Yes, that's partly why I find it so funny that apparently in the movie it's Hagrid who's given that line to Buckbeak and it's obviously affectionate! In Draco's case I assume he was scared of the thing. He's trying to show off but I doubt he'd knowingly provoke it. It reads to me like he's trying to sound braver than he is by making a light joke and is completely shocked when it attacks him. I would be!
The thing is I wasn't furious when it happened. The only reason I feel so strongly about the scene is the way it plays out, the way moments after Draco's taken away the Gryffindors are being so callous about it out of a stupid defense of Hagrid and then the whole book backs them up by turning on how awful Malfoy is for causing Buckbeak's trouble and taunting Hagrid about it. It's one of those times where I feel like the book gives us a real quagmire of real feelings, and a situation that really makes it unrealistic to imagine Malfoy wouldn't act the way he does. Meaning not only that Malfoy is canonically nasty towards Hagrid and the Gryffindors but that it's made so clear that popular opinion thinks it's good that he was hurt that being big about the whole thing would be total humiliation. Perhaps JKR didn't mean it this way, but his cruelty over the incident just strikes me as a handy defiance in the face of dehumanization. In my mind, I just can't not link this incident with Snape's Prank.
I have sympathy for Hagrid in the situation--his mistakes with the hippogryffs were far greater and far more numerous than Malfoys, but he didn't want anyone to get hurt. I just don't think that sympathy makes up for total indifference to what happened to the other kid just because we don't like him and he's going to be difficult about it. (Though if Malfoy had merely sulked about it with no repercussions to Hagrid I don't think that would gain him any more sympathy.)
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Date: 2004-11-20 04:41 pm (UTC)The thing is I wasn't furious when it happened. The only reason I feel so strongly about the scene is the way it plays out, the way moments after Draco's taken away the Gryffindors are being so callous about it out of a stupid defense of Hagrid and then the whole book backs them up by turning on how awful Malfoy is for causing Buckbeak's trouble and taunting Hagrid about it. It's one of those times where I feel like the book gives us a real quagmire of real feelings, and a situation that really makes it unrealistic to imagine Malfoy wouldn't act the way he does. Meaning not only that Malfoy is canonically nasty towards Hagrid and the Gryffindors but that it's made so clear that popular opinion thinks it's good that he was hurt that being big about the whole thing would be total humiliation. Perhaps JKR didn't mean it this way, but his cruelty over the incident just strikes me as a handy defiance in the face of dehumanization. In my mind, I just can't not link this incident with Snape's Prank.
I have sympathy for Hagrid in the situation--his mistakes with the hippogryffs were far greater and far more numerous than Malfoys, but he didn't want anyone to get hurt. I just don't think that sympathy makes up for total indifference to what happened to the other kid just because we don't like him and he's going to be difficult about it. (Though if Malfoy had merely sulked about it with no repercussions to Hagrid I don't think that would gain him any more sympathy.)