It practically gallops...

[sistermagpie]

I was reading through some essays today--can you believe I've never read "Draco Malfoy is Ever So Lame?" ::sigh:: Me neither. It's great. Anyway, I came across another post of Elkin's that struck me as even more interesting given OOTP (which it was written before) and the recent discussions we were having here about Gothic Lit. The incest ones. Incest is common trait in Gothic families like the Blacks and the Malfoys. So is madness. That's why it was so interesting to read Elkin's essay on Draco the Nutter



Now, one of the main points of Elkin's essay, which is fascinating, is the question of whether JKR intends for Draco to come across to her/us as he sometimes does. Is it just poor word choice? A case of JKR going overboard with her description? Or words carefully chosen but not fully appreciated for 7 books?

Elkins says:

"It's just odd, it is. I don't think the boy's quite in his right mind, myself, and I do find it interesting that when he seems nuttiest is always also when he's being the most horrid. Whether this is just JKR's way of indicating that the Voldemortian ethos is a kind of madness, a cultural mass hysteria, or whether she means to depict Draco as internally conflicted is something I'm not quite sure about."

The particular scenes she references are from CoS, where Draco pushes his way through the crowd to grin at Mrs. Norris and yell that the Mudbloods are next, and from GoF, where Draco enters the train compartment to deliver his warning. She also mentions his scene in the forest at the QWC. Look at the way Draco's described here:

"It was Draco Malfoy. He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his unusally bloodless face flushed, as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat." (CoS)

At the QWC his "pale eyes" are "glittering." Upon entering the compartment at the end of GoF for his warning, his smirk is "quivering."

Now, as Elkins says, maybe this is JKR's way of conveying that he's just very very happy to be able to witness some DE-type stuff, but the descriptions are, no doubt about it, febrile. This could be the point--support of this kind of thing is a kind of madness in itself. But of course there are different types of madness, aren't there. Crouch Jr. is a fanatic, Voldemort is a sociopath, Neville's parents are catatonic. Then there's Bellatrix LeStrange, whose name alone suggests she's not right in the head, and also the portrait of Mrs. Black. These women both, to me, seem crazy in that time-honored Bertha Rochester way. (Which I don't consider an insult--I still proudly wear my college English Dept. tee-shirt that proclaimed FREE BERTHA ROCHESTER!) This series is obsessed with bloodlines (yes, even the good guys), and the Purebloods have thus gotten more and more associated with inbreeding--Ron says wizards would have "died out" if they could only marry each other, Sirius says all the Pureblood families are related. And what is one of the stereotypes associated with inbreeding but being not-quite-right in the head? Either you're slow or you're mad. Crabbe and Goyle seem to be covering slow. And Draco...?

Well Draco is of course a Black as well. We've been told how much Draco looks like his father, but I have always felt that while the two of them have some personality traits in common (particularly their drawling voice) Draco also seems like a very different type. Sometimes Draco's inability to follow his father's directions can be a problem. Think, for instance, of Lucius telling Draco to tone down the DIE POTTER DIE stuff or keep his head down with the basilisk. He's done neither, but not, it does not seem to me, out of rebellion. He's still as loyal to Dad as ever. I think he just has trouble controlling himself on these issues, and that's something I can see Bellatrix having trouble with as well. It's not even like Draco can stop himself when it's in his best interest. Lucius probably wished Bella could get a grip at the end of OotP.

Now, obviously there haven't been any big flashing signs that say Draco could be insane, but since his death at the end of the series has always been a big possibility, I think madness should also be considered as an alternative kind of death in these kinds of stories. It's particularly common in Gothic stories with families like the Blacks and the Malfoys. Draco's been mostly associated with the latter, but in OotP, for the first time, we learn he is just as much the former, just at the same time we learn what the Black's stand for. Before it was just Sirius' last name. Now we learn this is a family that dominates the lives of its members even more than the Malfoy family does. It's a family that eventually kills both its sons. And before Sirius is killed, I would suggest, he comes quite close to going mad. It's probably only the opportunity to get out of the house and protect Harry that ultimately keeps him sane. Before that we hear of him drinking, he appears to be losing touch with reality in ways he hadn’t before, even in Azkaban. There he stayed sane by holding on to who he was--loyal friend to James, NOT a traitor. In the Black House he appears to fair less well. Snape even finally gets an opportunity to affect him by taunting him with the fact that he's trapped there.

This just seems interesting given the way JKR has always chosen to show us Draco's reactions to his father's work. The glittering eyes seem to be a stock thing she associates with him, but still I completely agree with Elkins that describing a bloodless face suddenly flushed with cold eyes that suddenly seem "alive" does not suggest evil to me, but a fever, a madness. It certainly doesn't suggest to me what I think it should if one was trying to present Draco as a threatening Voldemort minion, which is power. Draco doesn't seem powerful in these scenes (nor is he powerful in them--he's always bested by the end), he seems overexcited.

Overexcited in a "happy" way? I really don't think so, even for him. First because when Draco's cheeks become flushed it's generally a sign of inner distress, not happiness. His cheeks turn pink when he's insulted. Perhaps more importantly, JKR goes out of her way to show us how scared Draco is of Voldemort, and by now he has quite a bad history with all things dark. He always flinches at Voldemort's name, he's afraid in the forest, he's afraid of the Dementors, he’s terrified of Moody. Twitchy ferret is right. Draco's shown to deal with fear by mocking others for the same fear--he teases Neville in the forest, teases Harry with his Dementor troubles. So it's not hard to imagine that a lot of his Voldemort talk is along the same lines--ha ha, he's coming to get YOU! Meanwhile the sight of Voldemort sends him running away in fear. He's not trying to sneak his way into his father's circle at the QWF. I don't hold with the theory that Draco is warning Hermione in the forest, but I do think that scene shows he'd much rather tease Harry then get too close to Death Eaters. I also could believe he's frankly relieved when the Trio shows up so he's not standing in the woods by himself anymore.

This could be just part of a general, boring idea that Draco is "a coward," whatever that horrible name means to JKR, but even cowards aren't afraid of everything. Draco’s feelings in a way seem like a mirror of his crazy Aunt's--she revels in the evil and becoming more crazy through exposure, but there's a certain strength to her madness. Draco, otoh, seems defined by fear--particularly fear of Voldemort, especially in his junior-DE scenes. As Elkins asks, does JKR know that using the word "quivering" to describe Draco's smirk in GoF suggests an inner conflict? Surely if she meant to present that scene as Draco triumphant he would live up to Harry's impression of being more menacing. But he doesn't, at least to me. He just seems crazier.

In fact, this may seem crazy, but I could almost see that scene as a parallel to the one in the woods, where I feel like he really wants to speak to the Trio. I don't mean he's running to them for help—at least not consciously, since after all he DID run into the twins' compartment when the Dementors appeared—but I could believe there was some genuine anxiety on his part. It's even sort of interesting that he references Harry's rejection of his hand in first year, not just because it shows he holds a grudge, but because here he is again hoping Harry will see he was wrong. Is it Harry he needs to convince or himself?

Then finally it occurred to me that Draco's possibly been associated with madness in little ways. His nickname for Harry, "Potty" can mean addle-brained. Lucius insults his mind in CoS, suggesting that his bloodline should give him superior mental powers and hasn’t. In OotP he makes jokes about St Mungo’s, particularly the ward for people driven insane by magic, and does an imitation of a crazy person, at which point Neville chooses the first moment in 5 years to do something that hints at his parents' condition. I don't know how much to read into that—it’s primarily probably a way of highlighting Neville, reminding us of what we learned in the last book to set up Christmas. But still it's hard not to find it ironic that Malfoy teases Harry for being insane, that Harry sometimes worries he's going insane when he's not, while Malfoy seems to spend OotP on a bit of a Rocky Mountain High. He and his friends just seem to spend more time shrieking with laughter and cackling in this book, and shrieking laughter always has that vague echo of Bedlam.

Also, the one thing Draco is often helpful for is information, though he's not actively trying to help Harry. That would certainly fit into this idea, where the madman offers knowledge, as long as you know which advice not to follow.

So, I don't know. I think on one hand JKR has clearly shown that constant exposure to Dark Magic and evil drives one insane--some of the most fun DEs are so because they're colorfully mad. When Harry visits St. Mungo’s he’s a stranger in Arthur’s ward but it’s a regular friendly reunion up in the mental ward. The Black place seems like a kind of madhouse and all its "acceptable" members a bit off. Many fanfics like to use a particular theory of Evil!Draco where he's been brought up on curses etc., and so is completely at home with the Dark Arts. But perhaps JKR’s ultimately making a different point: that the effect of Draco's situation and parents on his highly emotional and sensitive temperament is just insanity. That he won't go mad because he loves the Dark Arts but because he's tried to force himself to love them when they scare him out of his mind. Or something.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think most characters are probably just...sometimes logical. I mean, Snape can be wonderfully logical, and then go after Harry because of his father. Harry can be logical, and then insist Snape's got to be the cause of all evil in the world because he's Snape.

Now, Draco starts out with a lot of beliefs that sound weird to us but are probably logical to him--Lucius probably presents them that way. So if we accept some of his premises he might make a lot more sense.:-)

Beyond that he is often perfectly reasonable in what he says--being afraid of monsters, sucking up to people to get things etc. You can follow his line of thinking there.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Of course, like I said to Reena, being mad doesn't have to mean you're illogical all the time. Sometimes he's logical, sometimes not. I think his emotions cloud his judgment a lot--which is the way I could see him going off the deep end. But then, Harry's the same way!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Well, first remember nobody's saying Draco *is* insane in canon because obviously he's not. He's a prefectly functioning student, as they all are. The question is whether JKR could go that way--and there, I think, we get into fictional madness as different from the real thing. And I know that a lot of people get offended at the idea that there is a fictional madness because it demeans the real thing, but I think this is one of those things we just have to give to fiction. If it were forced to conform to real life definitions and diagnosis it would really suffer. People in fiction do just "go mad" and madness itself has a long tradition that, imo, modern knowledge of mental illness shouldn't negate.

For me--and this doesn't necessarily apply to Draco at all--insanity is a really juicy literary thing that's got nothing to do with real mental illness. Real mental illness doesn't have anything to do with one's character, necessarily. If you're bipolar that's part of who you are, but you're not bipolar because of who you are. In fiction, though, I think madness is often used symbolically and I usually love it when it is.

Ophelia doesn't go mad because of any sort of chemical disorder, for instance. Neither does Quentin Compson. That's the kind of madness we'd be talking about. Mrs. Rochester isn't just somebody suffering from a specific mental disorder before the time when drugs were available. Her madness is symbolizing something. The only character in HP I would ever connect to a real life diagnosis would be Tom Riddle, who seems sociopathic. With the DEs, I don't think they're supposed to be mentally ill but "mad" in the sense that they've been driven so by their own hatred/beliefs.

So it's not insulting to describe a character as mad, imo. Luna, yes, is insulted within the text by being called loony because she says odd things, but I don't think there's anything about her character that suggests insanity. She's perfectly sane, doesn't see things that aren't there. That it's mean for somebody to call someone like Luna crazy shouldn't, imo, mean we can't have other characters go dramatically mad in the grand Shakespearean tradition.

And, I mean, JKR really doesn't always make insanity obvious. What about Mad Eye Moody? He's sort of affectionately called "mad" and when he turns out to be a possibly more crazy Death Eater it's sort of unclear how insane either of them are supposed to be.

As the seemingly last heir to this huge Pureblood dynasty any madness Draco might develope would not, imo, be about his starting out mad at all, but just dramatizing the natural end to those beliefs or something like that. It wouldn't be saying anything about his chemical make-up (although one would naturally want to start with a personality that would dramatize the things you wanted it too) but about that system or world or something like that. I think we can see signs of this in the other side as well. The fact that they need to learn DADA doesn't mean their army couldn't wind up as bad as the Death Eaters. Not saying they will, but of course they could.

Re: *cries with joy*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! You know, if she began writing him as mad I wonder if he might get some better lines.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

He has no one to turn to.


Yes! I think you summed up his situation beautifully--and I think this is what Elkins was seeing in those scenes (and what I think I do too). There's insanity as a physical condition, like a disorder, and I don't think he has that. But then there's this long literary tradition of taking a highly strung person and putting them in a lose/lose situation and adding more and more stress. If you make a character like that go mad it's an expression of the situation, moreso than the person.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling JKR wouldn't let him see the Evil Overlord Manual. That would be a shame. I bet he practices his evil laugh. "Where's your Hand of Glory now!"

strange relatives

[shusu.livejournal.com]

The single funniest reaction from HPOP was when our Draco RPGer and I finished the book. We met up and said "He's related to Tonks! LMAO!"

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Well, everyone has an inner logic. I mean, a schizophrenic's thoughts have a structure and follow mental associations that come natural to him. Whatever he sees, it's real enough for them. But the insane's logic only works for him, he can't communicate it to others, which is why they appear completely illogic and rabid from the outside. /banal

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

True-or unfortunately they do make sense to others and gather people to them. Like I remember a friend of mine talking about Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ and she said, "He's a kind of crazy that appeals to a lot of people."

[malafede.livejournal.com]

All of them are his same kind of crazy?

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Perhaps his generation's Marietta was Myrtle?...

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Now I feel the need to link to Ishtar's Bellatrix-y Draco fic (or Draco-y Bellatrix fic?) - http://www.livejournal.com/users/ishtar79/31035.html

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

"things that I actually see which never have anything to do with Draco being cute or played by Tom Felton."

Surely not! *gasps, faints* ;)
Now shush up, Magpie, you're clearly a hormonal teenage girl who's confused by Teh Hawt. Everyone knows girls don't assess literature characters based on narrative, themes or general interest! *shakes head* Have you learned nothing from our Authorial Avatar Hermione? Girls are stupid, and you should stay far away from them!

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

There are some post OotP points regarding Draco's nervousness...the dropping of the glass (you mean that was there for a reason other than OMG OTP!!11? ;), the fear about going into the forest (understandable considering he, you know, saw Teh Dark Lord!!!1 there, but of course, Harry's not afraid, and we the audience should laugh at fears not held by him), the hysteria at physical pain/injury (OMGX2 - the Quidditch scene had more meaning than OTP!!11?) Also, I can't remember if this part from GoF was mentioned by Elkins -

"Over on the Slytherin table, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were laughing at him, tapping their heads with their fingers, pulling grotesquely mad faces and waggling their tongues like snakes."

I think an interesting angle to the issue is that Draco has been known to unwittingly predict things. The whole bit in CoS about hoping the next person petrified is Hermione - she might not have died, but she was the next Muggleborn petrified (unless it was Penelope. In which case, I suck ;)
There's the part in OotP about:
"'Well, just watch yourself, Potter, because I'll be dogging your footsteps in case you step out of line.'
Harry, who knew at once that she, like him, had registered what Malfoy had said and been just as unnerved by it.
What if Mr Malfoy had noticed the black dog and told Draco? What if he had deduced that the Weasleys, Lupin, Tonks and Moody knew where Sirius was hiding? Or had Malfoy's use of the word 'dogging' been a coincidence?"
I don't recall if we ever find out whether the Malfoys know of Sirius' form. If not, that's a weird coincidence. Like Ron's or Harry's predictions which often end up coming true. (Again, I have no memory as to the actual events. But then if it isn't a coincidence, it's a pretty obvious hint, which plays into Draco The Spy, so it works either way ;)

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

How dare you! JKR would banish the monster, save the tiny villagers and liberate the surrounding community from their evil dictating landlord!
Or something ;)
On the subject, I always thought ambition would be more useful to a writer than bravery, and the mysteries in her plots certainly require cunning...

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

"He has no one to turn to."

See, this is where I see similiarieties between Harry and the Slytherins in general.
Harry has no-one to help him - he has an extremely large support network, unlike the Slytherins (as far as we know), but in the end, he's an orphan, he has only himself.
The rest of the WW have him to rely on.
But the Slytherins? Who are they supposed to look up to?
There's Voldemort, who has typical Evil Villain disease - he kills/tortures/abuses his followers. Look at Peter - he gave up his hand for the man, and he gets no respect!
Then there's Dumbledore and The Boy Who Lived (who really work in tandem, as far as appearances go.)
Dumbledore who's shown that the feelings of students who aren't his favourite don't matter. Dumbledore who will do anything it takes to win. Look at his influence over the previous generations -
James and Sirius flourished as The (naturally Gryffindor) Boys Everyone Loved, Snape the ugly Slytherin gets beaten up.
Tom Riddle had no family. Dumbledore states in OotP he could have arranged for Harry to adopted in the WW. Why not Riddle?
Then there's Harry. Harry who is introverted, friendship wise, keeping to a small, predominantly Gryffindor clique. Harry who likes to win, who hates Slytherin, who is self-pitying and who will not hesitate to hex anyone who disagrees with him.
Anyone who isn't Harry's friend or able to miraculously impress Voldemort is stuck between a rock and a hard place, really.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

"I can definitely see Hermione's obsession and pretense at logic becoming a sham and a cover for something quite psychopathic with the right trigger."

Indeed, when she explodes, she does so with well, violence! (The movie's interpretation of this making her look almost creepily 'cool' - spot target, approach, sham hurt, attack!)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Not to mention, I'd love to know what was going through her mind when she charmed that parchment: "Grrrr. The first person who betrays me and Harry is going to PAY! PAY DAMN THEM! MWAHAHAHAHA!"

Lessee, she got the idea for the coins from the DEs...maybe she was looking up things on punishment from past centuries when she came up with that, like when people used to be branded.

And people consider Hermione the bleeding heart liberal character.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

There's a quote on my wall that says "Those who hear not the music think the dancers mad." After some thought Draco seems to be more sugar-high than presently insane (who knows about later), supported by the regular shipment of sweets. T'would be nice if he had a mad charisma, which seems a shade of... functional insanity? *minces air*

[ceris.livejournal.com]

Heh, great discussion again :-) For myself, I wouldn't be one of those people who describe Hermione as a bleeding heart liberal. She always seems so uptight to me, probably as traditional in her own way as the Blacks and Malfoys, that JKR could give her severe OCD and I'd absolutely buy it as in character. Or maybe I'm just being too hard on her.

[ceris.livejournal.com]

I doubt that JKR's going to go the insanity route with Draco - she surely should've shown more convincing character development with him by now if that was her intention. Instead, as one poster quite rightly said, he's been the same all through the series so far, hardly growing as a character. I really hope that JKR takes him out of his stereotypical bully role, but I don't see it somehow. It just remains to be seen what she does do with him to punish him for his 'bad' behaviour, which as far as I can see comes from an over-indulged, spoiled lifestyle and tainted Malfoy blood. It'd be nice for JKR to maybe show some sympathy for that, but again, it would require character development.

I'd totally agree with the above comment by roxannelinton; she says everything I feel.

Don't get me wrong, I do love the books, but I do get frustrated with her characterisation sometimes. But then, of course, they're not really written for jaded old ladies like me :-) Guess I'm just a bit crabby tonight.

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

I finally got around to reading this, and like some others, I'm freaked out-because dude, scarily plausible.

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd actively be hoping for Rowling's inconsistent characterisations, because as much as this scenario would appeal to me in a Darkfic (tempered, hopefully, with loads of angsty!sex) I'd really, really prefer it if the books didn't go that way.

The description of the pale face with shining eyes in particular strikes a chord, because it always reminded me of the insane kind of fanaticism...in the lines of Bellatrix's or Crouch Junior's beliefs, rather than Lucius (imho) more self-serving interests in joining the DE.

And the poor boy's definetely afraid of the Dark Arts.

*pets Draco*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I completely understand the frustration. It's just how I feel! And you're right, this sort of thing does seem to require actual characterization instead of the kid getting trotted on a few times a book to say lines he could have said years before!

Heh--but then, this is somebody who claimed the Ginny we saw in OotP was completely foreshadowed by Ron's one line in OotP, so perhaps if Draco wound up eating spiders and swinging from the rafters in the great hall she'd point to some other throwaway line of Ron's as proof it was there all the time!:-)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

ITA--the scenario appeals to me greatly if we're talking about Dark!Fic. But in the books? I just can't see it being handled with that kind of delicacy...

The whole idea of shining eyes reminds me of a story I read once about someone having dinner with Tennessee Williams and his sister--Rose, is it? The one who was mentally ill. The person talked about her eyes showing that...you wouldn't really want to meet her gaze because you could see it in there.

In a way JKR seems to sometimes give Draco the scariest eyes in the HPverse. I mean, Voldemort's are red so obviously more overtly terrifying, and Sirius' are haunted. But glittering eyes are so freaky. I think I read once that people almost unconsciously react differently to them because a) dark eyes give the illusion of dialated pupils, which indicates interest and b) they give the illusion of depth so you feel like there's something in there. Light eyes, like Draco's, seem more flat. Personally, I've always found light-colored eyes the more potentially frightening. If Snape's eyes glitter there's still depth, like "going into a tunnel." Draco's eyes seem more like an animal's sometimes.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Draco's eyes seem more like an animal's sometimes.

See, either you start writing fics and use this line either I steal it.