even though it's a fight and probably both say things they don't mean. Part of it is probably that I don't see any reason Percy couldn't have been promoted on his own merits (at least he deserved to be) while I see truth in some of the criticisms Percy has for Arthur. But probably it's more that I feel like there's more at stake for Percy in the scene, and that it's more painful for him to be yet again dismissed as foolish while Arthur should be able to deal with Percy's criticism. But of course not actually reading the fight it’s hard to how it went down.

Maybe beyond that there's something satisfying to me in Percy challenging the Happy Weasley Family myth. Not that I think they're a hotbed of discontent, but especially in GoF I feel like there is real hostility directed towards Percy and it's just unspoken. The Twins always have their jokes as an easy cover for aggression--any questions of why they always go after Percy because he doesn't think it's funny just show one doesn't have a sense of humor. Arthur, too, is in a comfortable position. I don't think he likes Percy much. He loves him, of course, as his son, but I think he possible doesn't care for him much personality-wise. But it's easy for him to just brush him off and laugh when the Twins joke with him instead of really dealing with him.

I don't mean to paint Percy as some big-eyed toddler pulling on Arthur's coattails for attention and getting ignored. I just mean...well, Percy is the son who followed in Arthur's footsteps and he does seem to want to be able to bond with him as one Ministry Official to another. I think Percy probably really is disturbed by the way Arthur works, and Arthur doesn't appreciate that judgment. But maybe even more than that again I like Percy being a squeaky wheel in the family. Arthur's got 7 kids and 6 of them seem to do nothing but bring glory to his name. Sure there are moments where they misbehave, like the one time he yells at the twins for Mugglebaiting. But in general the family all agrees with Molly's view that Arthur is very talented and is only held back by prejudice, they don't complain about being short of money much, understanding that it would hurt their parents (though they may be focused on making it themselves). Harry fits in completely here, since that's a natural way to show affection for him too.

So Arthur seems like he's generally very proud and pleased with all his kids. He's really only got one child with whom there's a problem (personally as well as politically), and he doesn't handle it well. I'd say the way he deals with Percy goes along with his basic personality--he's a bit passive, doesn't much like that kind of conflict. When Percy challenges him openly (and while I hate to use "all teenagers are like that!" as an excuse for anything because it's not, many parents have faced similar outbursts from kids, and worse) Arthur's just as stubborn. Of course there’s the political stuff too, but I can’t help think the way of dealing with the politics has more to do with the personalities.

I can't help but feel like that fight is less about what's going on in the moment than years of building resentment which, imo, Percy is far more aware of than Arthur, who would have preferred to keep telling himself he had no problems with Percy. So given Arthur's mostly smooth-sailing experience as a parent yeah, I think he could make the effort. Percy's brought the anger of the entire family but Molly down on his head, something I think he did knowingly, but still I think he knows it's 7 against 1 for him (as Percy may have felt it's been for a long time). So yeah, if Arthur wants to be such a great dad he can actually reach out to a son with whom he has a painful, troubled relationship. That's part of parenting too. And I think I get some satisfaction out of Percy blowing the lid off the whole thing.

Snape vs. MWPP in the Pensieve
Pretty much everything that happens in the scene happens because James makes it happen, and all of Snape's reactions are fairly predictable.

Hermione vs. Umbridge-the Centaurs
As bizarre (but in character) as it is for Hermione to in retrospect treat this like all she did was make Umbridge look bad at her job, and despite Hermione's strange (but also totally in character) decision to walk past a roomful of people who could help them with Umbridge in favor of her more elaborate Centaur plan, I still go with Umbridge on this one. Hermione is acting defensively in improvising her plan, and once they meet the Centaurs Umbridge provokes them on her own. Hermione might have foreseen that Umbridge would do that, but it's definitely a situation where Umbridge had the ability to see a reason to keep her mouth shut and chose not to do so.

Of course this doesn't leave out Hermione's culpability for her own problems in the scene, for which she is responsible for deciding to use the Centaurs as a goon squad. And she puts herself in that situation partly by overreaching and needing to go for the fabulous secret Hermione plan, which goes beyond being desperate to help Harry.

Ginny and Ron's fight in HBP
This one doesn't really feel like anything about blame, it's just a fight between a brother and sister. Which Ron starts so he's responsible for that, but I think Ginny's response is OTT and comes from her own issues, not his. It's interesting to me sometimes that Ron is faulted mostly for almost calling Ginny a slut as opposed to Ron almost using the word slut. He claims he's worried that other people will call her...something he himself doesn't say. He seems to be voicing the common attitude in the Weasley house to me (we've already gotten Molly's "Scarlet Woman" comment, and the twins, too, offer judgments on how many boyfriends are too many). Just in general when I read the scene I felt like Ginny's anger came out of someplace else or was just too much. So while Ron gets responsibility for speaking up to begin with, Ginny's escalation seems to be more her own thing than something Ron couldn't help but provoke.

Sirius vs. Snape-The Prank
This is one where Snape seems to be getting some points for being stupid and for trying to get MWPP in trouble. To me it's more like the first MWPP scene. Sirius sets things in motion to happen exactly the way they do (save for Snape being saved). I don't think the werewolf was a foreseeable consequence for Snape in taking the bait. There are certain limits within which students expect to operate, and Sirius' deciding to make the thing deadly is all his own. Snape could have been expecting something, just not that. Also, on the "Snape is stupid" side, we probably have to see exactly how this was done to see how stupid it was. As people have pointed out, Snape knows Sirius means him no good, so why listen to him? Sirius must have taken that into account when placing the bait.

Harry vs. Draco - Sectumsempra
I love that this one's neck and neck. It's what makes it a cool scene. Draco starts the fight and escalates it with Crucio, though for once Draco's starting the fight is understandable even to Harry, so for once Harry isn't actually angry at Malfoy when he's fighting him. It's Draco who's desperate and emotional in the fight, not Harry. I know a lot of people think Crucio makes it Draco's fault, full stop, and there's been some interesting discussions about which is worse, Crucio or Sectumsempra. ( I can't help but feel that Crucio thrown by teenaged boys (Harry or Draco) isn't the same as the one thrown by Bellatrix. It's a spell where you want to throw your pain at someone else and make them hurt. Draco's not in a sadistic slow torture state of mind in the bathroom any more than Harry is at the end of OotP.) So while Draco still escalates the fight in using it and so causes Harry to reach for the spell he does, I don't think it explains away Sectumsempra completely.

I guess because the Sectumsempra comes not out of just that moment in the fight but the whole HBP storyline. Harry's been wanting to use it, he knows the Prince's spells always offer just what they promise, only better. This is why I don't agree with the defense that as far as Harry knew the spell might have been another toenail grower--Harry knows the Prince and goes to the spell because in a moment of desperation he trusts him to end the fight for him by taking care of his enemy. If there was any true thought in his mind that the spell wasn’t incapacitating why use it to stop a Crucio? The results of Sectumsempra are so surprising to everyone involved I can't see it as a predictable result of Draco starting the fight. It's imo intentionally different in that way from the train hexings and beat down in OotP. So while Draco starts the fight, Harry's decision to reach for Sectumsempra was all his own.

Sirius' Death - Dumbledore, Bellatrix, Harry or Sirius?
There's a lot of things that get everyone where they are in that scene, but I don't feel like there's any reason to go back any further than two people facing off with one killing the other. This is another malice vs. stupid one. Yes, Sirius was arrogant, but Bellatrix did what she meant to do and it worked. The actions of other people like Kreacher, Harry and Dumbledore may have been part of getting them to that place, but there were plenty of chances to go a different way even with them. With Percy and Arthur the fight seems to actually be about the past, so it's more relevant.

Phew! So that's all of them--I don't know if there's a pattern. The first one seems like I'm just emotionally leading towards one more than the other, with maybe a side of seeing Arthur has having always had more power in his house and having more responsibility as the father. Most of the others are mostly thinking about which person took actions in order to reach the outcome that happened and whether the results were predictable enough that I thought they should have been considered by everyone involved. And then there's the Ron/Ginny fight, where it's more emotional again, figuring out what's really motivating the different characters and what results they are trying for with what they say. Also remembering how many other options the person ignored in order to go for the thing they chose. For instance, saying that Hermione or Harry had to do something in their scenes is not necessarily justification for whatever they did.

Conclusion: it's hard to place blame in verbal fights, even if you side more with one side of the argument or think one person's meaner than the other.

Comments

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

Harry should certainly feel badly about sectumsempra. What was wrong with expelliarmus? Worked against Voldemort!

But Draco's remorse over Katie and Ron and bringing Greyback into the school is pretty compromised. His feelings about working for Voldemort as revealed in his conversation with Dumbledore are complex. There's remorse but also fear and ambition, and which is going to win out is not yet clear. He doesn't express concern about attempting to crucio Harry. The crucio and sectumsempra are just like Draco's stamping on Harry's face, another display of inter-house schoolboy rivalry. I'd have been happy to see Harry apologise to Draco but the culture among the students at Hogwarts doesn't allow such a thing. Can you imagine Draco's total incomprehension! Harry doesn't do a lot of angsting over his sectumsempra but he does know and say that he was wrong and gets on with his punishment. Harry has found himself doing a number of dubious things in the course of HBP; it's quite a theme of the book, I think. I love how JKR piles it all on so that separate events become connected and it's hard to be certain where right ends and wrong starts. Harry has a fight with Draco. Snape punishes him, because he has the opportunity as much as because it's deserved. Harry kisses Ginny, ditto! Really he should have pushed her away, saying, "No, Ginny, this cannot be. I must away and ponder my general unworthiness and recurrent failures. Only when I am worthy of Draco can I allow myself to kiss you. Er..." :D

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Well, Draco's remorse is pretty compromised, yes, but there's a world of difference between compromised remorse and Harry's apparent no remorse. Had Draco's attempt to Crucio Harry worked and he'd stood over a Harry writhing in enormous pain and the next minute been blithely over it and working out that his chances with Pansy were pretty good, I'd be appalled at him.

I would also be happy to see Harry saying sorry (well... *grins* obviously) but I think it's absolutely necessary for Draco to be let know that Harry wasn't attempting to murder him. Because, ah, it would be total stupidity to go near someone who tried to murder you. Harry's side and Voldemort's side are a rock and a hard place, and Draco can't bugger off to Switzerland. (Well he could, but I for one would complain loudly about his absence.)

I do think Harry's dubious actions are so thick on the ground that JKR has to be doing it on purpose, and I really look forward to seeing them addressed, but I think they must be addressed some way.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

I do see remorse in Harry but he doesn't go on about it. (For me Harry has only once in all 6 books sat down and really reflected on something he's done and reached a conclusion about it - in PoA after his patronus lesson with Lupin.) In HBP he and Draco have in common feeling remorse and doing nothing about it - and being interested in other things more! Draco would surely not bat an eyelid at the idea of Harry trying to kill him, any more than he'd do so at the idea of himself trying to crucio Harry - all on an unrealistic schoolboy level. But you're right (of course!) that it demonstrates Draco's choice is hard, if not impossible. On Harry's dubious actions, I'm not sure if the point is that he should recognise them as wrong or realise that they are necessary. (The one that makes me shudder most is Harry doing as he was told and feeding Dumbledore the potion in the cave.)

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

That's a brilliant and very Cold As Ice scene for Harry in the cave, where I really thought we were seeing the Man Who Could Destroy Voldemort. However, I do think that tormenting Squibs and being relatively unmoved at the sight of someone dying in his blood because of Harry, won't help Harry along the road to heroism at all. Draco couldn't do anything about his remorse - after all, he couldn't let anyone know he was to blame for Ron and Katie. Harry, however, didn't do anything, and instead of saying in fraught tones 'you don't know what I've done!' he bitches about unfairly missing out on Quidditch for the tiny misdemeanour of eviscerating a classmate.

I do think that Draco must and should bat an eyelid at the idea of Harry trying to kill him. Draco himself is finding the idea of almost killing people very hard to cope with, and when faced with having to kill someone directly, he can't do it. As far as he can see, Harry can kill, and if not for Snape, would have succeeded in killing him. Something to definitely bat an eyelid over! Moreover, I really don't think Crucio is comparable. Draco attended classes with Fake Moody, where he said the Cruciatus probably wouldn't work with inexperienced magic users. Also, quite frankly, I'd much rather be tortured than killed.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

I find Harry in the cave far more worrying than sectumsempra Harry. I was much happier once he stopped following instructions and dipped the cup into the lake to quench DD's thirst at the cost of releasing the inferi.

I accept that Harry will have to leave behind hexing Slytherins and all the fun and frolics of Hogwarts on his way to becoming a hero, but with regret. I do sympathise with Draco, and shake my fist at JKR (and her evil henchman Albus Brian Dumbledore) for setting things up in this impossible way. Ah, but you're hard on Harry and soft on Draco! I'm the other way, and could probably find excuses for Harry were he to marry Voldemort and produce a brood of tiny mpreg Death Eaters. What can Harry do to show his remorse? Put on sackcloth and ashes? Send Draco flowers? What can Draco do? Stop trying to murder Dumbledore and stop trying to get Death Eaters into Hogwarts!!!!!! Is Draco a boy forced to do evil against his natural instincts, or a little shit siezing the opportunity to realise his ambition of becoming a bigger shit, and feeling just a little bit squeamish about it? What would Draco have done after crucio, when he had Harry writhing in agony on the floor? (Remember, he's been taking lessons from Bellatrix.) Cuddle him? AK him?

I wonder if it's too much to hope that Draco wasn't too taken up with bleeding to death to manage to see Harry's horrified reaction to the sectumsempra?

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Well, I do love Draco, but I love Harry too.

See, Draco did stop trying to murder Dumbledore and did regret letting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Which didn't change what he'd done, but it was the most he could do at the time. Harry could have a) taken the damn detention without acting as if it was injustice, since it was a ludicrously light punishment, b) checked (asked Madam Pomfrey rather than visiting with a fruit basket) to see if in fact he had scarred Draco for life, c) said 'I hate you and I'm going to find out what you're up to, but I didn't mean to kill you' - something that otherwise Draco has no way of knowing, or d) just sat up of nights thinking OH MY GOD, what if Malfoy had died?

Harry in the cave doesn't bother me though he gave me chills, because he did dip the cup. There's no 'dipping of the cup' after sectumsempra. There seems to be no understanding of what he's done nor much empathy or sympathy for someone who suffered something horrific at his hands.

I think Draco agreed to do some awful things which he didn't fully understand partly for revenge for his father, partly for personal gain, and more and more as time went on out of enormous fear for his own life and that of his loved ones. Some of that's really not admirable, some of it's sympathetic. He's not initially forced, but nor are violent hysterics being just 'a little bit squeamish': I think it's considerably more complicated than that.

I deeply doubt, as I said before, that the Cruciatus would have worked: it's canon that it doesn't with inexperienced students and Draco would've known that, too. And I do think that Draco would've been squeamish about tormenting Harry. After all, he had his chance to do so when Harry was helpless, and he didn't do it: he did one swift thing and left.

I imagine Draco was too busy bleeding out to notice. I would've been. Which leaves him with the distinct impression that Harry is a stone cold killer.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

I know you love Harry, and I can hardly believe I'm disagreeing with you at all, given that I am always in awe of and benefitting from the subtlety and sensitivity of your response to H and D. But .... well, I'm a brute and must exress my brutal thoughts.

I love Harry and I love your Draco, but JKR's Draco is another matter. JKRDraco's motives are complicated but they are not admirable, and ideas of right and wrong are completely absent. He has no idea of how he should act in the situation he is in, and it is impossible to love someone like that - unless you're his mum.

Draco didn't kill DD when the third opportunity to do so presented itself, and he mumbled something or other when DD put it to him that his heart had never been in it. Draco started off trying to kill DD in September and finally lowered his wand in June. I think it's only fair to give Harry nine months and two more murder attempts too before we require him to mumble something conciliatory about sectumsempra in Draco's direction.

I'm wondering when Draco thinks he might get round to apologising to Harry for paralyzing him and putting his nose through his face back in September! I do think that, while sectumsempra seems dreadful to us outsiders reading about it, it is not dreadful at all in the context of Hogwarts. Our response to it should be the same as our response to the nose breaking incident. (Actually I was appalled until I realised no-one was bothered, not even Harry.) Both could have been dangerous, even fatal; neither proved to be so. Everyone at Hogwarts had something to gossip about for a day. Harry was punished, Draco was - er? Harry felt bad, Draco felt - what?

I guess, though, that we want Harry to apologise to Draco because we expect more of him than we do of Draco, and because it's just the kind of thing Harry would do!

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Oh, breaking someone's nose is just not the same as eviscerating them on any level. Breaking someone's nose when they're helpless is about the same thing as beating them up when they're helpless because George Weasley is sitting on them also beating them up. Since that already happened in OotP, I don't think Draco has a damn thing to feel guilty for in re the nosebreaking, and it's absolutely not comparable.

I don't think that Draco's ideas of right and wrong are completely absent, either. It's pretty clear that Draco has been raised to think that terrible things in the abstract are okay, and he's simply accepted this (which is an awful thing to do, sure, but not the same as being utterly amoral). As soon as he's confronted with the brutal reality, he starts seeming appalled. He's clearly in the middle of a breakdown by Christmas, so saying his conscience kicks in around June is just wrong. And we must remember that his parents are both under threat of death as well as he - we simply can't know at which point Draco starts really not wanting to do the things he thought he could do, though (given the breakdown) I'd say Christmas.

Draco's done worse things than Harry has. Nobody's arguing with that. He owes Katie and Ron and Bill an apology. Harry owes Draco an apology. (An apology will not fix things for anyone. But it'd be a start.) And since we do not see Harry as being particularly bothered he almost killed Draco, I don't know if it's 'just the kind of thing Harry would do.' But I'd like to think so.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

But in the OotP incident Draco was helpless and being sat on while shouting 'Your mum!' - the worst insult known to schoolboykind, to which there is only one allowable response: extreme violence. Draco was winding the Weasleys and Harry up in order to get them in trouble, and behold his success! On this occasion Harry began by trying to stop the Weasley response but fell foul of the power of the mum insult, the chump. If Draco needn't feel guilty for breaking Harry's nose then the same applies to Harry in the bathroom of blood, because this was just another round in the ongoing Harry v Draco boxing match. What makes the nose breaking distasteful is that it wasn't done thoughtlessly in the heat of battle but was a deliberate, vicious act, and Draco derived satisfaction from it. What makes sectumsempra distasteful is that it was a much more serious spell than Harry imagined. (Was it actually an evisceration, though?)

There is no indication that Draco is anything other than frightened for his life (and his parents' lives) until DD suggests it in the tower. In the bathroom when he's crying he's talking about not being able to get the cabinet to work. He doesn't say that he's concerned about having to commit murder. One feels sorry for him because he is a child and is in danger and is out of his depth and looks likely to fail, the chump. But any moral scruples are the reader's, not Draco's! Even at the last minute in the tower Draco avoids questioning himself about his actions and ambitions. He fears the act he has to commit but wants to commit it for the rewards it will give him and because it will confirm his success. Dumbledore says that the necklace and mead attempts were because Draco was reluctant to murder, but this is just flattery (They were because Draco didn't want to get caught, for heaven's sake!): DD doesn't want Draco to kill him - or anyone - and offers Draco success in the form of a moral victory along with safety for himself and his parents if he chooses not to kill.

If apologising across the house divide isn't the kind of thing Harry would do I don't think it would ever occur to us as a possibility. (Though I'm sure some would argue he only did it for the adrenalin rush!)

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

A round of a boxing match involves fairly equal blows and damage. Therefore, Harry needn't feel guilty for punching Draco's face at the Quidditch match for insulting his mum, and Draco needn't feel guilty for stamping on Harry's face at the train for (as he sees it) Harry getting his dad imprisoned, and for Harry spying on him and his friends. Had Draco ever been caught spying on Harry and his friends, I'm sure that he'd have been hexed to a slug again. (Another thing I find distasteful, but don't blame Harry for.)

I think that the consequences of an action should be considered as well as the intention, here. If I over-polished a floor and someone fell and bruised their ass, I'd say I was sorry with a bit of a grin: if I did the same thing and someone fell and broke their leg, I'd run to the hospital with flowers and hysterical apologies. If someone is one second away from bleeding out because of something you did, no matter what your intention, some proper guilt should be felt.

I think it's absurd to suppose Draco's compunctions about killing people just appeared magically on the tower. Why wouldn't Draco be a killer, without moral compunctions? 'Fears the act he is to commit'? I'd be much more frightened of the bloody-mouthed werewolf than killing the old man, thanks. Naturally Draco is more concerned about himself and his parents - I'd be more concerned about myself and my parents - but it makes absolutely no sense to say that Dumbledore is flattering Draco when he says 'Dude, you were panicking, but you don't want to kill anybody.' Please recall how little we get of Draco's POV - I'm sure he is more concerned about himself and his parents, but the fact that he mentions Ron and Katie's near-deaths as things he has done, which he recognises were serious and terrible, makes it pretty clear that he does have moral scruples. (Though clearly not as many as he should have.) And since, as I've said, these feelings suddenly appearing on the tower would be silly, that means that guilt, as well as fear for his life, probably have something to do with the obvious signs of a nervous breakdown.

It occurs to me that it's possible that anyone could apologise over the house divide. I don't think it'd be any more likely for Harry to do it than Hermione, for instance.

Sectumsempra (Just read the last two paragraphs)

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

We've gone from sectumsempra to the nose-breaking and Draco’s moral state in HBP. The nose-breaking has a bit of a connection to sectumsempra, but Draco’s moral state is a different subject. For some reason I feel the need to summarise my view of sectumsempra and comment on Draco separately.

I related sectumsempra and nose-breaking only because they are the two Draco/Harry confrontations in HBP and as such cry out to be compared, especially as they contain such obvious contrasts: eg. Draco bad in one, Harry in the other; Draco’s action deliberate, Harry’s reflex; the harm in the first intentional, in the second unintentional; Draco pleased with his action, Harry not. They are also the latest in a long series of confrontations between Draco and Harry. My view of these confrontations is that they are essentially comedy, as is student conflict at Hogwarts generally, though it does reflect the serious conflict within the wizarding world, and the two do overlap and both need to be resolved. This may also mean that JKR intends the conflict between Draco and Harry to be resolved.

Sectumsempra could have been the catalyst for the beginning of a reconciliation between Harry and Draco: Harry’s shock at what he’d done could have raised him above the school mischief level and led him to apologise. It didn’t. Sectumsempra remained just another fight in the Draco/Harry series. Harry did see a different Draco than he’s used to, and learnt more about Draco in the tower, so it’s still possible that sectumsempra may indirectly lead to reconciliation in Book 7.

Though Harry didn’t apologise to Draco after sectumsempra, and though he was concerned with standing up to Snape, not losing the potions book, failing as quidditch captain, and losing Ginny’s good opinion, I consider that he also showed he was aware he’d been wrong to use sectumsempra.

So, having bored you to sleep, I’d like to respond to your point on the consequences of Harry’s use of sectumsempra. I think that what you say actually supports my view! Because Snape stepped in, Draco’s injury ended up being of the bruised ass variety, not the broken leg. If Snape hadn’t arrived things might have been different, but he did arrive, and as I’ve said already, took the thing back to the level of Hogwarts mischief.

I may have overstated the house divide thing, but unity at Hogwarts seems such an important thing in HP on several levels. It’s at least interesting that even Hermione didn’t tell Harry he should apologise.

Draco

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

I didn’t intend to suggest that Draco’s compunctions about killing appeared magically on the tower, but that it took Dumbledore to reveal the very notion and the legitimacy of such compunctions to Draco. I maintain that in HBP before the tower scene there is no indication in the text - stated or implied - that Draco’s anxiety is caused by anything other than fear for his and his parents lives. From the things Draco says and does during HBP it appears that he is motivated by this fear and by vanity - his craving for the glory and status that killing DD will bring. Between them, the fear and the vanity acted as a very effective block to Draco being able to see the moral implications of what he was doing. I know that we don’t get much of Draco’s POV, but we can only construct it out of what the text gives us. We can’t just assume Draco was having moral doubts because, say, we would. If I’ve missed something in the text, I’d love to be shown it. Draco doesn’t mention Ron and Katie, Dumbledore does. What is the tone of Draco’s statement,“You don’t know what I’m capable of. You don’t know what I’ve done”, anguished or defiant? Does it refer to Ron and Katie at all? DD replies as though it does, but this could be because of the things Draco has done it’s the one he wants to focus on.

Perhaps I should have said that Dumbledore was employing psychology rather than flattery on the tower, though there is a lot of flattery in what he says to Draco. DD, as well as stalling for time and getting Draco to tell his story in front of Harry, was trying to show Draco there was another way to achieve what he wanted, that is to be victorious (though a different kind of victory) and safe. Voldemort’s offer to Draco had been kill and be saved, Dumbledore’s offer was don’t kill and be saved. You know, there’s not necessarily any morality in that. Only at the very end did morality enter into the conversation, when DD said “Come over to the right side”. Before that there had been hints, DD telling Draco that he was not a “killer”, and implying that he was among the “innocent”. But DD had spent much of his time making Draco feel good about himself, and sowing doubts in his mind about his commitment to Voldemort and his intention to kill. At the end Draco is still thinking about it. He may have decided – “Harry thought he saw it [his wand] drop by a fraction” – then the Death Eaters arrived, followed by Snape, who took matters into his own hands.

You ask why would Draco not kill if he didn’t have moral compunctions. One doesn’t have to consider a thing wrong in order to be afraid to do it. One can simply not be brave enough, for example, or be reluctant to expose oneself, or define oneself in front of others. Have we ever seen Draco stand up boldly by himself, for himself? Doesn’t Draco tend to do things by stealth? Killing DD is an act loaded with significance: it will make Draco, he’ll be what he wants to be, “the Dark Lord’s favourite”. It will prove “them” wrong. Except they aren’t wrong about Draco, are they? He’s not the Dark Lord’s favourite, he’s a frightened boy who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

There is no indication that Draco is anything other than frightened for his life (and his parents' lives) until DD suggests it in the tower. In the bathroom when he's crying he's talking about not being able to get the cabinet to work. He doesn't say that he's concerned about having to commit murder. One feels sorry for him because he is a child and is in danger and is out of his depth and looks likely to fail, the chump. But any moral scruples are the reader's, not Draco's! Even at the last minute in the tower Draco avoids questioning himself about his actions and ambitions. He fears the act he has to commit but wants to commit it for the rewards it will give him and because it will confirm his success. Dumbledore says that the necklace and mead attempts were because Draco was reluctant to murder, but this is just flattery (They were because Draco didn't want to get caught, for heaven's sake!): DD doesn't want Draco to kill him - or anyone - and offers Draco success in the form of a moral victory along with safety for himself and his parents if he chooses not to kill.

I know Mistful's already answered this as I'm going to below, but this just erases the heart of HBP to me. There's no point to most of Draco's story if he's just a chess piece that clever Dumbledore manipulates at the last minute long enough to keep him from killing. Death itself is an unreality for Draco until book VI, at which point he gladly takes on the cool task of killing Dumbledore for glory. But saying that he just fears the task he has to do without a sense of right and wrong avoids the central issue. What's to be afraid of if it's not wrong? If he doesn't kill Dumbledore he's got a Dark Lord, several Death Eaters and a werewolf at his back. If he does kill Dumbledore he's got nothing but the alleged glory. Nothing to fear from Dumbledore himself--that's why, imo, it's important that Dumbledore's made so helpless. So that it's clear Draco doesn't have anything external forcing him in that direction. His wand lowering moment explicitly lays it out as well. He literally goes over, to himself, slowly, the fact that he is lowering his wand from a position of strength, that he hasn't failed. Peter faced similar situations and always chose to kill.

What Dumbledore put into Draco's head was the fact that he could not kill and not die. Draco's already struggled the entire year coming to the realization that he couldn't kill. Dumbledore on the tower welcomes him with open arms knowing that he's already been cracking all year seeing that although he has no other definition in his mind for what glory is, he isn't a murderer. He can't even speak about someone else killed below without his voice cracking.

On the Tower Draco is not avoiding questioning his own actions and ambitions, what he's trying to avoid is killing and admitting the truth even he already knows about himself, that he's not going to kill. The very thing Dumbledore keeps confronting him with. But no matter how many times Draco says he's a killer, he never makes a move to kill, no matter how much he's supposed to want to do it. Which is why Dumbledore praises him during the scene--he's not flattering him by saying the previous murder attempts were due to reluctance--what kind of flattery is that to a DE? That's what makes him a failure from that pov, what Draco himself is trying to deny. Dumbledore praises (I won't say flatters though it sort of is, because I think the praise is earned) Draco's clever plan to build up the confidence he needs to make a choice for himself: you're not a total screw up, you're worth something without killing. And even Harry notices it works--Draco draws comfort and courage not from his empty threats of violence but from a plan that, however badly intentioned, actually was a personal achievement.

Young people in the books always upset the plans of older people by zigging when they're supposed to zag, and Draco is no different in HBP. He's supposed to be an easily-predictable chump from the beginning. He's not.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

But in the OotP incident Draco was helpless and being sat on while shouting 'Your mum!' - the worst insult known to schoolboykind, to which there is only one allowable response: extreme violence.

So if when Harry insults Seamus' mum in OotP, Seamus and Dean (and Neville being held back from joining in) then beat him up, you'd consider that Harry had gotten what he'd deserved?

If apologising across the house divide isn't the kind of thing Harry would do I don't think it would ever occur to us as a possibility.

I don't think Harry's really the pinnacle of morality in the books or for 'us'.
The other houses may not have the bitterness of the Slytherin/Gryffindor divide, but divided they all are, and yet Ernie MacMillan and Justin Finch-Fletchely capable of apologising across it when they feel they've wronged Harry, and that wasn't even for anything serious like physically harming him.

butting in to interesting conversation

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

because it's just the kind of thing Harry would do!

Is it? Harry doesn't seem to be a frequent apologiser, to anyone. Most apologies are offered to him by others when he has clashes, not the other way around. It's the kind of thing a classic archtypical hero would do, but Harru personally?

I do think that, while sectumsempra seems dreadful to us outsiders reading about it, it is not dreadful at all in the context of Hogwarts.

This seems to be a grey area - you're right that context can mean a lot in Hogwarts.
The fact that no-one is upset by the nose-breaking is apparently indicative that it's not something we're supposed to take seriously (I really must interject here and say that the nose-breaking, while vicious and going up a notch from the usual confrontations between H/D, doesn't really seem comparable to the Sectumsempra - I'm not sure how it 'could have been fatal'.
And while it's no defense, it was coming after a long line of beatings from Harry to Draco, deserved or not - the train hexings in GoF, in OotP, the Quidditch Pitch fight...
I mean, there's a long history there. The nose-breaking wasn't unprompted, but neither was the train hexings before that, or the insults before those and so on... There's always going to be a reason for both boys to attack each other and justify it while they keep on both doing shitty things.) so it could be the Sectumsempra is.
Of course, JKR's used this trick before to fool readers, and successfully - no-one was really upset or shocked about Fake!Moody hurting a student, but in retrospect it's both the comedic device it seems to be, and a clue that this guy is dangerous.

of right and wrong are completely absent. He has no idea of how he should act in the situation he is in, and it is impossible to love someone like that - unless you're his mum.

That sounds very subjective. The fact Draco can't kill Dumbledore when he has the chance to (which doesn't seem to be simple cowardice, since he has DEs backing him up, while Dumbledore is helpless and incapacitated - sick, with no wand.), shows he has an understanding of right and wrong.
And saying it's impossible to love someone like that seems odd. I mean, an argument could be made that Harry's reaction to nearly killing someone shows he has no understanding of right and wrong, and so no-one should/could love him, but that's inaccurate. The fact is both boys have people around them who care and who they seem to care about.

Re: butting in to interesting conversation

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

Harry doesn't seem to be a frequent apologiser
I was thinking more of the direct, no pissing about aspect of the apologising as being characteristic of Harry rather than the apologising itself.


Fatal nosebreaking. Well, er... Yes, that's it: he could have choked on his own blood. It's possible!!!! It is!!! He was paralyzed!!! Draco's not a doctor, he didn't know what the effect of his stamping might be. Nor did he know how long it might be before Harry might be found. Nor did he care. (He had bigger fish to fry!) I suppose, in a way, the nose stamping was Draco's way of saying to Harry, "I'm over you."


Of course, JKR's used this trick before to fool readers, and successfully - no-one was really upset or shocked about Fake!Moody hurting a student, but in retrospect it's both the comedic device it seems to be, and a clue that this guy is dangerous.
Yes, it's true. The Gryffindors and Slytherins can get away with their nastiness because it's comic, a school thing, and because magic can repair the injuries, but we shouldn't be blind to the fact that their enmity reflects the the more serious conflict within the wizarding world.


Unlovable Draco: I think that in the tower Draco prehaps finally sees that there is a choice between right and wrong. Before this, over a period of months, he did not face up to his situation or what he was being required to do in it. He just tried, in a woolly fashion, to combine satisfying his vanity and ambition with preserving his and his parents' lives. With Harry's reaction to sectumsempra I'm back at my first comment in this thread: he's aware of what he's done rnough and sorry about it enough for me. I'd have liked Harry to apologise to Draco, but really this is less because his sectumsempra required it than because reconciliation between Harry and Draco has seemed a requirement of the story since Book One, and this looked like it could be the catalyst for reconciliation - at last! Well, it wasn't to be, but the events in the bathroom and in the tower have shown Harry just where Draco is coming from, which must be to the good, though we're left, as [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] has shown above, with Draco still under a misapprehension about Harry.

Re: butting in to interesting conversation

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Now I'm butting in, but just to say one thing: a very hypothetical 'he could have drowned in his own blood' (I really don't think he could have, Draco had full control of the blow and the angle) which Harry and Draco both consider as funny (Draco tells it as a funny story, Harry thinks it's a proof of Ron's friendship Ron doesn't laugh at it) is very very different from 'would have bled out if Snape hadn't been there, which Harry did not know.' I'm really astonished by equating the two, but I've seen it done before, so I guess it's not as crazy as it looks to me.

Re: butting in to interesting conversation

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Draco's not a doctor, he didn't know what the effect of his stamping might be.

By that logic, surely anyone could have nearly killed anyone else? In GoF, the Trio and the Twins (and in OotP, the DA) combine curses, despite not being qualified wizards - they didn't know what the effect of their hexing might be.

Nor did he care. (He had bigger fish to fry!)

Like Harry and the Sectumsempra, arguably. Except the bigger fish wouldn't be the threat of kill or be killed with your entire family, it would be a Quidditch game and the possibility of not getting to mack on Ginny.

reconciliation between Harry and Draco has seemed a requirement of the story since Book One

ITA.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

he does know and say that he was wrong and gets on with his punishment.

He has no choice but to get on with his punishment, though. It's a detention, he can't just not turn up.
It's not like he's submitting to it willingly because he feels bad - Snape asks him if he agrees that he deserves detention, Harry says he doesn't, and protests about Quidditch.
He worries about Slughorn finding out he's been cheating, hides the book and lies about it.
When Hermione criticises the Prince, he says that she's wrong, and the narrator notes he's having a bad enough time without 'lectures' - not because of the guilt, of course, but because he's let down the Quidditch team.
I mean, if all of this is supposed to signify that Harry's accepted responsibility for his actions and is maturely facing the consequences, it's not working, for me at least.

I love how JKR piles it all on so that separate events become connected and it's hard to be certain where right ends and wrong starts... Snape punishes him, because he has the opportunity as much as because it's deserved.

It's interesting, isn't it?
It seems like it could be down to a few reasons - either putting off any belated reactions Harry's going to have to this eventually (no-one ever confronts him face-to-face about hurting someone: Hermione's concern is proving she was right about the Prince and worrying about Harry's being in trouble; Ginny's is defending Harry blindly; Snape's is about the book and punishing Harry.) or else, worryingly, minimising his culpability by focusing on how those criticising them have their own agendas (which is a trick JKR uses fairly often - for instant, in OotP, when McGonagall is reprimanding the Twins and Harry for their attack on the Quidditch Pitch, Umbridge walks in, so the focus is shifted from their ganging up to how their punishment is unjust.)
It could also be a lack of imagination, of course - JKR doesn't see the Sectumsempra as objectional, so she can't see why her characters would, although Pansy 'vilifying' Harry for it, and the usually reasonable McGonagall's anger would indicate perhaps not.

Harry kisses Ginny, ditto! Really he should have pushed her away, saying, "No, Ginny, this cannot be. I must away and ponder my general unworthiness and recurrent failures.

I think a big problem is that H/G is so connected with the Sectumsempra - it's Ginny winning the big game that Harry missed due to detention that prompts their kiss. It's Ginny saying that the Sectumsempra was 'good' (WTF?) that makes Harry feel 'unbelievably cheerful' and solidifies her position as his ideal girl - it's not that she loves him even when he screw up, it's that she denies he's screwed up at all.
So of course, while there's no reason that Harry and Ginny should forego dating because of an event outside of their relationship (and of course, Pansy's visiting Draco, who nearly cast a Crucio, so there's a parallel) it does seem like Harry's being rewarded (Gryffindor even win the cup.)
There's no reason that H/G have to get together in the same chapter as the Sectumsempra, so I've got to presume that the dissonance is purposeful on JKR's part.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

I think I tend to respond to pictures created by the books, and - apart from Harry's immediate reaction and his discussion with H, R and G (which I thought was great and showed different viewpoints and left us to make up our own minds, if we could!) - the picture that told me Harry accepted responsibility for sectumsempra and also for failing his team (his responsibility as captain shouldn't be belittled) was that of him walking down into the dungeon for detention with the sounds of the quidditch match fading behind him. He could, in fact, have not turned up for detention - Draco had done that very thing earlier in the year (and schoolboys everywhere do it all the time). Then Snape adds a little extra twist of the knife to Harry's punishment just for fun. The Snape element complicates things because of course Harry's going to disagree with him and lie to him! Why should he give the book back? It was Harry's fault, not the book's.

To a great extent the sectumsempra is just another day at Hogwarts and is received as yet another skirmish in the everlasting inter-house war by the staff and students. Even the Slytherins seem to be more affected by its implications for Harry and quidditch than for it's injury to Malfoy. I do think that the mischief at Hogwarts, though deplorable and sinister in its reflection of the conflict and division of the wizarding world, is largely comic. Mind you, Harrry's sectumsempra pretty much sees the end of the comedy, and Draco's bringing Greyback into the school is not to be laughed at at all! (Well, the teeth picking is pretty funny...)

I think the piling it on - and the dissonance, as you so rightly put it - is about how confusing life is and how difficult it is to keep up with what's right and wrong, important and unimportant when everything is all happening at once.

I see the kiss as Ginny's triumph, not Harry's. (Whatever his chest monster thinks!) She's won the quidditch cup and got the boy!

Oh, and Gryffindor won the cup without Harry.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Harry did argue about the detention with McGonagall, however, and McGonagall (three cheers for her!) makes it extremely clear that he's damn lucky all he's getting is detention. Harry doesn't even consider McGonagall's reasonable statement that he's done something meriting punishment, but he could hardly go onto the Quidditch field with his Head of House having said very firmly that he deserves detention and then some. I don't see that as accepting responsibility of any sort at all - in fact, I think it's pretty appalling that he complained about it.

Also, the others in the conversation with Harry had not seen Malfoy either crying or bleeding out at their feet (and don't know about the crying. I am glad Harry didn't tell them, but it does mean there's no reason for the others to have any compassion - as far as they're concerned Draco started a fight for no reason). I really do feel there should have been some feeling on Harry's part that made missing a Quidditch match less important to him. I take your point that the wizarding world is violent and the school has been escalating out of hand to a degree where it is confusing to know where to draw the line, but the line between someone's life and a Quidditch match should damn well be clearer for our hero.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair we don't read that Harry argued with McGonagall, just that she told him she agreed with the detentions and that he was lucky not to be expelled. There's nothing in the text to suggest Harry didn't accept what she said.

I do wonder what action Prof McG., head of Gryffindor, would have taken if the best seeker Hogwarts had ever produced skived off a detention set by the head of Slytherin in order to play for the Gryffindor quidditch team in the clinching match of the season...

Yes, Quidditch is not a matter of life and death - at Hogwarts it's much more important than that. Harry and Draco's fight and quidditch are part of the same thing, and Draco didn't attack Harry in the bathroom because of Voldemort but because of Slytherin and Gryffindor. Harry's sectumsempra took it to another level, but the appearance of Snape - though it saved Draco's life - brought it back down to school again. (If only Harry had gone "Fuck off Snape!" and helped carry Malfoy to the hospital wing, sigh. Fortunately we have IYARM to put that right:) More sighs.)

What does Harry have to say about his sectumsempra? "I'm not defending what I did! I wish I hadn't done it, and not just because I've got about a dozen detentions. You know I wouldn't've used a spell like that, not even on Malfoy..." His shame at letting down his house, his team - and Ginny - is not instead of his shame at his reckless injury of Malfoy, it is in addition to it.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I know Harry says that, and this pleases me, but I think that it should have been a given that he regretted it besides the detentions. The detentions shouldn't weigh in the balance, and Harry thinking that they do kind of appals me. Still, I am really glad he said that: it gives me hope for him.

I think Professor McGonagall, as a good teacher and one who entirely supported the detentions and thought they were if anything too light a punishment, would have thrown Harry off the pitch and given him a good many more detentions with her. I realise she's enthused about Quidditch, but she shows not the slightest trace of regret about Harry missing the match when she supports the detentions and I'd be shocked and disgusted if she did. She showed she had her priorities straight: I wish Harry has as clearly shown that his were.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

He could, in fact, have not turned up for detention

In front of the entire school? Including all the teachers, all of whom knew about the incident and the detentions assigned for it?

Why should he give the book back? It was Harry's fault, not the book's.

Agreed. Although it's interesting that by the end of HBP, when it's revealed who wrote the book, Harry's back to absolving himself of responsibility and is described as thinking of himself as 'taken in' by the book, 'in spite of' the nastiness of its spells (or because of?) and calling it 'proof' of Snape being evil.

which I thought was great and showed different viewpoints and left us to make up our own minds, if we could

Although none of the viewpoints were perhaps what might be realistic - that people would be shocked or upset about what Harry did because he harmed someone so seriously. (Mind you, the WW does seem to be a cruel place.)
They're all self-centred viewpoints, based in one way or another around Harry and concern for him - Ginny and Hermione obviously, and Snape by way of creating sympathy for Harry: Snape's personal bias about the book, by setting Harry detentions that pertain to MWPP, and by telling Harry he deserves detention for being 'a liar' rather than because he gutted someone present the audience with the impression Harry being punished is unfair.
Even the Slytherins - the idea that these kids, who are apparently close to Malfoy, and who leapt at the chance to call Harry crazy and evil in CoS and GoF based on much less 'proof' would be keeping their insults restricted to Quidditch of all things, seems hugely unrealistic, which leads me to presume that the author is purposely not showing any reactions that would cast Harry in a bad light. For what reason, I'm fascinated about, but I guess whether it's going to be addressed or not will be answered by Book Seven.

(his responsibility as captain shouldn't be belittled)

I guess I differ here, since while I can recognise Harry values it (not enough to restrict himself, of course, especially since this is the second year in a row that he's been off the team for physically harming someone else) I don't see it as an important responsibility, especially in comparison to life/near death issues.
I mean, Draco's a member of the Slytherin team, but if we had a chapter about how the worst punishment for letting in the DEs was that all his work in the RoR meant he had to miss a match and let down his house; I don't think it would be amiss to say his focus needed a serious adjustment.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

Above I've tried to put a case for a Hogwarts view of quidditch and the fight between Draco and Harry.