OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

Errol wrote:

Draco hasn't really done anything yet. But I think its that yet that is under attack. He does seem setup on a fast track to Deatheaterhood. I`d say redeem him from JKR!! ;-)

Hee! Well, I guess my point there really was that people sometimes like to use the word "irredeemable" to refer to Draco, and often cite the fact that he dissed Cedric's memory on the train as proof positive of this assessment.

My feeling on this is that, first of all, I agree with Cindy on the redeemability issue. Anyone with free will is redeemable no matter what they have done. Furthermore, I would say that the moral universe that the author is setting forth in the books shares this assessment. We have been given Snape's plotline to serve as its illustration within the text. I somehow suspect that Snape did worse things in his time than making nasty comments and trying to get a hated teacher's pet hippogriff executed. ;-)

Secondly, though, I wanted to make the point that, far from being "irredeemable" at this point in the storyline, Draco hasn't even done anything bad enough yet to make him require all that much in the way of "redemption," IMO. Questions of his "redeemability" at this point in time therefore strike me as somewhat premature. To put it bluntly, as far as I'm concerned, the boy isn't even damned yet. His sins are minor, the harm he has caused slight. I see no blazing fires of perdition whence he currently needs to be plucked, if you get my drift.

I do see him as on a collision course with serious badness, to be sure. But it's difficult for me to evaluate his 'evilness quotient' in quite the same light as many others seem to be doing, because honestly, I just don't think he's done anything too dreadful yet, and I'm far more concerned overall with what people actually do than with what they think or desire or feel or say.

Cindy, for example, wrote this:

Then Draco is spiteful, malicious, racist, angry, hurts others, takes pleasure in their misfortune and doesn't ever do anything good. Whether we use the label "evil,", we wind up in exactly the same place, do we not?

I'd be very surprised if JKR is among those who thinks that people who are spiteful, malicious, racist, angry and take pleasure in hurting others are not evil.

And all I could think was that it sounded to me rather like Snape.

Who is our narrative representative of a redeemed Death Eater.

And then she wrote:

I'm thinking that sounds like evil by the definitions of most people.

Does it? It certainly doesn't sound like my definition of evil at all. Of the things mentioned above, only "hurts others" and "doesn't ever do anything good" qualify. The rest are just feelings and attitudes. They can certainly motivate people to do evil, but then, you know, so can misguided notions of love, loyalty, justice, devotion or protection. So can thoughtlessness, callousness, ruthlessness or ambition. So, for that matter, can mental illness. But that doesn't mean that possessing any of those things makes someone evil. They're just things that you need to watch carefully, if you suffer from them, because they can often lead people to do evil. But they themselves do not make someone evil -- although they might make someone a person we do not find particularly sympathetic.

I don't really think that JKR thinks that feelings of spite, malice, anger, prejudice, sadism or schadenfreude make people evil either. I think that if she did, then she would not so often show us Harry feeling precisely those things. In fact, though, we are continually shown evidence of Harry feeling precisely those things. He fantasizes about torturing Snape. He wants to kill Sirius Black. He identifies with the jeering, hissing Pensieve mob. He enjoys watching Dudley suffer. He suspects people of criminal actions on the basis of personal dislike for them or for their House affiliation (Snape in PS/SS, Draco in CoS). He thinks ill of Cedric Diggory for reasons of pure black envy. The Sorting Hat considered putting him in House Slytherin.

I'd say that the text makes it clear that you can feel all of those things and still be okay. It's only acting on them that gets you into trouble. That, at any rate, is how I interpret the thematic emphasis on choice.

So when Dicentra writes, for example:

To this I would add that evil has to do what you want, not just what you do. If you continually want to do evil deeds over good ones, you're evil, even if you don't actually do them.

I would have to disagree. I think that if you override your desire to do evil deeds, then you are doing well, no matter how badly you may want to be doing them.

So far, Draco's envy, spite, malice, and so forth has led him to commit a rather petty series of crimes: crimes little worse, in fact, than those which Snape also engages in from time to time. Verbal abuse. Bullying. Gloating over others' misfortunes. Vindictive behavior. When confronted with real evil, however, he seems rather at a loss. He flees from unicorn-blood-swilling Quirrellmorts and dementors on trains. He loiters around in the woods while his father and all of his DE buddies harass the muggles, and he shows not the slightest sign of interest in actually watching what they are doing. He's not craning his neck to watch the dangling muggles and getting off on what is happening to them. Instead, he's just hanging around in the forest and throwing strangely ambiguously phrased taunts in the Trio's general direction.

I certainly do think that Draco is very much at risk due to his tendencies towards resentment and envy and malice and spite. Very much so. But they are not alone sufficient, IMO, to place him in a position from which he desperately needs to be redeemed. Only once they lead him to take rather more serious actions will that be the case, and so far, that's just not happened.

The theme here would be "save him from his future".

Yes. I agree that right now this is precisely what Draco needs to be saved from. Although really, he often strikes me as far more in danger of a nervous breakdown than of becoming Ever So Evil in the classic sense.

But he's cast in the negative quadrant of the storyline, so I guess he's fair game for a `redemption theory' however lame. ;-)

Oh, indeed! And I didn't mean to suggest at all that the entire topic was lame or anything. Not in the least! I was just hoping to point out that so far, the kid just hasn't really done anything all that terrible. His sins exist more in the realms of the potential than in the actual at this point in the story, IMO.

—Elkins