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

[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.

Re: Sectumsempra (Just read the last two paragraphs)

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

It's indicated that Sectumsempra might leave a horrific scar and without intervention Draco would have died.

Without intervention Harry would have, uh, ended up in London with his nose bloody.

These two things are not comparable, though since you did I'd like to add something to the list of:

the harm in the first intentional, in the second unintentional, Draco pleased with his action, Harry not

Namely, Draco's life in danger, Harry's not.

This is not reduced to mischief because a teacher, no thanks to Harry, is able to save Draco's life. And Harry was pretty pleased when he'd turned Draco into a slug. (Break my nose anytime before you turn me into an enormous limbless slug, thanks.) So saying that Draco was pleased with his action and Harry wasn't drives me up the wall: if Harry had been pleased at eviscerating someone he'd be a sociopath. They're both pleased by inflicting petty physical harm on each other: given. But Sectumsempra is not petty physical harm.

Um, however, I give up, because after yammering on for a billion light years and filling up my poor Magpie's comments like crazy, we are both still saying the exact same thing and clearly our interpretations are too different to be reconciled. Which is cool: a text should have many different interpretations if it's any good at all.

Re: Sectumsempra (Just read the last two paragraphs)

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

You're right, it's well time to pack up on this one!

But I did say I only compared the two fights because they were in the same book. I also think that the injury to Draco was horrific and that Harry should have apologised, but can see why in the context of Hogwarts, and in the context of the plot, it didn't happen. As you say somewhere else, at the end of HBP we're left with Harry and Draco unfinished. I've always sort of wished Harry had been able to accept Draco's hand in Book 1, but can see why that was impossible too. If he ever does, I think I'll faint.

Re: Sectumsempra (Just read the last two paragraphs)

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

If he ever does, I think I shall go on a champagne run. ;)

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.

Re: Draco

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I agree that there is no such indication. After all 'you're not a killer, Draco' is meant to be startling and have an impact. But once it's stated that Draco recognises he has done serious things, in retrospect I think that it's a very natural assumption to think that guilt, as well as fear, has contributed to Draco's nervous breakdown.

We don't know how Draco feels until we are told, but that doesn't meant Draco hasn't been feeling that way.

Also, I think that quite frankly if Draco hadn't been referring to Katie and Ron, he would have said so. 'Uh, no, dude, I was talking about the cabinet? That was a pretty awesome thing to do?' He didn't: therefore Dumbledore got it right: therefore Draco does recognise what he did as serious. Though of course that doesn't mean it was okay to do it, or that recognising it is enough.

He had not forgotten the fear in Malfoy's voice on that Tower top, nor the fact that he had lowered his wand before the other Death Eaters arrived. Harry did not believe Malfoy would have killed Dumbledore.

In retrospect and with no reason to be prejudiced in Malfoy's favour, Harry refers to it as a fact. So let's take it as a fact that he wasn't going to do it.

On one hand we have a feeble old man who can barely stand and on the other we have a werewolf slavering blood. I'm sorry, but who would be more frightened of the old man? Draco is facing really serious repercussions, here. If Draco was acting purely out of fear, he'd take the chance to be protected, to become the Dark Lord's favourite. Why on earth should not killing someone be seen as cowardly? The best way for Draco to save his skin at this point would be to ice Dumbledore immediately, or at least make an attempt at it. I'm not saying Draco's not frightened to kill, but I think saying that fear was the reason he didn't kill (in the face of a gang of Death Eaters!) is senseless.

If Draco was going to define himself in terms of others, there was his chance. There were the Death Eaters, there were his orders, but he proved himself an individual and, as Dumbledore said, not a killer. By himself.

'Doesn't know his arse from his elbow'? He thought out a good plan. He executed it well. He's done everything that Voldemort wanted him to do very competently. I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Who, in this situation, chose to kill and to win the Dark Lord's favour? That'd be Peter Pettigrew. Yeah, there was some courage.

Re: Draco

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

I know I’ve been being horribly – obnoxiously – pedantic about Draco in HBP but it’s because I don’t think it’s clear what JKR intends his fate to be by the end of the series. I hope it doesn’t make you grind your teeth if I say that up until HBP Draco has functioned pretty much as an anti-Harry – petty, selfish, amoral - the pampered prince that Dumbledore was anxious to ensure Harry would not be brought up to be. I’m not saying that Harry is perfect, just that he and Draco are coming from opposite directions. HBP puts Draco into a head-on confrontation with evil, and faces him with the possibility of changing his nature. The uncertainty regarding Draco’s feelings that I believe there is in HBP means that there are two opposite and equally valid storylines possible for Book 7: a Draco who rejects evil and takes responsibility for himself, and a Draco who fails to grasp the nettle and remains an anti-Harry. (I prefer the first, obviously!)

I guess that Draco’s “You don’t know what I’m capable of. You don’t know what I’ve done” did refer to Ron and Katie because that’s basically all that he’s done, unless he did also take the Dark Mark as Harry suspects. I’m still not sure that I see acknowledgement of the seriousness of what he did.

I think I may not have lent enough weight to the pressure the approach of the Death Eaters was putting Draco under, but oddly, when they arrive they praise him for cornering Dumbledore, and are more interested in Dumbledore than in Draco. The tension does intensify as the Death Eaters want to get it over with and run. They don’t actually threaten Draco – actually they offer to do it instead - but Fenrir is a compelling prescence, embodying the brutality Draco is likely to face if he doesn’t kill, and will be allying himself with if he does.

Not-killing can be seen as cowardly in the context of a person who declines to kill at first hand but demonstrated fewer qualms about killing at second hand! It wouldn’t so much be that the not-killing is cowardly than that the not-killer is something of a coward.

By ‘doesn’t know his arse from his elbow’ I mean that Draco doesn’t understand himself or what he’s doing. (That’s what the phrase usually means, isn’t it?) In carrying out Voldemort’s orders and however competently what Draco's actually doing, without realising it, is selling his soul to the devil.

[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.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

I hope that my reply to mistful answers most of your questions.

I agree with much of what you say, except I have a different slant on it because I do not see that questions of right and wrong ever enter into Draco's head before the tower, and even then I'm a bit doubtful whether the penny dropped.
I don't think Draco Malfoy knows any truths before the tower. All he knows is what he wants. (And it turns out he's wrong about that.) The reality of Death Eaters in Hogwarts may have started to change this. You say Death itself is an unreality for Draco until book VI. I agree, but not until the end of Book VI.

I didn't mean to imply that Draco was a chess piece, (Though if he is one he's Voldemort's, and was taken by King Dumbledore!)

Dumbedore? Manipulate?

Draco's story isn't over yet, and what is the heart of HBP if not moral ambiguity?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think questions of right and wrong are in his head either. That would make him too...what's the word? Too far along in moral development than I think he is at the end of HBP (and of course, he may never get that develop--we don't know yet). I think he realizes that he's not a killer, but isn't really able to think beyond that except for what it means in relation to what he's always wanted to be. A killer can't be a DE, will be killed by Voldemort, is a failure, isn't Snape, etc. Where he'll go from there, we'll have to see. He's really up in the air at the end of HBP.

What I think is really cool about the way Rowling ends it, actually, is the way that okay, Dumbledore makes Draco an offer that he might not have been able to consider properly before learning some things through his experience over the year. Harry sees his wand lower so knows he wouldn't have killed Dumbledore. But then the DEs rush in so he's unable to take the easier offer where all he has to do is not kill and DD will protect him. Now Harry is slightly more likely to give him a chance because he's got that one thing to hold onto--he knows he wouldn't have killed DD. There's a possibility for something. We know at the end of HBP a couple of things that Draco can't do, but that still leaves open a big question mark for what he will do.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Indeed! But I see far more ambiguity seeing it in my way, where both of them are culpable, and Harry's not sorry enough, and Draco may be sorry enough but hasn't done a damn thing about it and has a hell of a lot to be sorry for.

They're both more interesting to me like that than Harry being sorry enough and that's all, well done Harry, pick up your Voldemort Death Trophy and Ginny on your way out, and Draco being a coward for - uh, not killing someone.

(At this point I apologise profusely, I fear I'm being snappy, it's just that uh, the Draco being cowardly for not killing someone argument is one that bemuses and infuriates me no end because I can't possibly understand it.)

[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.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

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?

Pretty much, in accordance with the schoolboy's code, though it's only guidelines really.

I only meant Harry apologising across the house divide, not anyone apologising across it.