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whoa hey a meme!
Pick a character I've written and I'll list the top ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing them that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.*
*I don't think it follows that if other people don't have those concepts in mind they're inaccurately depicting them. For what it's worth.
*I don't think it follows that if other people don't have those concepts in mind they're inaccurately depicting them. For what it's worth.
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Here are some things I keep in mind when writing Draco.
1) I've never really decided who he is. Some characters, I know exactly who they are and what I want to say about them, and I keep writing different stories because I want to see how those things play out in different situations. Draco, I write in frankly very similar situations, because I want to find out who he is.
2) So most of the things I keep in mind are canon details, because I think the character, canonically, doesn't give us the true sense of a human being who acts in a certain way. He's written as a foil to support/play-off the character of Harry, and I don't get a sense of his actual motivations and what he feels and thinks, except for glimpses (esp. in Book 6).
3) I keep in mind that Draco is very young in canon. I think about how I acted, and how I later changed, and try to remember that there is so much room for growth in him.
4) I keep in mind that canonically, Draco does creative things, such as impressions in the Great Hall, making Potter Stinks! badges, apparently writing lyrics to Weasley is Our King, and I think he may have fed stories to Skeeter.
5) He also did some fairly crafty things, such as (again) the Potter Stinks! badges, fixing the Vanishing Cabinet, and honestly the necklace with Katie Bell and the mead with Ron all were fairly skillful ways to kill someone.
6) He didn't want to kill anyone.
7) He really was very much obsessed with Potter in school.
8) Lucius Malfoy was fairly hard on him, but Draco was always, "My Dad this!" and "My Dad that!" Now, you can say those things and hate your father, but I prefer to think of Draco's relationship with Lucius as fairly complex--he loved him, felt oppressed by him, wanted to rebel against him, feared his reprisals, wanted to impress him, wanted his affection, etc.
9) Draco is never described as good-looking, but also never described as ugly. Therefore I assume he is middling, or else fairly attractive but in a way closed Harry Potter third person POV might not remark upon.
10) Draco's friends appear to honestly love him, or else Draco has some kind of power over them. I often think about the way he had his head in Pansy's lap at the beginning of HBP, or the way Crabbe and Goyle disguised themselves as girls. It could be they just hung with Draco because their families were all friends and they thought they were supposed to, but you'd really think if that was the only reason, they'd've drifted apart. And it could be that Draco just bossed them around and they were more intimidated than friendly, but Draco proves again and again that he just is not very imposing. I prefer to think they genuinely cared for him.
11) Draco makes himself a fool a lot, and people see him do it. And then he just keeps doing it. He keeps doing it and doing it and doing it. His family is very proud, and he doesn't like to be humiliated, so often people write him as completely unwilling to behave ridiculously or take risks etc etc, but it's like Draco just . . . forgets. He completely forgets Harry is better than him at like, everything, so he just keeps challenging him.
12) Draco doesn't really get to choose. Book 5, he really doesn't seem to have an idea of what is going on, and if he does, he has no idea what the implications of it are. Book 6, he's forced into doing a task he obviously does not want, and he spends book 7 terrified. Draco doesn't get to have a period of rebellion because he's too oppressed and terrified. I like to think he has it later, and that in that period, he really tries to decide who he is, deep down. I like to think he really tries to make an impact on the world, because he never got to do so as himself before.
13) This, to me, is fundamental: JKR doesn't really do such a fantastic job of showing where people like the Malfoys, Pure-bloods, and people who support Voldemort are coming from. I mean, you can understand why they thing Muggles are inferior--but frankly, I think Muggles are inferior. She really didn't address why people like Harry Potter (who has been abused by Muggles his whole life) think Muggles are worth caring for. And obviously I think they are, because I'm a Muggle, and also I think caring for human beings is just important. But basically you've got these two fundamentally opposed philosophies, and frankly I can see both sides, and JKR just doesn't really flesh out the background or the history of these people and where they are coming from. And I think that she should have, because it does appear to matter where they come from, because it appears to be a matter of culture.
Pure-bloodedness is written as an analog to aristocracy, and I'm not justifying the misbehavior of the aristocracy in history, but they did have a different way of looking at things, and even though it was wrong--it really helps you understand why they did things the way they did. So, the number one thing I try to remember is that there is this whole other culture, this whole other way of seeing, that we didn't get to see.
So I try to remember that Draco doesn't think of Voldemort as the "bad guy." He doesn't see Harry Potter as the hero or the good guy. He doesn't grow up thinking his dad is the analog of a Nazi, and if he does, he doesn't understand that Nazis are bad--and neither does Lucius.
And--here's another really important part--for a good long while, he doesn't get to see the amazing things that Harry Potter does. At the end of the first book, he just gets told that Harry and his buddies did something amazing, and that's why his House doesn't get the House Cup. At the end of the second, he hears Harry did something amazing again. At the end of the third he doesn't even know anything has happened. From Draco's POV, it must look like Harry Potter is this teacher's pet suck up and show off, and that's really gotta tee Draco off in particular because Draco's trying to show off, but no one notices; Draco's trying to suck up, but no one likes him. They're all just swooning over Harry and he doesn't know why, when he was raised to believe people should be swooning over him--and Harry doesn't give him the time of day.
So that's part of the fundamental rivalry--I mean, Draco thinks that Harry has what he should have had. But also he just fundamentally doesn't understand who Harry is, what Harry is doing, and why. He isn't privy to all the "Chosen One" bullshit; and when he finds out, he has no good reason to believe it. Harry Potter is not the hero of Draco Malfoy's story. In fact, the only hero of Draco Malfoy's story is Narcissa . . . and that's got to kind of fuck you up, when you're 15 and wanna be a big boy like your daddy.
Wow, that got really long.
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Anyway idk if I'm making sense; it's just...it tilted my world too :o)
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