So what are characters anyway?

[sistermagpie]

So there were these big wanks recently, and they got me thinking about the whole process of being a fan, using the examples from my own experiences, especially with The Boy (you know, the one who inspires all that wank).

Here's the exchange. Not angry face! (I have some suspicions about who this is, but that's neither here nor there.)

So I tried to answer exactly why I insist on this analysis and interest of a minor character in a children's series, and the main part of my answer that seems relevant is: "People are drawn to fictional characters for all sorts of reasons." With fictional characters, there almost seems to be two different levels. On the first level, you identify with them as if they were real people: you and people you know. Sometimes people see themselves as the character. Arguing with someone like that is impossible because it's personal. If you say Scully could quit working with Mulder if she wanted you're suggesting Esme could leave her job where she's so unappreciated as well and that would ruin the passive-aggressive martyrdom that is Esme's life. If you say why Draco seems to be doing something, you are suggesting that the person who picked on them in high school was human and not the forces of evil they are continually fighting with their own equally aggressive behavior.

slytherincess, I recall, did a really wonderful post once where she explained how she was very much like the Slytherin characters growing up--and not in some idealized way either. She learned and changed, and this was partly why she did not like people dismissing those characters as unable to do the same. Even though she identified with the characters, she could also look at their faults objectively. It reminded me of Edmund, my favorite character in The Chronicles of Narnia. I love how the narrator tells us that Edmund grew up to be a "graver and quieter" man than Peter and was Just rather than Magnificent (that Peter, still showing off). If someone accepts the parts of himself or herself that are in ugly characters (without romanticizing the ugliness into something else) they can offer a lot of wisdom about them. Even though it's them, it's not always personal, because they're talking about parts of themselves they struggled with and got to know until they weren't afraid of them.

So that's the straightforward way people respond to characters. It's always kind of fun to see that--fun or disturbing. But on another level we know they're fictional characters and are therefore free to live through them in totally different ways. You can, imo, like them because they let you live out parts of yourself you don't show the world, or approve of. It's like I said about the Thief archetype--it's not that I think stealing is cool, it's just that things about this character are very satisfying for me to live out fictionally.

So I'm trying to think about these Slytherin characters--how exactly do I react to them on both those levels? First as real people--well, I'd never be friend with them. Draco reminds me of different people in different ways, but here's two in particular. A girl I knew at camp, D1, and a boy I knew at another summer program, D2. Hated them both. D1 was generally mean, and while I usually stayed off her radar she occasionally would pick on me for no reason (we were in the same tent--imagine being stuck with Draco for rest period). That was awful. D2, for whatever reason, targeted me the first day and went after me whenever I was around--and what was worse was that this was a sailing thing and I had never sailed and had no idea what I was doing there, while he was an expert with his own boat. I seem to recall him locking a younger boy in a locker for several hours--yeah, he was charming.

So I hated both these people. D1 wound up leaving camp a bit early. Her father was a photographer who came to take pictures at the camp. Mysterious drama ensued. Her mother, stepfather and sister came to get her. Her best friend informed us her father was not allowed near her, as there were some sort of abuse charges--either spousal or child--in existence. D2 stayed the whole summer, but I did learn his parents were both psychiatrists, and that his beloved older brother had committed suicide.

My reactions to these revelations was pretty much the same:

1. A pleasant feeling of schadenfreude: You make me miserable, and you are miserable. Good. Be miserable.

2. Firmly deciding that their being hurt did not excuse their hurting me--this is such a strong belief for me it drives me crazy when people accuse me of trying to "excuse" bad behavior in fictional characters. Really, I don't. I would just rather stop it than punish it.

3. Some guilty fantasies about what it would be like if, the next time they taunted me, I said I could certainly understand why D1's father hit her or D2's brother killed himself, because they were such awful people they inspired such actions. This was followed quickly by the thought that if I did say these things the person probably would not collapse in tears, but kick my ass. That was followed by the realization that I really didn't want to say these things anyway, even if it would cause them to collapse in tears, because I didn't want to hurt them, I just wanted them to leave me alone, and saying those things would be a shitty thing.

4. From that moment, everything both of them did I tried to think of from the perspective of their new knowledge. What was D1 like with her older sister and her mother? She was so mean and tough to me, but she cried when she ran out of the mess hall because her father was there. What was her father like? Did he have a creepy, "You love your daddy don't you honey?" air about him? How long had her mother been married to this new guy? Was he like her father at all, but a nice guy? Did she get along with him? Did he have to consciously work on helping her through this trauma? And how about that best friend telling us her secret and probably loving the attention as she did it? Well, what do you expect from a girl who brushed her hair 200 times a day and took 40 minutes to get her pigtails just right.

With D2 it was even weirder, with the psychiatrist parents. Were they workaholics who made a lot of money for boats but didn't spend enough time at home? My mother always said a lot of people became psychologists to fix their own problems (heh--my sister's a psychologist)...did they struggle with suicidal thoughts too? Did D2 really look up to his brother? Were they close? Did he feel betrayed? When did it happen? How did he do it????

I didn't have all these thoughts at once, of course. I've thought about it now and again for 20 years now. Like I said, these incidents didn't make me suddenly like the person or feel sorry for them. But it did make me incapable of seeing them as just D1 the girl who's mean, or just D2 that little shit. They had families and histories and were different people with them. Most of the time you don't get this kind of dramatic information--with D1 even at the time I thought it was almost too after-school-special to be true that her big secret would be revealed to me. But I think you get more than you might think if you pay attention to people. I guess that's why the B&B scene is so significant to me in CoS--if I'd witnessed the scene that Harry did it would have totally changed my view of Draco.

So I do respond to Draco and Pansy as I would if they were real people in terms of wanting to know motivation. Only I like them...but why? I didn't like D1 or D2. I think part of it might be the nature of narrative. I don't really look at any of the kids in this universe and see myself, mostly because this universe seems to clearly come out of the head of someone very different from me. It's very concerned with justice in a way that I just am not--that's why it's so made up of power struggles. There are victims, and bullies, and heroes who protect the victims from bullies. Everyone is supposed to aspire to the hero who protects the victim from bullies--just like in CS Lewis, Peter the Magnificent is elevated above Edmund the Just (where just, imo, refers to wisdom and mercy instead of pardon and punishment).

For people who are more in tune with this personality, I think the differences between the Gryffindors and the Slytherins are more prominent. For me, not so much. I feel out of balance with the world, and that's probably why I often find Draco and Pansy refreshing. Not because they're better people than the main characters, but because they do sometimes say what I'm thinking, like that Hagrid's a menace or Dumbledore is a whacko. Or other times they're just different, not taking things seriously that the heroes take more seriously than I do, or something. Plus they're so obviously vulnerable, walking around announcing their insecurities, getting rejected and screaming about it for five years instead of accepting it and moving on. Screaming for approval and affection and continuing to love passionately and stupidly without it because you can't seem to stop it. Also maybe I think the actions of people all around him are so calculated to make him act even more badly, I am distracted by that. Most importantly, I am drawn to them for all the reasons I outlined in the post a couple down, about what the ultimate judgement on this character "says" about morality, people, etc.

The important thing is, that it's hard to say why you're drawn to a character, and it's a bad idea to assume the answer is so straightforward. It's really not always that this is the character that is like you, or the one you want to date, or the one you'd love to be if you could. I think it's just the character that says something about what you need to work out at any given time. That's why people's characters change. I knew people who read LOTR as a teenager and loved Aragorn, but years later loved Frodo. (One person even referred to coming to identify with Frodo in canon as "growing up") It doesn't mean you "were" Aragorn and now "are" Frodo, or that you used to crush on one and now the other. It can mean those things, but it could also just be that as a teenager you were working on different issues. That's one way fictional characters aren't like real people: they don't change. *We* change, and they look different because of it.

Comments

[fiera-316.livejournal.com]

I am going to be what I think is the rebel here and admit this...Harry is my favourite character. It's really true, I just love the boy, however immoral-but-moral he thinks he is being at any given time. It's an unpopular opinion, sure, but this entry really made me think. Because while I once thought I loved him because he was the "main character, poor orphaned boy, so sweet sometimes" etc, etc... I think it is almost unnerving, because I don't love Harry because he relates to me in any way. It's just that he is the boy who has been held with relatives who hate him and whom he hates in return, for his whole life, and been constantly picked on and discriminated throughout his childhood (running from bullies in elementary school, etc). And yet he is, for the most part, fairly well adjusted and doesn't complain on-and-on about his life (well, until fifth year, and considering all he's undergone, that is a pretty good record). He's actually had a similar life to one that you would expect bullies to evolve from, and yet he doesn't do this. I don't know, sometimes I'm aware that he REALLY needs to grow up, but when I balance his five years of security and status at Hogwarts against his eleven years of discrimination with the Dursleys, no matter how much of a brat the kid can be, the admiration always wins out and I love him, and...well, I just wish I could do that. That Harry is for the most part well adjusted after his childhood at the Dursleys is utterly unrealistic, I've realized that long ago, but on some level, part of me wishes that I could be like that, that I could NOT want to lash out at the world and still "fight for what's 'right'" and actually KNOW what was right and wrong after being in these circumstances. And I know it's unattainable, of course (because again, it's not realistic that Harry should be this way, even if he DID decide to build his character around complete defiance of the Dursleys -- which is a strange decision for a kid to make, anyway). But that's what the draw is, that unattainable level of....not-messed-up-ness (wah, I'm sorry, I couldn't find the word!). And of course, Harry is far from perfect, which makes it slightly more reassuring, but on the whole...it's strange, because honestly, I think I would relate more to...well, maybe not a Slytherin (because personally, I don't think that I would be able to stand up to the prejudice directed agaginst them; they always fight back, I don't think I would be able to, which is why I admire them). I don't think I would identify completely with any Slytherin (since OMG me too, I've gone through HORRIBLE bullying experiences), but at least I think I would have a streak similar to theirs, similar to Draco's -- I would be totally the one to try underhanded things in an act of desperation, and the way I relate to this is why I think I fell in love with Draco around PoA (what with the Dementor thing and the "grabbing-the-Firebolt" -- both acts of desperation, IMO, though that couldn't have made it right, either). But I think I love Harry because I just can't be that, I wouldn't be able to be so sure that I was doing the right thing, I wouldn't be able to be so...level, I guess, after all he/I'd gone through. *shrugs* Harry-love is somehow so hard to explain. But it's just me.

In what seems to be a huge contrast, my next-favourite character IS Draco; the B&B scene really got to me, too (I mean, my parents, not to say anything bad about them, but they DO sometimes put me down, especially about my grades. But at least with them, there's always that assurance that they do it because they love me. I find myself sincerely doubting that Lucius is the type of parent to give out this reassurance, even if he MAY feel it. And this is another small part of what affects Draco). I too, doubt I would be friends with them, because they remind me vaguely of the bullies who picked on me through grade school. Grades four through eight, the entire time ^^* (But the bullies were mostly boys, and though I have grown out of the perspective since, back then I remember just drawing the conclusion that "boys are stupid", and leaving it at that).

[fiera-316.livejournal.com]

This brings up another interesting things about bullies and how people relate to them-- maybe the thing is that, when you're actually being bullied (and constantly), it's much less easier to think of possible motivation than it is when you are more removed from the situation? I'm really hating to admit it right now, because it's making me feel petty, but I knew at the time when I was being bullied that the particular boy in question's family was a mess, AND that he was a drug addict, and I remember trying to say "well, no one deserves that, I feel really sorry for him"...but this knowledge didn't seem to matter beans when he called me an extremely offensive term to someone of my background. And I would have badly wanted to throw what I knew back in his face (only I was really shy, so of course I couldn't >_<).
But that could be part of the reason why nobody in HP (at least, nobody in Harry's POV) is finding out what the reason behind Draco's "bullying" is, because when one is actually being bullied, their mindframes are actually stuck in reactions 1 and 2. And yeah, Harry witnessed the scene in B&B (in fact, he was even there for the "ferret" scene *growls*), but through this whole time, Draco was still deriding him and calling Hermione "Mudblood" and so on...I don't know, again I would think Harry should be better than this and try to see past it to find out WHY Draco's doing it (if only to just make it stop)...but it's a bit hard to try to tame something that's baring it's fangs straight at you ^^* (do not ask where that analogy came from -_-**).




See, Draco absolutely fascinates me; for many reasons, but for this particular post I'll bring up the one most relating to it. On the one hand, I can almost relate to him, because I see the majority of his more cruel acts (the things he actually physically attempts to do, and always gets thwarted) are out of a sense of desperation, almost, and I can admit that I would probably do the same thing if I were in his situation. But he reminds me of the bullies I once knew -- although they could hurt with actions as well, much better than Draco ever does or ever could, their most effective weapons were verbal -- this, too, happens to be Draco's more effective method when he goes at the Trio: his derision and verbal attacks (especially the ones about Harry's parents) are the ones which stick the most and affect Harry the most (as well as Hermione and Ron). Lol, but not his name-calling ^^, just the things he says. I don't think I even remember a time when they almost attacked him over one of his actions (although Harry came close with the "Potter Stinks" badges). Harry and Draco haven't had any time at all to grow up away from each other, it's always a given in the series: Malfoy is going to be right there when I get back, rah, rah, time to knock him down again. It would be interesting to see what would happen if JKR could change this.

So yeah, this is the way he reminds me of the bullies I once knew (I fight anyone who calls Draco a bully in the physical sense, but there are verbal-bullies too, which is the category I think Draco most falls into). But with him, especially when looking at the text and deciphering his more vulnerable moments, his desperation to prove himself to his father, I feel more of an inclination to actually hug him and not let him go until I find out what exactly it is in his mind. He makes me realize that there really IS more to bullies, that they CAN just be insecure children, and I don't feel so horrible for not recognizing it before. This is where I think you're exactly on the mark: ... they don't change. *We* change, and they look different because of it.

Whole lot of talking, and did any of it make sense? And OMG I love you -- Edmund's my favourite character, too! I've always felt he was the most REAL Pevensie sibling, he showed how people can be taken in by temptation and the way children can be manipulated, but he was just a lost child in the shadow of his older brother. Him and Susan, they've always intrigued me the most (Susan because I've been forever curious as to WHY she never returned to Narnia with the rest).

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't worry about proclaiming your Harry love here! He's da man!

I mean, Draco is a secondary character and as such he really doesn't exist without Harry. And I do think that one of the things that fascinates me about him is that on some level I honestly do think of Harry and Draco as the same boy. Draco is the personality one would almost expect Harry to have given his situation. He takes a lot of Harry's characteristics and twists them in a bad way while Harry remains good, just as you said. So it's like a lot of Harry's bad potential is nicely dumped into this other character he can't quite get away from. When Harry becomes more aggressive and angry in OotP, Draco not only fades from view but seems happier in comparison. Is it just that Draco is happy because things are going badly for Harry, or does Draco appear more gleeful to Harry because Harry is so miserable? It's like...if the books were from Draco's pov they'd probably be all be at least as angry as OotP. Their emotions are pretty much always a see-saw: when one is happy the other is miserable. Harry is always made happy to see Malfoy miserable--in OotP it's one of his few moments of satisfaction.

Some people will say that it's Ron and Draco who are really mirrors and in many ways they are--both Purebloods but with different beliefs, one rich, one poor; family feud, one friend, one enemy etc. But I think the books do make it clear that Harry is the one who is tied to Draco for whatever reason. Ron, as much as he hates Draco when Draco insults him, honestly does not seem to care about him when he's not around. As much as people like to claim that Harry's completey forgotten Draco by Book V (and I think Harry certainly wants that to be true), Harry has always been the character shown to be more sensitive about him in general. Ron casually suggests that Harry could get a Nimbus 2001 like Malfoy's got and Harry snaps he would never get a broom he had. Hr&R are both surprised by Harry's listening to Draco on the issue of Sirius. Ron really does seem to be able to hate what Malfoy does but not be as concerned with him at other times. If Ron were the main character I think Malfoy would come across differently. He's Harry's demon child, somehow.

So I think in a way I'm maybe most fascinated with exactly the things about Harry you mention here, because they are the things reflected in Draco. That's why I like the two of them together. It's the parts that are angry and put down and starving for affection, having grown up in a cold, hard world. Draco's all about desperation--you said it exactly. And desperation is something I think Harry more fears than experiences. It's only at extreme moments facing Voldemort that we see Harry desperate, but it's sort of hovering at the edges all the time. Harry never wants to *appear* desperate. Even their reactions to Voldemort are perfect: Malfoy runs away, Harry wants to but is frozen in fear.

(con't)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

ITA also on the fact that when a bully is calling you a name it doesn't matter what their situation is, usually. In a way, again, this is maybe the feeling Draco just naturally brings out in Harry. You called him a verbal bully and I think when he is successful it is through words--though there too he's often bested by Harry and Hermione. And he tends to make people angry rather than crush them. But still it's interesting that he makes Harry angry to the point where he wants to crush someone and not care about their dignity as a human or who they are--and that's just the way Malfoy acts towards others.

The main difference that makes their different personalities so plausible in the story, I think, is that Harry had the fairy tale: he had loving parents who died and the people who treated him badly are imposters. He doesn't want to be like them, so we can understand him developing in the opposite direction. He couldn't be like them--there was never a hope of his being accepted. Draco's got what might be the more common situation: the people who are cold and cutting are his parents. He seems to think if people would stop messing things up for him (or if he didn't suck) he could earn the affection he wants and be accepted. It's a losing battle and makes him desperate. Harry has different battles to fight, but it's interesting to have this other character fighting the one he seems to have conceded so early. That's why part of me just can't see them as not being the same boy underneath, two sides of the same character.

So happy to meet another Edmund fan! I definitely thought he was the most real of the P's and felt *so badly* for him in the beginning of the book with his troubles at school. He seemed the most alone and the one least able to ask for help. I just love those types of characters, I guess!

[fiera-316.livejournal.com]

The main difference that makes their different personalities so plausible in the story, I think, is that Harry had the fairy tale: he had loving parents who died and the people who treated him badly are imposters. He doesn't want to be like them, so we can understand him developing in the opposite direction. He couldn't be like them--there was never a hope of his being accepted. Draco's got what might be the more common situation

Yes! Yes, this explains it -- I love Harry for his the way he's grown up, because it's so unrealistic and FAIRY TALE (I love fairy-tales ^^)...but I relate more to Draco because he's more...real somehow, the way Edmund is the most real one in CoN. Like, if I DID happen to meet Harry, I would be so afraid and nervous of messing up around him (because he CAN be quite judgemental, and I just know I'd do the wrong thing). But with Draco, while I doubt that I would like him (because he can be a brat often -_-*), I would have more of an idea of how to react around him. Oooh, I hope I explained this well enough.

And I agree with the part about H/D being mirror images of each other (again! I still adore that theory). And yeah, it's true that Draco wouldn't exist without Harry, being a secondary character and all....but I think on some subconscious level, the Harry we know today would barely exist without Draco. This is an extremely crazy theory I'm about to point out, but it's a pattern in the HP novels that I have noticed recurring (though perhaps not very often). It's obvious that Draco brings out the worst in Harry, even if he is pretty ambiguous on his own (prejudice, talking about people behind their backs, eavesdropping and sticking his nose where it doesn't belong). I think that this relationship goes a bit further -- if you think about it, you'll notice that the first two times we've ever seen Harry break the rules (because before this point in PS, I felt that he did submit to authority for the most part, even if the authority was the Dursleys -- it's not as if he regularly talked back to them or anything, and refused to do anything they said) revolved around Draco in some way. The first time we saw him speak Parseltongue (which has always seemed, to me, to be one of Harry's first steps to being in touch with his darker side which DOES exist, even if he doesn't embrace it), was credited to Draco. The first time we saw him doing something truly immoral however necessary he might have felt it was (knocking out two students and hiding them in a cupboard), though it was Hermione's original idea, the entire drive behind said idea was Draco. The first time we had ever seen him being just as underhanded as he accuses Slytherins of being (throwing mud at an opponent who can't even see him), once again came down to our very own favourite blond. The first time he had truly ever thought of killing a person, though the idea was originally his, it was the memory of Draco's words which sustained him. Um, those are the only examples I've thought of off the top of my head...but really, people actually claim Harry isn't obsessed. *rolleyes*

[fiera-316.livejournal.com]

It's very possible that Draco could be Harry's demon-child, everything that Harry hates and desperately tries to knock down in an effort to prove that he isn't like that, that he is good...yet Draco is making Harry face his dark side bit by bit, and it's odd that in these moments where Harry tries his hardest to prove that he isn't like Malfoy, and that he is moral, he is actually acting most like one would expect Draco to act, the way he accuses Draco of acting many times. I wonder if JKR is even aware of this pattern, or if it's a very unconscious thing. But I couldn't help noticing that it is only with DRACO that the darker side of Harry which is so similar to him, comes out. I mean, in the first three face-offs he's had with Voldemort he was perfectly "righteous and noble", for all the times Voldemort has tried to goad him, even to tell him that Harry is like himself in many ways. He never actually shown this piece of himself to Voldemort (that I can remember). It was always all "fight the bad guy, Dumbledore's three thousand times the wizard you'll ever be, I'll never join you, etc." The one similar time I can remember a truly awful side of Harry being brought out around Voldemort has been because of Bellatrix (and it wasn't directed toward Voldemort, it was toward Bellatrix -- the Cruciatus curse). For all his blind hate and prejudice toward Snape, even while KNOWING he was on the good side, I can't remember a truly immoral side of Harry's being brought out around him. The one time I can remember which comes close would be when he helped Sirius escape while Snape had been waiting for his revenge for years, but this can debatably be countered by the fact that Harry was also trying to save a life (which is a "noble" act, never mind he had to stomp all over about a million school rules and the wizarding law to commit it), and Harry was never shown expressing any sort of pleasure over Snape's disappointment. Which, considering his actions in OotP, I think he would have had something similar happened to Draco. It always comes back to Draco.

And I may be totally off base with this theory (please stop me if I AM wrong!), but I couldn't help but notice how Draco has been tied to Harry this way, has always been the one to make Harry face what he has never wanted to face before (that he could actually be immoral, too). He brings out the moments in which Harry is at his worst, yet actually more REAL during these moments, less...hero-like? It also brings me to another reason that I would relate more to Draco, because Draco may be immoral and act simply awful sometimes, but at least he is upfront about it; he doesn't hide it, he shows it, unlike Harry who is just as immoral but tries so hard to hide it by saying "he's doing the right thing". In a way, Draco is actually the more honest one. Maybe it's a Slytherin thing (they are not afraid to be outright wicked because it's what everyone expects from them), but it's this honesty which I would feel more comfortable with, and even admire (because no one truly wants to admit that they are being immoral, and I would admire the utter lack of fear to do so). And in this open hostility and display of wickedness, it makes us question the Slytherins more, to see their motives behind it, and therefore in a way, it makes Draco the reverse of Harry: while Draco is the boy who is insecure but openly horrible and not afraid to show it...Harry is the typically-expected "insecure-noble-Boy-Who-Lived" who is...well not horrible deep underneath, but definitely has a darker core that the wizarding world could probably be shocked by if they knew. It's as if, despite being canonically the Slytherin, son of Lucius Malfoy, supposedly alleged Junior Death Eater in training, Draco actually has less to hide than Harry seems to; which makes it so ridiculous when people accuse him of his titles above. I guess this is how I see the Mirror. ^^

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You know, I came across a story today that made me think about this again--it was about a guy who confronted his childhood bully and got a big surprise. The thing was that he had wanted to know why the bully picked on *him.* The bully did turn out to have been abused at home at the time etc., but it was his reason for picking this kid that was really striking to him. It made me think about how it seems so off to me when people describe Draco as "the bully," because that obviously implies he's just the bully of everyone when in reality he clearly has a grudge against this one kid. Somebody recently mentioned JKR calling Draco "shallow" and that's just what he really can't be. If he were shallow he'd have been distracted from this fight a while ago. Instead he's focused on two things: loving his parents (deeply) and hating Harry (deeply). Nothing shallow there. So I just think it's only logical that Harry stepped into Draco's real emotional issues in the way he rejected him.

I also think he can't be dismissed because of exactly what you described--as much as people like to say Harry doesn't care about him or notice him, the fact is he's always been helpful to the plot because he goads Harry into action when other things don't. Harry always looks better dealing with Draco, I think, because he always seems like such a badass when dealing with him. When he's face to face with Draco Harry always knows who he is. Other times he dodges that, I think, focusing on how he's nothing special or it's just luck he's survived so far, but with Draco he throws his weight around, even brags about facing Voldemort. Ron and Hermione are obviously important to him, but it's never as intense. When Harry throws that badge at Ron, I really feel like he's showing himself the way he sometimes does with Draco. He hits Ron hard and Ron has no comeback. Draco tends to take it and still not back down.

So you just get that mirror quality...just as Harry "owns" the role of hero when he's facing Draco, Draco plays the part of villain when he faces Harry. Is he just trying to scare Harry with the idea that he's got Voldemort on his side? That's probably part of it, but then Draco has, at the same time, always been shown to be properly fearful of Voldemort. Like when Harry jokes that V is a "mate" of Draco's Dad, he's calling the very bluff Draco's always tried to hint at--and it turns out to be an empty bluff. But then Harry himself has also just bluffed Draco when he acted like facing Voldemort was something he just handled well (when it was Dumbledore who turned up there anyway).

But at the same time Draco is also the one that can get him to reveal all that anger--I said somewhere else that one of my favorite and most surprising moments in OotP was when Harry had the memory of watching Dudley with his tricycle and "burning with jealousy." I thought...waah? Our Harry? Burning with jealousy? Cool! Draco does tend to bring that out in him in a very personal way--Bellatrix is an authority figure, like Snape, so I think they tap into Harry's sense of injustice that way. But Draco is a completely different story--he, too, is under the thumb of an authority figure and has no authority over Harry like Dudley did at home. Yet he makes Harry angry anyway, just "because he exists" sometimes. That's another thing I think people overlook--many times Harry *is* angered by Draco's existance because he and his friends seem to spend their existance laughing at him. Whatever the opposing viewpoint is it almost always seems to center around Malfoy. If he's in the room, Harry usually can't completely ignore him.