The Truth Hurts

[sistermagpie]

roxannelinton made the mistake of pointing me to an Elkins essay on HP4GU. Naturally this got me stuck reading other essays because they were all so good. One in particular was close to my heart, about *why* exactly we like the characters that we do, and it brought up the fact that we usually naturally associate fictional types with people we know in real life, and our reactions to the RL people naturally influence that. I was going to think about the characters I like and think about who they remind me of (Snape totally reminds me of the teachers in school that were feared and hated but *I* always wound up getting along with and liking a great deal), but in the course of thinking about this I wound up having a big personal revelation about Draco and me. It's long because it's about ME ME ME.



Elkins essay was in response to the twins, whom she considers bullies and doesn't like. But she made the important distinction that the fact that they were bullies wasn't why she disliked them, and she did not think other people should dislike them because she did. She disliked them because they reminded her of certain types she knew in real life growing up and because in the books they were often associated with comeuppance humor, which she despised. Plus they had nothing in common and she suspected they wouldn't like her. I would have avoided them in school. Draco I would keep at a safe distance. He's also a bully, but a different kind.

Obviously there are lots of Draco-lovers or at least people who can stand Draco amongst you all. It seems like when we're asked why we like the boy, the most common answer is, “He often says what I'm thinking.” I tend to also think of it as his stating the obvious and absurd. I believe, in fact, that JKR once described Draco as being such a bad bully because he was the "smart" kind who found weak spots to hurt people with. Weak spots=personal truths.

Now, obviously it's not as simple as saying this character speaks truth and others don't. It's also not-because I think this is what a lot of people think of when you describe a bully as truthful-about the kind of person who insults other people and claim they're being “honest.” Draco actually isn't that type. What I do mean is that Draco tends to speak a certain kind of truth in a certain way in certain situations, different ones than the main characters. Every character is going to have certain times when the truth is important and other times when they lie, just like any person. Draco just happens to always be a certain kind of voice. He says things that are usually considered bad to say-a certain kind of bad. Only some of us like exactly that kind of thing, particularly if we can't identify with the mainstream attitude that well.

This is where I think I really do identify with Draco and it has often gotten me in trouble. Like, I have this idea of myself as completely un-intimidating. So I've been surprised the few times I've been told I was harsh--well, actually, the word people always use is not harsh but "scary," and occasionally "evil," usually for saying something a little too true. Did I say something intentionally hurtful? In one case I suspect I did. It was to these two guys I went to high school with and there were times they made me angry because they were pretty insensitive and I suspect in joking around I did slip in things to cut them down to size. Imagine my surprise when by chance I found out they noticed and did get cut down!

More often, though, it's not that I've said something mean intentionally but I'll say something I think is just obvious, something I thought was perfectly fine because I can't see any reason for anyone to be sensitive about it, and be met with shocked stares. Or perhaps I did know it was sort of sensitive but still thought it should be said. Like, if I were friends with Draco Malfoy I would know if he was strutting around saying he was going to win the next Quidditch match and Potter wouldn't know what hit him, I would know not to say, "Yeah, it's not like he's humiliated you ever year since you were twelve." Because obviously I could see there was a personal reason he would need to not have that contradicted---Harry has no such excuses about Hagrid. He does have reason to be sensitive about his wanting the Weasleys as a surrogate family.

Here's the two examples I can think of from my own life. I hope they're not too tedious, but they're the ones that sprang to mind. The first was when I was in college and in an a Capella group. We'd lost a few people so we had a number of songs that needed new soloists and were having auditions at rehearsal. This one girl who was sort of a BNF (without the F) of the group and already had a few solos. She tried out for all four new ones. The first three all went to other people, because they happened to be more suited to them. The fourth number she was best for. So when we're discussing who we're going to give it to everybody was just all, "Ooh, I think X was great." "Yes, me too, her voice quality is perfect for this..." and it was just too ridiculous. So I laughed and commented how we were all relieved because it was we'd all been totally uncomfortable rejecting her. I mean, we all knew what she was like, and nobody wants to reject somebody four times in a row. Of course we were relieved! But from the way people stared at me you'd think I'd made a racial slur.

The other time was when I ran into this girl I knew in junior high. We were now in college and we met on a train. She was talking about her youngest sister, who was now 12, and saying how her sister had far more freedom than she did at that age. "She's allowed to DATE!” she said. “I was never allowed to date in seventh grade!" Like this was ever an issue for her-nobody wanted to date her in seventh grade. I made the mistake of saying as much and really pissed her off! Apparently I didn't get the memo with our revised seventh grade history where this girl's biggest stress in seventh grade came from her lame mom cramping her sex life instead of being picked on by girls and having no interaction with boys whatsoever. I wasn't trying to insult her; I thought we could share a laugh at being losers when we were 12. Of course, I should have remembered she was like this at 12 too.

Anyway, you can see the pattern. I just can't help it, though. It's not that I can't lie, it's just there are certain things where I feel like you should be able to tell it like it is. In fact, I was recently reading a great Agatha Christie where at the end (no spoilers) Poirot says that he expects the victim's 12-year-old son to come to him in a few years and ask for the details of his parent's murder. A character says, "You won't tell him, will you?" He says of course he will. This boy, like him, prizes truth above all else. Truth, even if it's bad, can be understood and put into the pattern. To her, the most important thing is that people not be hurt. To him the most important thing is knowing how things really are/really happened/really work. I hated the woman character in that moment, and I knew why the little boy was my favorite character.

And I think that's another reason I sort of lean toward this character. As Elkins said, we usually like people first because of their humor or personality and then we figure out their morals. It should be no surprise Draco cracks me up from his first scene-the one where most people and the hero decide he's Awful, and for exactly the same reasons. I think he had me at, “Exactly.” Or perhaps where, strangely honest as always, he introduces himself as a spoiled brat. Like I said, it's not a question of “this is me” or “he is just speaking truth.” It's just honestly I think either you respond really positively to, “Who wouldn't want a pet that stings, burns and bites?” or you don't. Perhaps instead you respond better to ton tongue toffee. It's a personal thing. I like "exactly." I have a fondness, especially, for people who are unwittingly rude because they're just clueless, particularly when I think the other person is over-serious or over-sensitive. In fact, reenka and I were talking about the appeal of the H/D with a certain kind of Fanon!Draco and I think this might be it--putting in a character that can do this and have it get the reaction they want. That's why when Fanon!Draco says the kinds of things that fill Canon!Harry with disgust, Fanon!Harry instead realizes he's kidding and is able to see the truth within and not see it as threatening.

ETA: Here's the original essay. It's a great read, and may make this more coherent. She actually lays it out much better than I do here, as I seem to have sometimes put across the exact opposite idea than I intended in this post! The point is, there are reasons we just plain like characters, and that probably often leads us to cut them slack where we might not with others. I know very well that I *like* this character, and am wondering maybe why. It's not a defense of why this character is likable or should be liked by others.

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Omg, this is frightening!!! Seriously frightening!! You're too right in how Harry always seems bent on 'wiping that smirk' off Draco's face and to say he wants to kill the laughter makes me SHUDDER, my god. Especially because that's exactly what's been my huge horrendous awful DEEP ISSUE with roleplaying Harry with Draco recently. The more I got into Harry's head, the more serious I got, the more nothing was funny about Draco, the more Draco disgusted me when really he should've made -me-(or Harry) smirk. Harry just. Never. Lightened. Up!! It's partly why I had to lay off the H/D-- my Harry was just becoming a menace!

And I couldn't put my finger on precisely why until you said-- it's that deep, awful drive to make Draco stop laughing and Take A Stand (Harry really wants him to-- no matter what stand, as long as he could peg Draco!) and that's is awful and very destructive. It's like... the worst thing was, my Harry did get Draco more and more 'stiff'-- that is, uptight, upset, cornered-- and it just kept degenerating because both of them are so stubborn and Draco does have a lot of pent-up (and I think, intense) emotion involved in this relationship, before or after they're together. And actually feeling (as the player) this (successful!) drive to trap Malfoy in Harry's own game/world... man, that freaks me out BIG TIME.

I can't remember an H/D fic where Draco really makes Harry loosen up in precisely that way, btw :/ :/ Because in most H/D fics Draco's humor is just very different, as I've said.

I love the idea that the more Draco's supposed to Mean Something the less he works (as a character)-- that's kind of revolutionary, even, considering that this sideline status is probably temporary but unique. I was more talking about what he means in fandom and in lit-crit/analysis/meta terms rather than in the text :D I'm perfectly at peace with his role in the text >:D

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha! Yes! And see, that's the thing with Draco--he's ever so lame (to quote Elkins) so how can he ever have ANY power? And I think it's because he's never been a real person to Harry at all. He's just like this symbolic thing to him, completely objectified, that he can't destroy. The smirking and the laughing must be silenced--but that's why he always has to come back at him, I think. Harry's shadowboxing with Malfoy. Granted sometimes it's satisfying in that Malfoy actually feels pain and bleeds, but the point is beating Malfoy never helps because for some reason he never stops being Malfoy.

When I think of their arc in canon, such as it is, it seems like the best thing for Harry to realize is just how much Draco has always been a projection. I don't mean like, "Oh my darling, how wrong I've been!" But just a more realistic...oh. For instance, think about in CoS where Harry's all convinced Malfoy is the Heir of Slytherin and when he spies on him there is a connection, but Malfoy can't shut up about how annoying it is that he's not the Heir of Slytherin and people think Potter is. My guess is that nobody in Slytherin--nobody who actually knew Draco--thought he was the Heir.

I still feel like that's just where he's most useful as a character, in the fact that Harry knows all about him and wouldn't put anything past him, that he's just as likely to overestimate Malfoy in terms of evilness as underestimate him in terms of competence (I'm just imagining the latter part could happen--it hasn't yet). Not that I know how that would pan out. I mean, one one side you think, "It just wouldn't be a surprise if Malfoy was just there to join with Voldemort and spy for him at Hogwarts" because it's just too obvious and requires a bit more competance from Draco than we've seen. Or Draco does something his Mummy tells him to that is Voldemort-related and ha ha Harry catches him so he's destroyed or whatever. But then, it's not like Malfoy's ever really been used to surprise us, ever. In pretty much every book there's a bad guy and if you look behind him Malfoy will be there, sticking out his tongue.

I guess I just like that better because it seems like Draco never really has an arc in canon, but small opportunities he can riff off of. Then, when they crumble around him, he says, "Big deal. Let's get rid of these tentacles and go and have cake." It's hard for me to imagine him suddenly following a straight line goal. So I can totally see him having some errand he's all psyched for in the beginning of the book, particularly if its on Narcissa's orders, but it's harder for me to imagine that over the summer he somehow got up to the level of a year-long villain like Quirrel, you know?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Arg, now I feel a bit guilty... both my serious-like WiPs at the moment revolve around the idea that Draco -tries- to become More Important and/or have a Better Scheme For Tomorrow, Today and that's why he catches Harry's attention-- well, in the first one he doesn't try but is rather MADE more important by being used by Tom, and in the other one he's... well, first he's used for sex by Harry and then he's More Important because he has info the Order could use and also 'cause he gambled it'll all matter more if he joined Daddy.... le sigh.

Like, so... I think Harry realizing Draco's been a projection would be deflating (as far as H/D, anyway-- 'cause in canon I think Harry would eventually just get too distracted to care and/or Draco will be taken out of the game)-- just as Draco realizing Harry has been a projection would be deflating. Like... they'd have no reason to be up in each other's space if they didn't really rub each other the wrong way, y'know. And it's like, the others' annoyance feeds their own righteous rage or whatever.

But yes, Harry's always both overestimating & underestimating Malfoy, and while it'd be more realistic for him to realize what a load of crap his issues are to some extent, my own shippy desires have always leaned towards Draco getting to grab Importance for himself somehow, if nothing else because I think he wants to. And while I don't think he can handle it, I think that whole... idea of Draco struggling with something he can't chew has always fascinated me. Like... I keep coming up with ideas for stories where he gets some object or spell that gives him power-- so it like... challenges Draco to grow or something.

I mean, it's not realistic or canon-based, but I can't help wanting it for Draco just 'cause I think Harry would respond interestingly to it and Draco himself would, too, and it'd move them in an entirely new direction, y'know? I like new directions.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I think he totally wants to be important, and naturally want him to be too becuase he's my gooboy and dats a gooboy who's so important!

Ahem. And remember in this series everybody really is important. See, the thing is is it's always the people who supposedly aren't that are, because the smallest thing is important. Like, who would have thought Peter would be the guy who killed everybody? Or that the James/Snape rivalry could destroy so many lives and all that? So with Malfoy it's not that I think he couldn't be important, it's just that he probably wouldn't be, like, another version of Harry, you know what I mean? Like, when Harry imagines him he naturally imagines Draco underneath being just like Harry only evil. But where he could surprise is yeah, I'm important and yeah, I want to be interested in things--and to give the boy his due, it's not like he's so lazy he can't focus on anything because looking at canon he's put stuff together that I never could because I'd lose interest, you know? I'd never be able to care enough to put together one of his stupid schemes--chase after the Trio to see where they're going at night? Nah, why go outside when I'm comfortable in here?

So I think he has shown he's got initiative and motivation, only he just never really gets a chance to be part of the main story, you know? Like in CoS Harry is involved in the Heir story and Draco wants to be, but he's not. Or in PoA Draco drops hints about Sirius Black but he's not involved in it at all, he's stuck with Buckbeak and Hagrid. In GoF he honestly might not even really know Voldemort's back yet--he might be saying all that stuff at the end without really believing it. After all, I doubt Lucius wrote to him with a summary of what happened in the graveyard.In OotP I see no reason to think he's got anything to do with the MoM stuff--he's all Umbridge. There's that scene where he's in the library looking at the Quibbler article, but maybe that's just like a bunch of kids having a pretend-serious meeting cause...do they do anything with that article? I don't remember.

So, it's like, given the situation with Lucius in jail and Draco now under his mother's influence there could be any number of possibilities for him. He could be working on some family business that again isn't strictly related to Voldemort or whatever. So that's sort of more what I mean. It's not that Draco has to always be nothing--because actually that's part of what I hate about the way people think about him now, that because he's not one of the elite with special powers and prophesies and a dark lord after him or tragic parents he's nobody. Part of his appeal in fanfic, I think, is that maybe he's got his own story that's just as compelling but totally totally different.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ehehehehehe Sooooo. I'm having this feeling like if you wrote H/D, it'd be fluff~:))) :D :D!!

...Yeah, Draco's too twitchy & driven to be lazy, isn't he :D That must be the Zacharias in me, at least :)) But yeah, I know Draco's not going to end up being 'just like' Harry or anything-- they're totally different. And I'm not sure different -how-, 'cause I think one could play with that-- but I think the way Draco goes about things is just different from Harry. Awww, Draco. I've missed being in his head <333333 I really do ♥ him, though I'm more like a bitchy big sister who slaps him around than anything, whereas I'm like Harry's uber-adoring aunt who smothers him in lipsticky kisses :)) OMG THE HORROR :>

I wasn't talking about Draco's direction and/or importance in future canon, though (as per usual), but more in a more extreme direction one -could- take him on-- like, yeah, because in fanfic he could get his own Fool's Journey, his own story, and that's really what's always attracted me. And it's not that I want him to be elite with special powers, but I just want him to have some trump card, I guess. Something that'd make him a player somehow.

I don't know how Harry would react to that--something tells me next to nothing that could happen to Draco would make Harry react -positively-, but... in a way, Draco having his own story is more important to me than H/D is.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ehehehehehe Sooooo. I'm having this feeling like if you wrote H/D, it'd be fluff~:))) :D :D!!

Heh. Probably.:-D

I don't know how Harry would react to that--something tells me next to nothing that could happen to Draco would make Harry react -positively-, but... in a way, Draco having his own story is more important to me than H/D is.

I can't ever really think of what *happen* in canon cause it just never occurs to me to try to predict--I just wait to see what I'm given (I get the feeling you're the same way), but what I do sometimes do is look at what we have in the beginning, and what questions it raises, and think about what might be answered. And the one thing we get with Draco that hints at possible issues to be resolved is the whole, "Your father and Snape are just like you and Mr. Malfoy." Draco's the student linked with Snape,Snape seems to have an interest in him, he was friends with his father, Harry wouldn't ever want to be friends with him, he thinks Malfoy would deserve what Snape got in the Pensieve blah blah blah. The Sorting Hat sings about how sad it is since Slytherin left, leaving the school basically with three houses.

I don't think that means they're the same or equals, obviously. But it does seem like a LOT of Snape's story and the Marauders story in general was about how dangerous it can be to just go on being an asshole, whether you are Snape or MWPP. Even with James his big heroic moment thankfully falls short--Snape *hates* that James saved his life and when Harry tries to throw it in his face we're immediately told it wasn't as heroic as Harry imagined.

So it seems like the thing that canon Draco does have is he works on that level--and that level is *important.* Snape and James didn't seem to even interact much after school--Snape hates him for fifth year, not from his time as a DE, which he may have been nudged into because of his reactions to James. The incredibly stupid schoolboy stuff wound up being the only thing that mattered 20 years on--we never hear about anything the actual Order did or what Snape did. What's important were who was friends with who and who had a grudge against who and all that.

Although Draco and Snape aren't the same I think sometimes Snape fans can be unfair to Draco by comparing him to the adult Snape. Presumably if we were reading about MWPP it would be a shock that Peter turned evil or that greasy Snivelus of all people wound up being a spy for Dumbledore against Voldemort--I suspect Snape would come across even worse than Draco in realistic MWPP canon. Not Goth, not cool, not witty and sarcastic but just as pathetic and repulsive but in a different way. He might even seem worse because rather than leading his own gang he'd hang around with big dogs.

Harry&Co. presumably won't get that chance because Voldemort will be defeated 7th year. So it could wind up that the world takes care of Draco for Harry and he never has to think about him again, but that seems pretty weird considering Snape's story. It just seems like that should be addressed somehow, especially since...the weird thing about canon is it seems like JKR *consistently* writes things as grey and then has them get taken as black and white in canon, and that in turn is picked up by fandom. People like to say OotP introduced "shades of grey" but sometimes when people say that what they really mean is it rearranged the black and white because they've been missing the shades of grey that have been there all along and still are. Maybe JKR actually thinks Draco comes across different than he does to me in his early scenes, but if that's the case it makes me want to say, "Couldn't you just have written him the way you wanted me to see him?" It seems almost cruel, like it's not enough the character gets punished, I have to pretend he deserved it in ways he didn't. Because I put that together with MWPP and it seems like there just has to be a purpose to it. She has to have been doing it this way for later revelations.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I really like the whole connection between Draco & Snape... and really wish that there'd be more grey, but on the other hand... none of the Marauders really either reconciled with or changed their minds about Snape, it seems like. Like, I think Draco could be a more... intimidating (or more pathetic, depending) person post-Hogwarts, but I don't know if that'd matter to Harry-- or to Draco, which is fun, of course.

Like, people say that post-Hogwarts they'd have changed, and it's true the probably would, but I really like the idea that it wouldn't matter-- they'd be unable to stand one another anyway. Ahhh, Draco's future makes me both hopeful and morose, man.

I think, though, that plenty of readers do see Draco in this way that he's not really written, y'know-- as disgusting, awful, mean and horrible and pathetic and such. People -do- have different reactions to the same descriptions/behaviors, as this whole post was about ;>

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

True!

And one last thing about MWPP--you're right, they didn't change. But my point being, they're all fucked.:-) I mean, I dunno...are we supposed to see Sirius as anything we'd want Harry to wind up as? Or Snape or Peter? Even James, dead, sucks. And Lupin still covering up for his friends in PoA? How sad is that.

It just seems like part of the whole point of them is that they're doomed because they didn't change and their Hogwarts years were the best of their lives. It seems like it would be nice if Harry's class graduated with a hope of becoming adults who'd gotten to see that the kids they hated weren't all that horrible and Gryffindor and Slytherin were no longer at each other's throats.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Arg. Depressing. Don't know if I trust JKR, but believe you're right about Harry not being supposed to find the Marauders role-models. Er. Even so.......
That's why Fanfic Is Of The Good :>