Redeeming Draco
Oct. 1st, 2003 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserHaving read two Draco/Harry stories this week, I've been thinking a lot about him. I love Snape/Harry stories, so you'd think that Draco/Harry would work for me as well, but that's not the case at all.
Unfortunately, as often happens with JKR's handling of the characters, canon Draco is very flat. He's just a bully (and a pretty poor one at that). If I may be crass for a moment, canon Draco seems to be seriously lacking in balls. He's not evil by choice (if he can be called 'evil' at all), he hasn't made the decision to be bad, he's just being a "good" little boy and following in the family's footsteps.
Boooring.
For me, "redeeming" Draco isn't a possibility because he's not all that bad to begin with. He's on the path to becoming a DE because he lacks a backbone. If he killed his father (or some other DE) to get higher rank within the group, then I'd buy that he was doing it actively and on his own, but I seriously doubt that'll ever happen.
Snape, on the other hand, must have truly been bad in his younger days. As a DE, he must have killed people, and with his position it makes sense that he likely made potions so that others could kill and torture as well. Even after he became a spy for Dumbledore, even after he became one of the "good guys", he had a lot to make up for. I love fics that set his feet on the road to redemption. (Though I also like stories where he's working for LV as a double-agent, stories where he doesn't *want* to be redeemed, and others.)
While Draco is a pretty boy, that's not enough to make me jump on a Draco/* ship.
Unfortunately, as often happens with JKR's handling of the characters, canon Draco is very flat. He's just a bully (and a pretty poor one at that). If I may be crass for a moment, canon Draco seems to be seriously lacking in balls. He's not evil by choice (if he can be called 'evil' at all), he hasn't made the decision to be bad, he's just being a "good" little boy and following in the family's footsteps.
Boooring.
For me, "redeeming" Draco isn't a possibility because he's not all that bad to begin with. He's on the path to becoming a DE because he lacks a backbone. If he killed his father (or some other DE) to get higher rank within the group, then I'd buy that he was doing it actively and on his own, but I seriously doubt that'll ever happen.
Snape, on the other hand, must have truly been bad in his younger days. As a DE, he must have killed people, and with his position it makes sense that he likely made potions so that others could kill and torture as well. Even after he became a spy for Dumbledore, even after he became one of the "good guys", he had a lot to make up for. I love fics that set his feet on the road to redemption. (Though I also like stories where he's working for LV as a double-agent, stories where he doesn't *want* to be redeemed, and others.)
While Draco is a pretty boy, that's not enough to make me jump on a Draco/* ship.
