~~ the dark Father.
Jul. 14th, 2004 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaEveryone knows that I hate Lucius Malfoy, right? Well, I thought I did. And then I saw ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jereeza's watercolor version of him and... *siiiiigh* Yes. Finally! Finally! Gah. I don't know where to begin. The short hair helps a lot, but it's really the expression-- this man is beautiful because he isn't pretty. Oh, how happy that makes me.
Ahhh, the Trelawney portrait is also vivid like that to me, mmmmyes.
It's funny, because I'm actually obsessed with physical beauty, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone much more fixated on the pleasure to be found in the appearances of things. So I understand where the need to draw everything pretty comes from-- I draw everything as pretty as I can, myself, though I try not to. I just think that illustrating a character is something to take seriously in terms of the depiction of their personality as much as the technical aspect. Every picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Well, it -is-.
I think it's just that in my mind, Lucius is "The Terrible Father" archetype, and this almost Victorian-looking portrait really reminds me of that aesthetic. I don't mean 'terrible' as in ghastly, I mean as in formidable-- a towering force. To me, a parent like that is the stuff of childish nightmares, since I was something of a sensitive child, I think, and naturally exaggerated my own parents' terribleness. Even my rather loving mother became larger than life-- had a definite fearsome aspect. I can only imagine what it's like when your father -is- actually scary.
The painting reminds me of my childhood nightmares, I think, and of the fairy-tales I'd read where you had The Dark Father who punished the curious, adventurous child. You didn't really -know- The Father-- he was a huge, looming shadow and a vague memory of being bounced upon his knee next to a sunlit window when you were much younger. You looked up at him from your scrawny height and thought he was something other than human-- his severe, patrician features and his coldly set mouth and his stare that could pierce you through the heart and spread ice right down to your toes.
I think it's just that-- for me-- Lucius is very much a children's book character. He is most fascinating at his most inhuman, when one looks at him through Draco's terrified-yet-enthralled pov. He's quite a contrast to Mr. Dursley, who so many fic writers use as a simple plot device to terrorize Harry-- it seems to me that Mr. Dursley was easily overcome, especially by Harry. He's the one a child could trick because I'm pretty sure even at 7 years old Harry had more wits and spirit about him than Vernon Dursley knew how to deal with. So it's more than a bit ridiculous to have so many fics where he physically abuses Harry and Harry just -takes- it. If nothing else, I think Harry's magic would've flared if he was that terrified or angry.
Anyway, perhaps it's just that more people have parents like the Dursleys than like the Malfoys, so they write what's more familiar and easily understood or something. I have to admit, my own fantasies and fears ran more towards the Malfoy end of the spectrum: my parents were both indulgent and distant in different ways, and they were both rather powerful in my mind.
Looking atjereeza's Lucius from an adult pov, I just see a wretched, miserly man who's trapped in his own machinations-- a man who wears a veneer of disdain to cover up an inability to take any real joy in -anything-. I think what most people forget is that Lucius Malfoy is meant to be ugly. And I don't mean physically-- I mean this man's spirit is truly ugly. This isn't so much about bitterness (borne of anger & despair), even, as with Snape: I think this man is consumed with all-out hatred (borne of fear).
I don't mean to use 'ugliness' (or monstrousness) as a way to dehumanize him, really. Plenty of humans are like this-- they shrivelled up inside as they became ever more consumed with power as a means in itself. The more one craves control over others (especially those who cannot fight back as one's equals-- say, oh, Muggles), the more one tries to distance oneself from one's vulnerabilities. One cannot be controlling or cold without losing touch with one's inner child to the point where one forgets what it felt like in the first place. All one remembers is powerlessness, now replaced with power.
My bias is, of course, that I've always associated the need for control (over others) with moral degeneration. It's basically at the root of all degeneration of one's capacity for compassion (i.e., humanity) in general as far as I can tell. My idea of Lucius is almost completely centered around his use of those weaker than himself to gain power; therefore Lucius is rather antithetical to me.
I've always had this underlying horror of Harry/Lucius as a pairing partly because it makes me think of the sacrificial lamb. Harry is so needful of a good Father in his life, and Lucius is just the complete opposite. And I think Harry could 'take' him if you mean in a fight, but the idea of any sort of cohabitation makes me think of a pale, miserable 11-year old being shipped off to the awful dark Mansion in a long black limo, his wet face pressed to the car window as he's being driven away.
I think in the end, I myself am too much of a child, still, to tolerate the idea that this child could grow up and not escape. Growing up has to be about escape. This is what we're escaping! This man and everything he stands for. This is precisely the kind of adult that's the enemy of every child with any shred of creativity or imagination, I think. He mesmerizes me and repulses me and inspires me to write to exorcise that demon.
This picture keeps making me think of the kind of Mansion this portrait would fit on the wall of. It reminds me of Penelope's `Carnivorous House'. Wah.
jereeza's watercolor version of him and... *siiiiigh* Yes. Finally! Finally! Gah. I don't know where to begin. The short hair helps a lot, but it's really the expression-- this man is beautiful because he isn't pretty. Oh, how happy that makes me. Ahhh, the Trelawney portrait is also vivid like that to me, mmmmyes.
It's funny, because I'm actually obsessed with physical beauty, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone much more fixated on the pleasure to be found in the appearances of things. So I understand where the need to draw everything pretty comes from-- I draw everything as pretty as I can, myself, though I try not to. I just think that illustrating a character is something to take seriously in terms of the depiction of their personality as much as the technical aspect. Every picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Well, it -is-.
I think it's just that in my mind, Lucius is "The Terrible Father" archetype, and this almost Victorian-looking portrait really reminds me of that aesthetic. I don't mean 'terrible' as in ghastly, I mean as in formidable-- a towering force. To me, a parent like that is the stuff of childish nightmares, since I was something of a sensitive child, I think, and naturally exaggerated my own parents' terribleness. Even my rather loving mother became larger than life-- had a definite fearsome aspect. I can only imagine what it's like when your father -is- actually scary.
The painting reminds me of my childhood nightmares, I think, and of the fairy-tales I'd read where you had The Dark Father who punished the curious, adventurous child. You didn't really -know- The Father-- he was a huge, looming shadow and a vague memory of being bounced upon his knee next to a sunlit window when you were much younger. You looked up at him from your scrawny height and thought he was something other than human-- his severe, patrician features and his coldly set mouth and his stare that could pierce you through the heart and spread ice right down to your toes.
I think it's just that-- for me-- Lucius is very much a children's book character. He is most fascinating at his most inhuman, when one looks at him through Draco's terrified-yet-enthralled pov. He's quite a contrast to Mr. Dursley, who so many fic writers use as a simple plot device to terrorize Harry-- it seems to me that Mr. Dursley was easily overcome, especially by Harry. He's the one a child could trick because I'm pretty sure even at 7 years old Harry had more wits and spirit about him than Vernon Dursley knew how to deal with. So it's more than a bit ridiculous to have so many fics where he physically abuses Harry and Harry just -takes- it. If nothing else, I think Harry's magic would've flared if he was that terrified or angry.
Anyway, perhaps it's just that more people have parents like the Dursleys than like the Malfoys, so they write what's more familiar and easily understood or something. I have to admit, my own fantasies and fears ran more towards the Malfoy end of the spectrum: my parents were both indulgent and distant in different ways, and they were both rather powerful in my mind.
Looking at
jereeza's Lucius from an adult pov, I just see a wretched, miserly man who's trapped in his own machinations-- a man who wears a veneer of disdain to cover up an inability to take any real joy in -anything-. I think what most people forget is that Lucius Malfoy is meant to be ugly. And I don't mean physically-- I mean this man's spirit is truly ugly. This isn't so much about bitterness (borne of anger & despair), even, as with Snape: I think this man is consumed with all-out hatred (borne of fear).I don't mean to use 'ugliness' (or monstrousness) as a way to dehumanize him, really. Plenty of humans are like this-- they shrivelled up inside as they became ever more consumed with power as a means in itself. The more one craves control over others (especially those who cannot fight back as one's equals-- say, oh, Muggles), the more one tries to distance oneself from one's vulnerabilities. One cannot be controlling or cold without losing touch with one's inner child to the point where one forgets what it felt like in the first place. All one remembers is powerlessness, now replaced with power.
My bias is, of course, that I've always associated the need for control (over others) with moral degeneration. It's basically at the root of all degeneration of one's capacity for compassion (i.e., humanity) in general as far as I can tell. My idea of Lucius is almost completely centered around his use of those weaker than himself to gain power; therefore Lucius is rather antithetical to me.
I've always had this underlying horror of Harry/Lucius as a pairing partly because it makes me think of the sacrificial lamb. Harry is so needful of a good Father in his life, and Lucius is just the complete opposite. And I think Harry could 'take' him if you mean in a fight, but the idea of any sort of cohabitation makes me think of a pale, miserable 11-year old being shipped off to the awful dark Mansion in a long black limo, his wet face pressed to the car window as he's being driven away.
I think in the end, I myself am too much of a child, still, to tolerate the idea that this child could grow up and not escape. Growing up has to be about escape. This is what we're escaping! This man and everything he stands for. This is precisely the kind of adult that's the enemy of every child with any shred of creativity or imagination, I think. He mesmerizes me and repulses me and inspires me to write to exorcise that demon.
This picture keeps making me think of the kind of Mansion this portrait would fit on the wall of. It reminds me of Penelope's `Carnivorous House'. Wah.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 02:37 am (UTC)Heh. I don't think Harry is like this, either; but then I have a lower opinion of him than you do...
He's more like 'We're helping you out! Just as long as you align with us, don't question me, my friends, or ever offer a dissenting opinion!'
But that's just my interpretation.
Which makes me less Gryffindor than I could be, 'cause it's pretty Gryffindor-like to be judgemental & justice-oriented-- I'm more 'and it harm none' and stuff like that.
Heh, you write lots = you're a Ravenclaw, surely?
no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 02:50 am (UTC)Heheh it's weird thinking of him as some wannabe dictator o_0 He didn't even want to head the DA, man :>
Heheh. I'm Luna-ish, sure. But generally I'm a failure as a 'serious scholar'. People who know me appear to think I'm a Hufflepuff -.- I think I'm a hybrid, though like. No Slytherin in me :> Or very little.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 03:39 am (UTC)Really? Harry's incredibly rigid, imho.
He makes up his mind quickly based on how the person treats him/his friends; then they're ostracised.
Zacharias Smith questions him, he gets insulted and threatened by the twins, but more annoyingly he gets Harry's martyr act.
Seamus questions him (again back to family loyalty vs other loyalty - Sirius is a Good Person for questioning his family but Percy is a Bad Person for questioning *his.*
Marietta and Draco are Sheep, following their parents political views; whereas Ron, for example, following his dad's ideals or Harry, for that matter are somehow better people); and is cut off - look at who makes the first move to repair that friendship.
Or who makes the first move to repair any of Harry's friendships? It's usually not him!
Sometimes he changes his mind there, too.
Really? You're more of a Harry expert than me, can you remind me of when he's admitted he's wrong?
Heheh it's weird thinking of him as some wannabe dictator o_0 He didn't even want to head the DA, man :>
That is the exact question I seem to hashing out again and again with Harry fans, and to extend that general 'goodies'/Gryffindor fans (heh, you should chat to tinderblast, we have lovely long arguments ;) :
Can somebody be arrogant without knowing it?
Me and her are always at odds over this - she says that Harry isn't arrogant (at all? I dunno, I'm paraphrasing her, and badly at that ! :(
I say he is, or rather can be.
And then she says 'But Harry doesn't think of himself as arrogant!'
It's the same when we discuss his tactics for dealing with people - 'But Harry doesn't think of himself as a bully!'
And then I get ranty and say 'Oh well, then I guess he isn't! Because it isn't like James didn't think of himself as in the right. Or that Draco doesn't.'
That's exactly the worse kind of arrogance/bullying - thinking that what you're doing is right because you're doing it to someone who's 'bad'!
It's accepted that the 'baddies' do this - their views on Muggleborn folk reflecting this; but Dumbledore et al then go on to mimic it and it's okay, because after all, it doesn't matter as much whether a Lucius Malfoy is mistreated as it does when a Sirius Black is!
(Not that I'm a Lucius defender - I can see a bloody ending for him, and I have no qualms about it. I found it interesting in CoS, though, for example, his home is being raided by Aurors twelve years after he'd been acquitted of his crimes...)
Interestingly, I think the only bully in the books who seems to have absolutely no motivation is Dudley, but then he's a bit of a cardboard cut-out anyway (I look forward to JKR deepening him, as she said she would...)
People who know me appear to think I'm a Hufflepuff -.-
I like the Helga part of the song in OotP. Respect for the Hufflpuffs!
I think I'm a hybrid, though like.
I don't believe in House systems. But I suppose I'd be a Slytherclaw ;)
No Slytherin, though.
Ah, explains why we disagree! ;)
oh, and...
Date: 2004-07-17 04:12 am (UTC)He's changed his mind about Hermione after seeing her in a situation which showed she -was- vulnerable & she became more of a 'real person' to him, with the troll. He accepted Sirius after he was presented with overwhelming new evidence (and this was a man supposedly out to kill him). He questioned his father & his previously held beliefs after the Pensieve, to an extent (not completely, but he began to budge).
I don't think someone can truly be arrogant without knowing it, because arrogance implies belief-- a belief about oneself as superior or 'above' others. I don't think Harry has that belief, if anything because he doesn't really want that power-- he's not that much of a social person.
I don't think there's any evidence Harry 'acts' a certain way to manipulate anyone's emotions (get pity, as with a 'martyr act')-- he just has a hard time understanding how he's seen from the outside; a lot of people do. He's not one for consulting people or working to convince them-- he just likes to do things as soon as he thinks of them, whether or not others follow is up to them. Emotionally solipsistic, yes; martyr-like, not really.
He had a childhood without any real friends, so he's pretty inexperienced with people, too. In his experience, people don't care what his opinion of them is, anyway. He fights the people that oppress him 'cause if he didn't, in his experience he'd be walked all over. He doesn't pick fights with people who don't provoke him, but he does defend himself-- that's how he's been able to survive, I think.
Regardless, yeah, there are different kinds of arrogance, and virtually every character in HP has it in one way or another-- Dumbledore, Snape, Draco, Hermione, the Weasley twins, Lucius, even Luna-- all more than Harry-- or say, Neville or Ron. Believing you are right and going with your gut is a sort of arrogance, but if it is, I also possess it in a large enough degree that people accuse me of it :>
I'm not saying Harry's -right- for what he does to Malfoy (hexing, etc). They just have different ways of responding to each other, but Malfoy provokes him first-- he taunts and makes fun and tries to get Harry in trouble and generally is a pain in the ass. Harry isn't the verbal sort, so he 'gets back' at Malfoy like any boy would. Harry isn't 'nice', but neither is Malfoy. They're both impulsive, angry, emotional boys-- but Harry isn't using undue force (i.e., he's not 100 times stronger -- or even twice stronger-- than Draco).
So, he's not 'right', but neither is Malfoy-- and they're both boys. Harry isn't assuming any kind of god-given right to be a stupid teenager-- he just -is-. Any approval is given to him by fans, not implied by the fact of his behavior alone.
Harry doesn't -think-, period. He doesn't -think- he's right, he just -acts-. Draco thinks he's right because his father says this-and-this-- Harry just -does- things. Harry isn't a 'goodie'-- he's just a boy.
A lot of boys bully 'cause they can-- it's a fast & easy way to feel superior & good about yourself. It's often seen as fun to dominate and manipulate and abuse those weaker than oneself, for some people, I think.