The self, methinks, is all you can ever change. Like... to me, Draco is not the Other... maybe that's just how I write though, because I never write about the Other-- I always write about the Self and then from its point of view, the others it perceives. There's something to the idea that one doesn't want to change one's favorites, but that bothers me. While I don't want to change Harry, I admit Harry should grow up-- it's like, he's doing that in canon anyway. I like people as they are and want them to change in a positive way, both-- that's the non-duality.
As long as the 'change' isn't merely intended to make the person more palatable to whoever else, it's fine. If you want to change someone so they'd 'fit' someone else better or interact with them better, that's when you run into problems. First of all, all attempts to change the other person in a relationship inevitably fail. Sometimes people change and sometimes they don't, but it seems unrelated to what (romantic) relationship they're in, at least in the short-term.
It just seems like an axiom to me that all change has to come from inside oneself-- and as a writer, it follows that a character's changed trajectory has to be seen from the 'inside', so to speak, in order to be effective, otherwise you risk falling into the trap of demanding various things to please or serve the Self's ego. It's this very word-- the Other-- that implies a Self as a starting point of view to me. And if the Self is Draco, then any attempt to change Harry from that standpoint will inevitably fail.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-01-05 04:35 pm (UTC)As long as the 'change' isn't merely intended to make the person more palatable to whoever else, it's fine. If you want to change someone so they'd 'fit' someone else better or interact with them better, that's when you run into problems. First of all, all attempts to change the other person in a relationship inevitably fail. Sometimes people change and sometimes they don't, but it seems unrelated to what (romantic) relationship they're in, at least in the short-term.
It just seems like an axiom to me that all change has to come from inside oneself-- and as a writer, it follows that a character's changed trajectory has to be seen from the 'inside', so to speak, in order to be effective, otherwise you risk falling into the trap of demanding various things to please or serve the Self's ego. It's this very word-- the Other-- that implies a Self as a starting point of view to me. And if the Self is Draco, then any attempt to change Harry from that standpoint will inevitably fail.