Very interesting character study indeed, it's obvious you've given this a lot of thought and put in a considerable amount of work for research. :) Personally, I'm not a big fan of the "book" Draco - I happen to think he was given an extra-quality by Tom Felton's interpretation in the movies - but I agree that there are certainly a lot of facts that explain (though not exactly excuse or justify) his behaviour. We start out primarily as what we're made of by our genes, life experiences and circumstances - and then come our choices, mostly after our individuality develops and sets us on a different track that we were supposed to take (at least according to the milieu we grew up in). I think in this space between is where the enigma of Draco Malfoy lies. He's clearly more complex that the books entail - and however we turn the HP series, they are children's books and some important aspects of adults' lives never get discussed in them (the preferred topic of fandom, sex, being just one of those ;)), even though they mark the period of growing up considerably. I think if it could be guaranteed that the 11-year-olds would only read the first book and wouldn't read the second until they were 12 and so on until they were 17 - the books could have been a lot different.:) In my opinion there is simply not enough known about Draco's motivation for some of his later choices to make an educated guess whether he was going to turn out a good man or not. Him stalling and not willing to identify Harry for who he was could be interpreted as an act of limited repentenance, or simply a very calculated decision not to pick sides - Potter is one resilient bloke, he's always found a way to be victorious so far - what if he finds a way to win this? From this perspective Draco could be what we percieve to be the ultimate Slytherin: playing both sides, more a son of his clearly cunning mother than his openly hostile (one could argue even deluded) father. Or again - it could be some sort of rebellious teenage embarrassment that he's being pushed about in full view of his ex-schoolmates who clearly took their destiny into their own hands (I worked in the youth centre for a while, teens have the most bizarre motivations for their behaviour). The fact remains that this story is not focused upon Draco, so there's simply no way to tell for certain. I think what Rowling meant with that "not a nice man" referred more to personality than it did to the age of the person in question: clearly Draco is not a fully grown adult, but he has certain traits that indicate however unproblematic he would be in the post-war new world order, he's never going to be a completely pleasant man - for one, he enjoys actively humiliating and pestering people he perceives as "less" a little too much. But this is not to say, he is without redeeming qualities - his love for his family definitely makes the list. Anyway - I don't even know why I started this blabbing, I guess I just wanted to point out you've done a good job of it and then, like usual, my thoughts just poured out like dirty flood. Sorry about that. :)
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Date: 2014-11-26 12:35 pm (UTC)Personally, I'm not a big fan of the "book" Draco - I happen to think he was given an extra-quality by Tom Felton's interpretation in the movies - but I agree that there are certainly a lot of facts that explain (though not exactly excuse or justify) his behaviour. We start out primarily as what we're made of by our genes, life experiences and circumstances - and then come our choices, mostly after our individuality develops and sets us on a different track that we were supposed to take (at least according to the milieu we grew up in). I think in this space between is where the enigma of Draco Malfoy lies.
He's clearly more complex that the books entail - and however we turn the HP series, they are children's books and some important aspects of adults' lives never get discussed in them (the preferred topic of fandom, sex, being just one of those ;)), even though they mark the period of growing up considerably. I think if it could be guaranteed that the 11-year-olds would only read the first book and wouldn't read the second until they were 12 and so on until they were 17 - the books could have been a lot different.:)
In my opinion there is simply not enough known about Draco's motivation for some of his later choices to make an educated guess whether he was going to turn out a good man or not. Him stalling and not willing to identify Harry for who he was could be interpreted as an act of limited repentenance, or simply a very calculated decision not to pick sides - Potter is one resilient bloke, he's always found a way to be victorious so far - what if he finds a way to win this? From this perspective Draco could be what we percieve to be the ultimate Slytherin: playing both sides, more a son of his clearly cunning mother than his openly hostile (one could argue even deluded) father. Or again - it could be some sort of rebellious teenage embarrassment that he's being pushed about in full view of his ex-schoolmates who clearly took their destiny into their own hands (I worked in the youth centre for a while, teens have the most bizarre motivations for their behaviour). The fact remains that this story is not focused upon Draco, so there's simply no way to tell for certain.
I think what Rowling meant with that "not a nice man" referred more to personality than it did to the age of the person in question: clearly Draco is not a fully grown adult, but he has certain traits that indicate however unproblematic he would be in the post-war new world order, he's never going to be a completely pleasant man - for one, he enjoys actively humiliating and pestering people he perceives as "less" a little too much. But this is not to say, he is without redeeming qualities - his love for his family definitely makes the list.
Anyway - I don't even know why I started this blabbing, I guess I just wanted to point out you've done a good job of it and then, like usual, my thoughts just poured out like dirty flood. Sorry about that. :)