Throwing off the plots

[sistermagpie]

I had mentioned kayen's essay Agents of Narrative Desire earlier and still recommending it--it's long, but I really enjoyed it. So I feel a bit guilty having a response here that's sort of "Okay, now how can I make it all about Draco and H/D?" but hey, I wouldn't be me if I didn't do that. And besides I really love the assassination plot storyline in HBP and it doesn't get talked enough for me so--

I can not boil down kayen's essay intelligently, but one aspect that's interesting about Harry is that it points out his struggle to "write his own plot." In GoF, especially, Harry is plotted by others--someone else puts him in the tournament and Harry reacts passively, not noticing that he's being helped to win. GoF is full of other peoples' lives being plotted by others, obviously with Rita Skeeter re-writing peoples' lives to fit her story, and more subtly in the very beginning where Frank Bryce becomes the murderer of the Riddles because local gossip and storytelling makes it so. Harry's turnaround moment in GoF is where he refuses to be plotted in the graveyard and instead chooses to turn and fight on his own terms--this is echoed again in HBP when Harry decides to respond to the prophecy as one going into the arena with his head held high instead of being dragged against his will. The Prophecy itself plays with this tension between being plotted and plotting, with Voldemort making the Prophecy come true after he's heard it.

In OotP, then, Harry tries to plot his own story. He starts the book furious at being kept out of things, and indeed his frustration throughout the book often comes from people trying to keep him passive--Umbridge, by trying to make everyone act like Voldemort isn't back, Dumbledore by not even looking at him, the adults by not sharing information. Harry himself fights at every turn to not play the part they want him to--he won't study Occlumency, starts his own DADA class, gets angry at Dumbledore. Voldemort uses exactly this desire of Harry's to trick him, offering him a false hero plot to grab onto with the vision of Sirius. Harry wants to end his story with a relatively easy heroic rescue, but this is not his true plot.

In HBP, it gets even more interesting as Harry moves to blatantly desiring the "Slytherin" way of easy ambition and shortcuts. Again he does not want to settle for Dumbledore's plot for him, where he learns about Tom Riddle to destroy the Horcruxes (his true plot). He'd rather follow his own easier, more fun plot of outing Malfoy. kayan explains:

"He also finds himself in possession of a used Potions textbook that has formerly belonged to the mysterious ‘Half-Blood Prince’. With the aid of the copious notes scribbled in the book’s margins, Harry finally succeeds—and indeed outshines everyone—in Potions, to the delight of his new Potions teacher Slughorn. What we have here is, of course, a repeated and deliberate choice on Harry’s part for the shortcut, the easy way to the end—the ‘Slytherin’ way of Lord Voldemort. In cheating—but refusing to see it as cheating—and basking in stolen glory, Harry has finally given in to the dark side of himself, represented already in book one by the Sorting Hat’s first inclination to put him in Slytherin house. This Harry would never have been given the Philosopher’s stone by the Mirror of Erised. This Harry is driven by ambition and a desire for control—persisting in using the notes of the Prince despite Hermione’s disapproval and focusing solely on his desire to ‘expose’ Draco rather than perform Dumbledore’s less ‘dramatic’ task. These two ‘undesirable’ desires are unified in the novel’s first, and possibly most important, climax—when Harry very nearly murders Draco Malfoy.

[...]

Harry is “horrified by what he [has] done” (HBP 489) but he still defends the Prince a few pages later, telling Hermione that the Prince had not actually advised anyone to try the spell and that Harry had not intended for Malfoy to get hurt (HBP 495-6). This, in conjunction with Harry’s deliberate deception as he hands Snape a different Potions book when asked to get his own, shows that Harry has become addicted to the easy short cuts—the Dark magic—provided by the Prince, who by the end of the book turns out to be Snape himself (HBP 563), thus providing the final shock that ‘throws’ Harry out of his addiction as he realises that he has become that which he has so long despised—a Slytherin under the guidance of the Head of Slytherin, Professor Snape. His ‘diverted’ desire has turned into exactly the kind of perverted, self-serving desire that drives Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, the other major player in the Prince narrative."

kayan's essay puts this whole thing into a wider context all its own, but I liked this bit because I've had a lot of discussions with people about why we shouldn't just defend Harry's use of the book and Sectumsempra here, or to "refuse to see it as cheating." On one hand I can see the logic--Harry's following instructions in his book and so are the other kids, so how is it cheating? And Harry was only using the curse in self-defense.

But I think the book makes it clear that Harry is cheating and lying to himself and getting addicted to easy solutions--even when he does do the task Dumbledore asks of him he relies on Liquid Luck which he won through the Prince. Essentially he leaves it up to luck or a magic potion—and many defend that as well saying that when he gets the memory Harry is doing stuff all on his own, the Felix just tweaks the circumstances. Again I think this is an attempt to do what Harry is doing, to take a shortcut and explain how it's really the same, as if the Harry in HBP is the same Harry as in PS...when I think kayan is correct that he isn't. Slughorn himself warns against the use of Liquid Luck for this very reason. The Potion is powerful in these scenes. The difference between Harry under the influence of Felix and Ron *thinking* he’s under the influence of Felix is important.

So what does this have to do with Draco? Well, I love that how much Harry and Draco switch places in this book. One of the lines that made me smile in HBP was when they get to Advanced Potions and Harry notes Draco's attempt to use his family connections to get on Slughorn's good side and fail:

He could tell that Malfoy had expected to be treated like Harry or Zabini; perhaps even hoped for some preferential treatment of the type he had learned to expect from Snape. It looked as though Malfoy would have to rely on nothing but talent to win the bottle of Felix Felicis."

Now, I liked that line first because I thought nothing could be better for Draco than to learn to rely on talent. But what's also great about it, of course, is that Harry could not be acting more like Draco here. He's not relying on talent at all. He's relying on the Prince's talent that he's going to take credit for. He's also relying throughout the year on his family connections which make Slughorn like him and praise him for abilities he does not have, and yet he still feels confident in looking down on Malfoy for trying to do so--to smirk about it. And who usually does the smirking here?

Not only does Draco lose all the shortcuts he's been associated with in the past--his father, his name, Snape--he's essentially trying to do exactly what Harry has done earlier, which is to throw off other peoples' plots. Voldemort has placed three students into a story of his own--Harry, Ginny in CoS and Draco. Ginny was not strong enough to throw off his plot; Harry did it for her. Here Draco attempts to, like Harry, take the situation he's been put into and make it his own. At first he responds to the task he's been given as an opportunity to prove himself. But ultimately he does fully understand what's really going on--he knows everyone thought he would fail, that he is not being given a chance to shine at all, he's only been set up to be killed as part of the story Voldemort is plotting against his father.

Draco, like Harry, becomes allergic to anyone's plotting of him, no matter what the reason. His mother and Snape are trying to protect him, but he won't be part of their plots either--Snape begins to seem downright sinister (similar to the way Dumbledore did to Harry in OotP in a different way). He won't even tell Crabbe what he's up to in the RoR.

I think, btw, that Harry appreciates this to a degree. Canon indicates that there's a slight change in Harry's thoughts about Draco in that he has a drop of pity for him because of the situation with his family, but I think Harry actually begins to feel more positively towards Draco before that and shows it. He doesn't like him or approve of him, but he does seem to start sometimes associating him with some fun. I mean, Draco leads Harry on a merry chase throughout HBP and I think Harry gets some real pleasure from figuring him out (it's the only mystery he takes on himself without Hermione figuring out most of the important bits). Like when he figures out Malfoy's using Polyjuice on Crabbe and Goyle. He just sometimes seems almost exuberant in his playing with them, calling Crabbe or Goyle "very pretty" and giving Malfoy advice for using friends as lookouts. There's a little interest to join in and make himself known.

Of course, Draco's greatest moment of throwing off the plot is when he overturns expectations by succeeding and getting to a position where he can kill Dumbledore and then not killing him. It's a third option that was never part of the story, which was supposed to end either in Draco's failing and suffering deadly consequences, or succeeding for Voldemort. Once he "succeeds" he is able to refuse to follow Voldemort's script. He is moving through some of those same issues: being targeted and trying to make one's own story out of what one is given, throwing off the attempts of others to force one into their plot and control one, choosing to reject the plots of others when one gets the chance.

Harry does ultimately end in HBP by accepting the plot that's been written for him, and decides to make it his own and take control of it, in contrast to Malfoy. But that's fitting because it's right. The version of this story that Draco was given, to kill Dumbledore as Harry is supposed to kill Voldemort, was falsely heroic--in the end perhaps it was a bit like the visions of saving Sirius Harry had in OotP. Both boys had those shortcuts to an ending taken away, and will instead have to learn to play the role in their real plots well. Harry’s true plot will involve a more sustained and difficult heroism, presumably. And if Draco is to play a part, his too will be more difficult than the act of heroism he envisioned in HBP.

Btw, best response to The Sopranos finale I've heard, from a radio caller this morning.



Barely a spoiler:

The caller said, "Isn't it funny that Jerry Seinfeld ended up in jail in his finale and Tony Soprano ended up in a diner?"