[a smirk that quivers]
Sep. 16th, 2006 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaYou know, my knee-jerk reaction to the canon!Draco = a charming, dominating leader type interpretation is either extreme headdesking frustration or eye-rolling, but then I just thought-- you know-- everyone generally admits that canon!Draco = pathetic (whether or not you also focus on other qualities and/or think it's cute). Back in '02 or whatever, when I just got into HP, I remember reading that influential Draco Malfoy Is Ever So Lame essay and thinking 'oh yeah! wow!' and never stopping to doubt it again.
So maybe it's only natural that the bigger the fandom grows, the more we get into... shall we say, 'alternative' or minority responses to canon :>
In a way, reading a long and elaborate explanation why every single thing he did (and by 'he', we don't mean fanon!Draco for once) was not, in fact, at all pathetic or lame [& was sekritly uber-cool] just strikes me as... almost refreshing. Almost. I mean, wow.
The thing about that interpretation, basically, is that it sort of flips the Harry-bias of the books-- it's really sort of how (an unsympathetic) Draco pov would go, probably, with Draco having a surface rationalization for every obsessive over-the-top whiny moment he ever had :> As a fan, if you like 'bad-boy!Draco', of course you'd focus on this sort of defiant claiming of his 'justifications', because to admit he's pathetic is just a lot more damaging to self-righteous excuse-making than to admit he's a bad, BAD boy (which... I mean, he isn't, really, and I find it pretty hilarious when people say so... and perhaps it's also more damaging to redeemed!Draco fans of a certain sort as well). And this sort of parallels the mostly pre-OoTP rationalizations of Draco in the other direction, where he's all Redeemable and Secretly Good and Misunderstood, though that was mostly fanfic [although I think fanon trends could be used as meta if prevalent enough].
I also think it's interesting, though, that this reading of 'power!Draco' did exist pre-OoTP also, just as it wasn't destroyed by the radical shifts in HBP. To quote Elkins,
In a discussion of the so-called "train stomp" (the scene on the train at the end of _GoF_), for example, someone (UncMark, I believe?) expressed the belief that the Gryffindors' use of force there seemed justified because within the context of that scene, Draco's words could be read as a "death threat." Similarly, I have seen people argue for Draco's gloat at the QWC as a veiled rape threat against Hermione, his wishing Hermione dead in _CoS_ as proof that he is surely capable of becoming a killer, and his attempt to sabotage Harry's Quidditch match by dressing up as a dementor in _PoA_ as "attempted murder."
I think that sort of reasoning is similar to saying Draco's 'got a plan' in any situation where he looks foolish/obsessive-- I mean, if Draco really knows what he's doing (even as an eleven-year old) then either you cheer for him or you condemn him, but you certainly don't feel sorry for him or not take him seriously (which does strike me as things Draco himself wouldn't want you to do... like, he'd be okay with not being taken seriously only when & where & by whom he chooses).
This relates interestingly to my personal progression of how I see & write Draco, 'cause my old Draco muse certainly has quite a bit of pride & isn't pathetic except in his hate/love for Potter thing. I don't think I've written him sympathetically so much as angrily & snarkily-- like, I think I wrote him as a mixture of my personal beating bag & sexily tortured romantic protagonist. Possibly this is why I've always hated 'soft' or over-sympathetic/white-washed & prettified fanon!Draco even before I had much of a stake in his canonicity, per se. I'd gotten interested in his character [from fanon] not because I thought he was 'bad+cunning&smrt' or 'nice/good+cunning&smrt' but because he was needy, humiliated, furious, conflicted, doomed-- passionate (ahhh, angsty!Draco... my first & best fandom love). And, well, you know, semi-lame desperate (even if in a cute way) pathos isn't typically sexy. It's just too easy to give him good lines all the time; I mean, he wears them so well. I think I needed to stop objectifying him completely in my writing because I was okay with him being lame but still a dramatic antagonist/protagonist [depending].
So yeah. It just struck me that the reason I had such a deep sense of frustration and yet an almost horrified fascination about that debate thread I linked is related to this quote of Elkins': "Even Draco at his best is still weak Draco."
The idea that in order to like him you have to always see him in the best light & downplay Harry's achievements-- it appals me. If he doesn't get to be a funny little dork even with his impersonations, doesn't get his progression from smug in PS to frustrated humiliation at the end, being a drawling ineffectual little freak in CoS & PoA and going to a bluffing jeering fool in GoF, full of bravado and discontent, to almost-there with Umbridge and then plunging so deeply into loss and fear at the end of fifth book.... If he's denied his long canon journey, everything it took to get him from that 'weak Draco' in year one to a tougher, more determined, more streamlined & raw 'weak Draco' in year six-- a boy stripped bare and tested-- denying all that and giving him a constant glow of surface power-- that just seems so SAD. I mean, you can focus on how he's always 'bounced back' from being humiliated at the end of every book but HBP, and it's important not to see Draco as some sort of Poor Little Lamb, but I think that you can also see it as a precarious sort of denial of his situation that cracks in HBP and shows that he doesn't have a very solid foundation. He has something though; like the feral sort of hissing viciousness of a cornered ferret, perhaps. You know, I think it's pretty interesting Draco's biggest 'triumph' in HBP came of letting go of his pride & delusions of big-bad-predatordom & just trying to get things done quietly, the back-door way, like a ferret scrounging for food in a back alley (though now I'm just being fanciful). :>
I mean, he's still the same old 'weak Draco' in HBP that he was in book 1, and yet he's totally different. Even his strengths are weaknesses, and yet not quite. I'm just thinking about it, about HBP, and I think there is a sort of bluffy quivering strength he has in discovering how far he's willing to go. In facing reality & the consequences of his actions. Letting go of his surface attractions, right-- the joking around, being at the center of attention, being able to rival Harry at Quidditch, being with his 'gang' of Slytherins-- being alone & quiet and almost not-himself in HBP, I think he finally became more Draco somehow.
His strengths aren't his father's, though he tries-- he tries to do the right things in the right ways, but mostly he fails to be brilliantly witty & best at every subject & the center of everyone's admiring attention. I think it's so interesting, then, in retrospect, that it's in this stripped down state that Harry pays more attention to him, in HBP. Er, I don't mean that in a slashy way-- of course Malfoy's acting 'different' so it's suspicious to Harry's somewhat paranoid-obsessive mind-- but I still think you could say that even if his strengths are his weaknesses, maybe his weaknesses can be his strengths.
~~
PS: For some reason I think this needs a disclaimer :/
Due to various fandom association things, I feel... uh... uncomfortable with calling myself or being accidentally perceived as a Draco fan [or a Harry fan or a Ron fan... well, fine, I'm a Ron fan]. Especially 'cause there's this connotation that Draco fans would be biased in that direction (and would be more likely to like 'Draco slash' or 'Draco fics' or have a 'Draco slant' on canon or whatever). All of that is completely alien to me & I'm not like that at all. That's actually the attitude that drives me crazy the most in fandom & as an H/D shipper. :/ I mean, I understand liking a character rather than a pairing (OTC rather than OTP, whatever), but having that mean that you skew everything to fit that character's needs/desires/perceptions turns me off the character, the pairing -and- the canon, so. (Yeah, the Harry-tilt in the books used to seriously annoy me for similar reasons until I learned to relax and just go with the Harrylove.)
Most Draco-slash pairings besides H/D [...and when I say 'most' I mean ALL, okay] make me vaguely nauseous, though Draco het [mostly Draco/Pansy with D/Hr & D/G in abstract theory] is theoretically cute [possibly because my Draco muse is so homoromantic & biplatonic bisexual]. I don't wanna lock this so only people who know I'm twitchy would read it; that seems excessive somehow, so.... My point is, I like Draco but not 'a Draco slant', which I think is actually what I'd tried to say with this whole post :/
So maybe it's only natural that the bigger the fandom grows, the more we get into... shall we say, 'alternative' or minority responses to canon :>
In a way, reading a long and elaborate explanation why every single thing he did (and by 'he', we don't mean fanon!Draco for once) was not, in fact, at all pathetic or lame [& was sekritly uber-cool] just strikes me as... almost refreshing. Almost. I mean, wow.
The thing about that interpretation, basically, is that it sort of flips the Harry-bias of the books-- it's really sort of how (an unsympathetic) Draco pov would go, probably, with Draco having a surface rationalization for every obsessive over-the-top whiny moment he ever had :> As a fan, if you like 'bad-boy!Draco', of course you'd focus on this sort of defiant claiming of his 'justifications', because to admit he's pathetic is just a lot more damaging to self-righteous excuse-making than to admit he's a bad, BAD boy (which... I mean, he isn't, really, and I find it pretty hilarious when people say so... and perhaps it's also more damaging to redeemed!Draco fans of a certain sort as well). And this sort of parallels the mostly pre-OoTP rationalizations of Draco in the other direction, where he's all Redeemable and Secretly Good and Misunderstood, though that was mostly fanfic [although I think fanon trends could be used as meta if prevalent enough].
I also think it's interesting, though, that this reading of 'power!Draco' did exist pre-OoTP also, just as it wasn't destroyed by the radical shifts in HBP. To quote Elkins,
In a discussion of the so-called "train stomp" (the scene on the train at the end of _GoF_), for example, someone (UncMark, I believe?) expressed the belief that the Gryffindors' use of force there seemed justified because within the context of that scene, Draco's words could be read as a "death threat." Similarly, I have seen people argue for Draco's gloat at the QWC as a veiled rape threat against Hermione, his wishing Hermione dead in _CoS_ as proof that he is surely capable of becoming a killer, and his attempt to sabotage Harry's Quidditch match by dressing up as a dementor in _PoA_ as "attempted murder."
I think that sort of reasoning is similar to saying Draco's 'got a plan' in any situation where he looks foolish/obsessive-- I mean, if Draco really knows what he's doing (even as an eleven-year old) then either you cheer for him or you condemn him, but you certainly don't feel sorry for him or not take him seriously (which does strike me as things Draco himself wouldn't want you to do... like, he'd be okay with not being taken seriously only when & where & by whom he chooses).
This relates interestingly to my personal progression of how I see & write Draco, 'cause my old Draco muse certainly has quite a bit of pride & isn't pathetic except in his hate/love for Potter thing. I don't think I've written him sympathetically so much as angrily & snarkily-- like, I think I wrote him as a mixture of my personal beating bag & sexily tortured romantic protagonist. Possibly this is why I've always hated 'soft' or over-sympathetic/white-washed & prettified fanon!Draco even before I had much of a stake in his canonicity, per se. I'd gotten interested in his character [from fanon] not because I thought he was 'bad+cunning&smrt' or 'nice/good+cunning&smrt' but because he was needy, humiliated, furious, conflicted, doomed-- passionate (ahhh, angsty!Draco... my first & best fandom love). And, well, you know, semi-lame desperate (even if in a cute way) pathos isn't typically sexy. It's just too easy to give him good lines all the time; I mean, he wears them so well. I think I needed to stop objectifying him completely in my writing because I was okay with him being lame but still a dramatic antagonist/protagonist [depending].
So yeah. It just struck me that the reason I had such a deep sense of frustration and yet an almost horrified fascination about that debate thread I linked is related to this quote of Elkins': "Even Draco at his best is still weak Draco."
The idea that in order to like him you have to always see him in the best light & downplay Harry's achievements-- it appals me. If he doesn't get to be a funny little dork even with his impersonations, doesn't get his progression from smug in PS to frustrated humiliation at the end, being a drawling ineffectual little freak in CoS & PoA and going to a bluffing jeering fool in GoF, full of bravado and discontent, to almost-there with Umbridge and then plunging so deeply into loss and fear at the end of fifth book.... If he's denied his long canon journey, everything it took to get him from that 'weak Draco' in year one to a tougher, more determined, more streamlined & raw 'weak Draco' in year six-- a boy stripped bare and tested-- denying all that and giving him a constant glow of surface power-- that just seems so SAD. I mean, you can focus on how he's always 'bounced back' from being humiliated at the end of every book but HBP, and it's important not to see Draco as some sort of Poor Little Lamb, but I think that you can also see it as a precarious sort of denial of his situation that cracks in HBP and shows that he doesn't have a very solid foundation. He has something though; like the feral sort of hissing viciousness of a cornered ferret, perhaps. You know, I think it's pretty interesting Draco's biggest 'triumph' in HBP came of letting go of his pride & delusions of big-bad-predatordom & just trying to get things done quietly, the back-door way, like a ferret scrounging for food in a back alley (though now I'm just being fanciful). :>
I mean, he's still the same old 'weak Draco' in HBP that he was in book 1, and yet he's totally different. Even his strengths are weaknesses, and yet not quite. I'm just thinking about it, about HBP, and I think there is a sort of bluffy quivering strength he has in discovering how far he's willing to go. In facing reality & the consequences of his actions. Letting go of his surface attractions, right-- the joking around, being at the center of attention, being able to rival Harry at Quidditch, being with his 'gang' of Slytherins-- being alone & quiet and almost not-himself in HBP, I think he finally became more Draco somehow.
His strengths aren't his father's, though he tries-- he tries to do the right things in the right ways, but mostly he fails to be brilliantly witty & best at every subject & the center of everyone's admiring attention. I think it's so interesting, then, in retrospect, that it's in this stripped down state that Harry pays more attention to him, in HBP. Er, I don't mean that in a slashy way-- of course Malfoy's acting 'different' so it's suspicious to Harry's somewhat paranoid-obsessive mind-- but I still think you could say that even if his strengths are his weaknesses, maybe his weaknesses can be his strengths.
~~
PS: For some reason I think this needs a disclaimer :/
Due to various fandom association things, I feel... uh... uncomfortable with calling myself or being accidentally perceived as a Draco fan [or a Harry fan or a Ron fan... well, fine, I'm a Ron fan]. Especially 'cause there's this connotation that Draco fans would be biased in that direction (and would be more likely to like 'Draco slash' or 'Draco fics' or have a 'Draco slant' on canon or whatever). All of that is completely alien to me & I'm not like that at all. That's actually the attitude that drives me crazy the most in fandom & as an H/D shipper. :/ I mean, I understand liking a character rather than a pairing (OTC rather than OTP, whatever), but having that mean that you skew everything to fit that character's needs/desires/perceptions turns me off the character, the pairing -and- the canon, so. (Yeah, the Harry-tilt in the books used to seriously annoy me for similar reasons until I learned to relax and just go with the Harrylove.)
Most Draco-slash pairings besides H/D [...and when I say 'most' I mean ALL, okay] make me vaguely nauseous, though Draco het [mostly Draco/Pansy with D/Hr & D/G in abstract theory] is theoretically cute [possibly because my Draco muse is so homoromantic & biplatonic bisexual]. I don't wanna lock this so only people who know I'm twitchy would read it; that seems excessive somehow, so.... My point is, I like Draco but not 'a Draco slant', which I think is actually what I'd tried to say with this whole post :/
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-16 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-16 08:04 pm (UTC)I don't think pride/willfulness is the same thing as romanticization, though there's a related axis there. Heroes generally have an ideal or a cause-- in that sense, they romanticize themselves because their motivators are bigger than life. Draco just remains rooted in a sort of frantic, mundane selfishness. I think I'm always tempted to write his POV not to write a Draco-slant fic (ugh) but because I think you can understand him best on his own terms-- that's his natural domain, or something.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-16 09:45 pm (UTC)The thing about those kinds of conversations you linked to is I feel like both sides wind up distorting the characters because they just weren't created to be a top/bottom, you know? Like, I think it's silly to suggest the Quidditch fight in OotP was a plan Draco had to get Harry kicked off the team (I find it kind of funny that often the same people who claim that--not in that thread linked, but often-and who claim Draco planned to get slashed in PoA to get Hagrid fired are often also the ones to call him a coward because he runs from danger). But it also drives me crazy to hear the OotP fight shown as some sign that Draco can't fight and is a sissy--forgetting that the OotP fight is not a Harry/Draco fight, it's Harry and George vs. Draco. It's a beat down, not a fight. PS/SS is a fight, and Draco and Ron are even, normal kids. That conversation, imo, just gets way too into cutting down the one character and building up the other. Or pretending only one character is interested in the other while the other one is just above all that.
The thing about weak!Draco in HBP is I think we have to remember that the character's now for sure, as Elkins' called years ago, fundamentally conflicted and that's part of his weakness. He's never been this big bad character that some people see, because what he's trying to be is fundamentally not who he is. Not in the way a lot of fanfic does it where he's really good and pretending to be bad, but just that he's got the personality he's got, which has some good things and some bad. He's got some strengths that Harry does not have, and Harry has some strengths that he does not have. It's just it's only in HBP that he's in a situation to really test himself, and he actually does fine. He gets to where he can think about what he thinks the best thing to do is.
And yeah, it wouldn't be as compelling if he wasn't Draco with all his flaws, non-superhero Draco, Draco of the bad ideas. But I think the story still stands on its own as a boy with a certain belief system and certain things that are important to him, and certain skills learning about life. The good thing about it for H/D, imo, is that he's really, imo, and equal to Harry as a character now. He's not the main character or anything, but it seems like if you're writing them you have to have these two totally different people coming together. It just can't any longer be about what it always before, Draco in relation to Harry, you know?
You know, maybe I haven't rambled enough about this and I must do a post...:-)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-16 11:59 pm (UTC)So yeah, I totally agree that people end up distorting them whenever they try to confuse/conflate any sort of win/lose scenarios with relationship dynamics. It's the wrong axis entirely, and makes me feel like people overall like a character to top or bottom to prove something or as some sort of statement of what's cool about the character. It really hurts my head... though it hurts my head more if it involves super-cool top!Draco [because he's too good for Potter!] or super-cool bottom!Harry [because Hawwy needs LUV]. Arg.
I definitely get driven crazy when H/D fans like to harp on either Harry or Draco being The Obsessed One-- with the explosion of Harry The Obsessed One post-HBP which came really close to turning me off H/D permanently. I think they're actually obsessed with each other in different ways/for different reasons (like, Draco's the one who wants-attention-and-validation-omg & that's totally not Harry! but Harry's paranoid and projective and sort of weirdly jealous and defensive/resentful in a more introverted sulky way). When people go on about how Harry's Draco's love-slave and is totally smitten, I'm like SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP OR I'M NEVER READING OR WRITING H/D AGAIN. :O! Of course, Draco has other things occupying him too-- or he'd be pretty boring/one-dimensional, wouldn't he? I mean, all that conflictedness & internal angst is something I could always feel was there, and it's never been related to Harry so much as set off by Harry in a very strong way. I liked H/D because it set them both off where it hurts, y'know, which means that both Harry & Draco are internally conflicted characters that intersect each other in their long-running internal conflicts & tensions :>
I never thought you could write H/D without Draco as an equal anyway-- before you would've had to write book 6 yourself, basically-- though now Draco's still only half-there-- I mean, he hasn't transformed/grown enough for Harry to see him as an equal, but then Harry has to grow also. It depends on what you mean with 'equal as a character'; certainly in terms of visible conflict/complexity (...well, relatively-- considering just how much we know of Harry's issues, I don't think Draco or anyone else can fully match by definition). But they -are- 'totally different people coming together' & they always were-- the lack of fandom appreciation for this (with one or the other being glorified as the other went around starry-eyed and near-orgasmic) always drove me crazy. Neither of them should be all smitten-to-the-point-of-swooning & being wrapped around the other's little finger, that's like... the point. Anyway, now that it's not Draco-in-relation-to-Harry, it's Harry-in-relation-to-Draco, which pisses me off even more but... this is the nature of fandom :/ Having to write better H/D in response to deeper canon? Shyeah, right. :>
Anyway, umm, you should definitely write more! :> One of the reasons I don't wanna be seen as a Draco fan is that I constantly feel 'I'm not like them! arg, no!' but you're the one that's always made me question my isolationist ways 'cause the way you see Draco makes me love him more. <3.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-17 12:16 am (UTC)Right--and with everything else. I mean, even with the equal thing it's like...equal in what way? They're both weird and if they had a relationship it would be weird too. But they wouldn't necessarily have one where one person was dominant in every way. Some people do have relationships like that--and there was some H/D pre-HBP that played with that dynamic and made it work. I admit then it did seem a lot more canonical to me to have Harry be the dominant one. Fics where Harry was submissive were always the more fanon ones, imo, because it just required a lot more information and changes, you know? Or maybe because the dynamic in the books couldn't help but be that then because you had Harry, the main character, and Draco one of many supporting characters who was important when he made Harry react to him. You just didn't get that much of a life for Draco on his own.
I guess I just kind of love the way it all breaks down whenever people try to categorize them like with Harry being more accomodating to his friends--or, imo, with Draco being bullying to everyone. It's like neither of them are the things that fandom has been calling "in character" for years. It's not that Draco's really the dom and Harry the sub, or Harry's really the bad guy and Draco the good guy. It's just both their characters, even Draco's, are very specific and unique to themselves. Every time you try to say, "Harry's the X one" you can find canon that says no he isn't. And the same with Draco, which is even more amazing. How long can you do, "He's the coward," when he had that story in HBP? And that has to sort of throw a light on everything before that. Not making him really brave, but making this new information fit the character.
Heh--the thing I started to write seems to be making no sense so far but I'll try!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-17 12:44 am (UTC)But yeah, I'm totally with you on the frustration with fandom's love for pigeonholing & need to define&judge, define&judge (and project). I think that's where a lot of misreadings of canon come from-- it's like people don't read everything because their minds automatically jump ahead and fill in what they -expect- to be there, to the point where they'll often be convinced that's what -is- there because isn't it what's -always- there? If you know what I mean :> Uniqueness, while making them more interesting, would also lessen their identification/idealization value (I think), so people gloss over it & see the pattern instead. That gap between 'this is who they are' vs. 'this is who I want them to be' is like, the fan's ultimate downfall no matter what the fandom situation, just 'cause identification/projection is probably one of the cornerstones of fannishness itself-- which is actually why I refuse to associate with the 'Draco fan' or 'Harry fan' meme, y'know? I don't project/identify/fixate on him as my canon-lens (through which to judge canon) & that's just the overwhelming way people are fans of any character in any fandom :/
Also: when you don't make sense, you still make a lot more sense than me when I do make sense, you know! :P