| adrienneherbst @ 2003-04-28 09:36:00 |
crackpot theory
I've been wondering-- with Draco still missing and the whole school, instead of being angry at him, apparently having forgotten about him-- whether or not his post on Friday was serious or not. There's a lot of stuff about that post that I don't understand-- his original intent, mostly. Why wait that long to out Harry? And if, as a lot of the players have said, his rendition of the events following Lupin's party were (for once) accurate, what even was the "joke" that he kept insisting his original post had been? I always just assumed that it was a ploy-- for whatever reason-- to piss people off, that he didn't really believe all the stuff that everyone was so upset about. Anyway, the first time I read the Draco-homophobe thread, the thing that /most/ shocked me was that one punch-to-the-head sentence, "I don't accept gifts from queers." On a reread, though, I started noticing all the many, many references he makes to catching some kind of disease from Harry, Sirius, Ginny&Cho, et al. There's been a lot of analysis about Draco believing that homosexuality is something contagious, but.
I don't think that the disease Draco's talking about being worried about "catching" (potential to make fun of Dean Thomas' ridiculous family aside) is homosexuality.
...I think it's AIDS. All of his remarks about "don't share a fork with me" seem to me like an insidious, precise, and possibly deliberate reference back to one of the most scary and painful parts of gay history in recent memory-- the height of the AIDS scare, when (like George and Ron's "ALL THE GAY PEOPLE ARE MISSING!") all anyone knew was that a lot of young men were dying, and when the official names for the disease were "GRID" (Gay-Related Immune Disorder) and "Triple-H Syndrome" (Heroin addicts, Hemophiliacs, and Homosexuals)-- something that Remus and Sirius would definitely remember, and which would hit them very hard. (It would also hit Severus and Lucius hard-- something that might be why they both reacted so harshly, and something that I don't think Draco considered if this was all planned out.) If this is the case, it was a brilliant (although poorly calculated in terms of consequences) move on Draco's part-- because if he wanted to hurt the people he despised (Lupin, Sirius, etc), what better way to do it?
...although actually on reread it seems completely plausible that PS is just an incredibly ignorant and prejudiced kid who actually believes all that crap and isn't really aware of how serious a statement like " I had to take a shower to make sure there weren't any germs on me. Who knows what they could have been carrying?" is. *facepalms*
Also. Professor Vecor has pretty much lead the charge against Draco's parents as being the cause of all the hate he's been spewing, but. In his telling of the non-kiss with Harry incident, Draco is most upset about two things: that Harry's behavior was 1.) drunk and 2.) homosexual. Now, Narcissa, if not actually an alcoholic, is certainly a drunk, and it's been pretty clearly established that Lucius is bisexual-- so maybe all this /is/ coming from Draco's parents, just not in the way that the Hogwarts people seem to think it is.
Comments:
| sistermagpie @ April 28 2003, 09:53:40 UTC |
I don't know if AIDS exists in the WW, since with their magical medicine it may be curable. It seems a very false note to bring in such a muggle-related issue. Just as the racism in HP is directed at Muggleborns I'd expect any diseases to have magical versions as well.
Regardless, though, I think Draco's point was the more general idea that gay people are crawling with diseases because they sleep around--STDs obviously being the most obvious. If you're gay, you're a whore and therefore you might have picked up anything from lice to herpes. They are unclean is the general point, I think.
Draco does also make the connection that homosexuality itself is a disease. In canon Draco usually refers to anything other than pureblood wizards as being dirty (which carries the implication of infection and disease). Remember him saying something about Hermione, as a mudblood, "sliming" up his newly washed hand. It's rather an obsession with him here and in NA (he was equally afraid, imo, of being "contaminated" by Lupin's werewolf curse). Contamination is a big deal for Draco. Touching of any kind seems to repulse him, so the idea of touching someone who is attached to filth (as Draco claims so many groups are) is doubly upsetting.
It's got some very disturbing implications but I've no clue what they are.
| notapipe @ April 28 2003, 10:52:25 UTC |
I don't think it's so much about the whole "gays are diseased" thing as much as the "other people are diseased" belief. If he was right, and he didn't REALLY believe Harry was gay at the time, just drunk, then it would have been because some drunken fool slobbered all over him and got his other-people germs on him. I think your contamination bit is the key here.
(parent)| adrienneherbst @ April 28 2003, 11:05:40 UTC |
--yeah. (perhaps should delete admittedly crackpot AIDS thing)
Telebears= my college's online registration thinger; my appointment time ends in an hour.
::dies of shame for posting in the wrong journal, also, panics::
| takeonelook @ April 28 2003, 11:22:02 UTC |
Telebears! Do you go to UC Berkeley? I do too! And thanks for reminding me. My telebears is in a few days, and I need to go check the time.
| adrienneherbst @ April 28 2003, 12:08:59 UTC |
Ahhhh! I DO go to Berkeley!
am a_herbst@uclink.berkeley.edu
What year are you? *is freshman*
| takeonelook @ April 28 2003, 16:47:01 UTC Re: |
Fellow Nrager in the same college as me. W00t!
Am also a first year.
Dude. This is exciting! I've never had fellow fandom members live anywhere near me before.
my e-mail: anistein@uclink.berkeley.edu
We should converse.
| adrienneherbst @ April 28 2003, 11:12:37 UTC |
Erg. V. probably you are right. *should have thought this through before posting it, "crackpot" disclaimerthing or no*
(parent)| karabou @ April 28 2003, 10:22:56 UTC |
I generally agree with 
sistermagpie in that Draco has a hangup about contamination and catching things from people... I'm thinking he was probably thinking in more general terms of not wanting the queer people touching him, and wanted to insult them.
What I'd really like to comment on is this...
In his telling of the non-kiss with Harry incident, Draco is most upset about two things: that Harry's behavior was 1.) drunk and 2.) homosexual. Now, Narcissa, if not actually an alcoholic, is certainly a drunk, and it's been pretty clearly established that Lucius is bisexual-- so maybe all this /is/ coming from Draco's parents, just not in the way that the Hogwarts people seem to think it is.
I think our parents really shape a lot of who we are, and of course as you grow you make your own choices and so on, but our parents influence is deep. My father drinks a lot and it has basically caused me to loathe beer and being around drunk people. And Narcissa does drink a lot, so I just wanted to say that perhaps (whether he will admit it or not) it does affect Draco and it disgusted him to see Harry like that. Also, in the past Lucius and Sirus have more or less flirted in Draco's own journal before and I can see how it would bother him to see his father acting like that.
| neviachiel @ April 28 2003, 10:39:42 UTC |
While I don't really have an opinion on the AIDS theory, I thought I'd pop in here to say something.
I thought when this happened that it did sorta make sense. In the past two weeks (?), Draco was involved in this duel thing, missed it, his parents were mad at him, Lucius banned Narcissa from talking to him or seeing him, at which point she went to Lupin's and then Easter break came. Draco wasn't allowed to stay with his mother, while Harry was, while his mother kept posting about how she was talking to Harry, etc. Then Easter was over and when they got back, Narcissa sends things for Draco with Harry and then sends things to Harry herself. I just picture this as being the last straw for Draco. He's had a rough couple of weeks by his own measure, being denied his mother's company (and his father's funds) and I think that since Harry was able to get what he couldn't at the time, that he may have started to resent it. Sort of like, everyone loves Harry, even his own mother, so why not "expose" him, thus gaining some attention and maybe getting some dislike of Harry to come out (which, unfortunately for Draco, backfired if that was his purpose). Not that I approve of what he did, because I certainly don't, but I feel that he did have a reason.
Ok, I think I've rambled on long enough...
 |
Anonymous @ April 28 2003, 15:03:50 UTC |
The main thing, I personaly don't understand. Being that there was a considerable amount of time during the "incident" and many meetings between ps and j_h, something must of have happened. As one knows, if something is bothering ps, he will state it, imedatly. So why wait so long? Maybe...just maybe he wasn't so bothered by the first encounter. Therefor, there was/should have been a meeting before this post that caused ps "to go off the handle." Maybe another talk about a "kiss?"
humm...things to ponder?
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Anonymous @ April 28 2003, 17:07:32 UTC |
It was mentioned on LJ before this. When Draco and Harry were arguing, Draco burst out with, "I do hope you've managed to keep out of the liquour", and Harry never responded. It seems to me like Draco had never said anything about it until then -- otherwise, what reason would Harry have to say nothing?
(parent)| sistermagpie @ April 28 2003, 18:51:25 UTC |
The key to understanding that is, I think, that Draco thought it was a joke but it still upset him.
So: Draco finds Harry in the hallway. Harry puts his head on his shoulder. Draco asks if he's going to kiss him hoping to make Harry move his head because he realizes he shouldn't be that close etc. Instead Harry says, "Yeah."
Draco flees, makes himself throw up, takes a shower. Harry only knows that Draco fled so he tries to apologize. He probably just thinks he freaked him out...and he did. Draco wants nothing to do with him and ignores him. Finally, though, Harry seems to manage to get Draco to the point where he doesn't associate Harry with the incident--that's when they're becoming friends. So Draco was upset by the incident generally, but did at least think he was being upset by Potter being in such a state that he seemed for a second like he was going kiss him, not because he thinks he actually did.
Meanwhile, all the stuff with his parents is happening: Lucius stops speaking to him, cuts him off completely, Narcissa moves in with Sirius and Lupin (don't know if Draco minded that she was living with a gay couple or just was upset that she was living with people he didn't like). Narcissa gets to know Harry, starts saying what a nice boy he is--this, imo, made Draco very angry, and the anger was directed at Harry. Finally, when he was humiliated by the owl dropping a gift to Harry and passing him over, and possibly saw it made fun of in Colin's journal with Harry's sympathetic reply, he decided to do something to hurt Harry back.
He doesn't think Harry is gay, but he does know how ashamed he was of his behavior. Remember how he was apologizing to everyone? Even better, Draco thinks, he'll spin the story into what he thinks is the worst thing it could be, the thing that made him make himself sick: Harry made a pass at him. When he finds out Harry really is gay, he appears to consider himself truly tainted. So much that he throws up. Maybe he realizes he was in actual "danger" that night. This probably makes him even more mad at Harry, because he now sees their weeks of friendship as being a ploy to lure him somewhere and attack him. Harry would have known that Draco was sensitive about this given his response the night of the party, but he wouldn't have any idea the kind of venom this would unleash because he knew nothing about the vomiting and the shower. JMO so far.
At least that's how I make sense of it based on what we know for sure. Why Draco is so freaked out by homosexuality as opposed to just wanting his own masculinity clear I'm not sure. But he does seem to have this obsession with avoiding contamination and sex has never seemed that appealing to him in general.