this is really true like jkr is amazing at worldbuilding but i’m not really sure if she gets that when you describe a man as “greasy” “hook-nosed” “yellow toothed” “sallow” and a PLETHORA of other really just horrible things, a lot of ur readers (who are CHILDREN) are probably not going to like that character?? at all? the twist with snape at the end was interesting and enlightening and really great because we see that this character who harry always viewed as evil was actually okay and he did the right thing for the wrong reasons and sure, whatever. that’s fine and i get it. authorial intent and all that.
but to then go on to just completely dismiss draco malfoy - a character who is canonically written as morally grey - eleven and going off to school and looking for a friend, thirteen and a bully, fifteen and prejudiced, seventeen and scared, and alone, and lost, and crying to a ghost in the girl’s bathroom - that’s what i take issue with. draco is constantly evolving as a character, yet jk rowling continues to demean his fans. she believes that anyone who likes draco must just be a teenage girl with a bad boy fetish, some pathetic child with posters of tom felton hanging up in her room, because why else would anyone like this character?
LIKE, SHE’S LITERALLY THE ONE WHO WROTE HIM. LIKE. HOW THE HELL DO U WRITE THIS:
“I mean he’s sensitive, people bully him too, and he feels lonely and hasn’t got anybody to talk to, and he’s not afraid to show his feelings and cry!”
AND THIS:
“No one can help me,” said Malfoy. His whole body was shaking. “I can’t do it… . I can’t… . It won’t work … and unless I do it soon … he says he’ll kill me… .” And Harry realized, with a shock so huge it seemed to root him to the spot, that Malfoy was crying — actually crying — tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin. Malfoy gasped and gulped and then, with a great shudder, looked up into the cracked mirror and saw Harry staring at him over his shoulder.
ESPECIALLY HERE:
“I haven’t got any options!” said Malfoy, and he was suddenly white as Dumbledore. “I’ve got to do it! He’ll kill me! He’ll kill my whole family!”
AND HERE:
“Now, Draco, quickly!” said the brutal-faced man angrily. But Malfoy’s hand was shaking so badly that he could barely aim.
and then be mad when people sympathize with him? it’s so ridiculous to me, it’s actually laughable, i don’t understand how an author can write a sympathetic character and then just
????????????????????????
okay but like i don’t remember exactly where it is but there was a scene in one of the last two books where it even said that harry pitied malfoy. that all he even felt for him by that point was pity. so the main protagonist can feel bad for this guy but we can’t?? i mean the hero is the person you want us to be like, right jkr? u sayin we should be completely hard-hearted to this poor boy when ur own golden child isn’t? and i mean look at this scene in dh:
‘Draco, give Rowle another taste of our displeasure… do it, or feel my wrath yourself!’
A log fell into the fire: flames reared, their light darting across a terrified, pointed white face -
…
Malfoy’s gaunt, petrified face seemed branded on the inside of [Harry’s] eyes. Harry felt sickened by what he had seen, by the use to which Draco was now being put by Voldemort.
i mean this kid, this teenage boy was forced to TORTURE people for voldemort. which even oblivious, biased harry clearly saw the horror of. draco had to do this on threat of his and his family’s death. do you know how traumatizing that must have been?? THIS KID WENT THROUGH SO MUCH. HE WAS USED AS AN INSTRUMENT OF PAIN FOR A TYRANT. HE WAS FORCED AGAINST HIS WILL TO DO THINGS THAT HE CANONICALLY REALIZED WERE WRONG BY NOW. IT WAS NOT HIS FAULT. WE CAN DAMN LOVE HIM IF WE WANT @JKR GOD KNOWS HE NEEDS IT