steph_hime @ April 27 2004, 17:40:23 UTC

I suspect M.B. Draco mentioned something about Pins giving him a cold. Pansy said that her cold was secondary or something, so maybe she passed it to Millicent, Millicent to Pins, and Pins passed it to Draco.

jenicomprispas @ April 27 2004, 17:48:09 UTC

Actually I'm glad you mentioned it. Pansy's worrying me a bit, she seems...off? Well, she seems different from the way she was before Easter hols anyway. Maybe even a bit before. Can't put my finger on it though. Anyone else notice, or am I just reading too much (or not enough!) into it?

ungemmed @ April 27 2004, 21:42:20 UTC

In her second-most-recent post she seemed very off to me. Much more muted than usual, far less glib. The same Oh I'm So Polite effect was there but it seemed mostly believable. She seemed more concerned about others than what those others thought of her.

This latest one, though, looks like a return to form. She's still not quite as slipperily political as she was after, say, the Outing, but those tendencies are definitely returning. Instead of expressing grief unreservedly, as she did in the tree-planting, she's returned to her backhanded sympathies. It's no longer "I'm sorry" but rather "I'm sorry (but this wouldn't have happened if you didn't deserve it, idiot.)" She's chosen to only express her "sympathy" for Lavender in stilted, formal ways that are devoid of much true meaning, such as flowers and get-well cards. In her tree post she acknowledged that these tended to be insufficient, but in this latest post she doesn't offer this extension-of-sympathy to Lavender. Instead she blatantly and deliberately undercuts her condolences with implications that Lavender's suffering isn't worth much and that she brought it on herself. She twists it rather neatly around into blaming the victim, attempting to exonerate Draco, but in order to remain politic she chooses to let her readers complete that train of logic. Furthermore, she dismisses the entire incident as "gossip" spread by "that Patil girl."

She's definitely not nice!Pansy anymore, if she ever was.

Anonymous @ April 27 2004, 23:42:40 UTC

I think that her attitude in this post has more to do with the fact that Draco was made to look bad. And if Pansy is anything, she's loyal to her friends. I also think she could be prickling at the fact that "that Patil girl" is accusing Draco, who is still her boyfriend according to Draco's "shapely girlfriend" icon and her "my boyfriend draco" icon, of kissing another girl. I'm less sure about this because their romantic relationship has seemed to weaken over the months.

black_dog @ April 28 2004, 00:53:00 UTC

I do think being "politically slippery" is part of Pansy's character, but from her recent posts I wonder if it doesn't go even deeper than that with her. She seems all about adjusting differences and papering over conflicts, no matter what their origin, as though she is simply unable to make moral distinctions and hard-edged judgments. Even in her note about the Weasleys, which was maybe the most temperate and soothing thing anyone said on the question, she refers to the murder as "this unfortunate occurrence" as though she can't quite call it by name or judge the murderers.

In the past I've sometimes felt this search for balance, where there is no balance, concealed a hidden agenda on her part and was a way of glossing over or making excuses for awfulness committed by her own side. After the outing last year, her post attempting to generate sympathy for Draco, by repeating his absurd phrase about having someone else's choice imposed on him, seemed very cynical and detatched from any human understanding of the situation. But I'm having second thoughts about whether it's really fair to call her cynical. In her more recent posts, I'm starting to feel that her dilemma is less about politics and agendas, and more about her own insecurities, her fear and anxiety about conflict itself. (Maybe this is rooted in her family situation, her precarious hold on her father's approval?)

She's so all over the map in her post about Lavender -- expressing disapproval at Draco, then making excuses for him, then qualifying the excuses, then implying Lavender contributed to the problem, then sending Lavender flowers. Her language is obsessively guarded -- "any behavior similar to that which was going on;" "from so far as I could glean;" (And there's that phrase, "unfortunate occurrance," again!) Her justifications of Draco based on things he perhaps might have done, but didn't, are almost groteque: he didn't "kick her when she fell over" or "throw her into the ground."

At one point she starts to make a comparison with Harry attacking Draco (again, completely ignoring context) but can't quite bring herself make the direct charge: she says it wasn't as if Draco "thrust a fist directly at her face in an intentional attempt to injure her nose or some other part of her body." The added qualification at the end, the implicit retreat from a direct comparison with Harry, is almost comic.

The general sense of the post is clearly that Pansy feels that Draco is getting too much abuse over the Lavender thing. But she can't quite bring herself say that straightforwardly, she undermines herself in practially every sentence. I think she knows better, but she's a little freaked out by a situation that calls for a clearcut judgment. She is so uncomfortable with the idea of straightforwardly condemning anyone's behavior that she is reduced almost at times to babbling.

Is this a plausible reading of Pansy, or am I seeing more complexity than is really there?

ungemmed @ April 28 2004, 01:51:39 UTC

I think that family situations, as you suggested, might be the root of "it," whatever "it" is. Of course it's terribly cliched to focus on families as the source of everything, but in NA they generally are. Certainly interfamily conflict's played a large role recently....

We don't know much about Pansy's family, but we do know that her father is distant and her mother tries to use obsessive closeness to mold Pansy into someone more "acceptable." Pansy's parents seem to feel that their daughter isn't measuring up to some invisible standard, which (given her generally ambitious personality) has to grate on her horribly. Pansy seems to be generally rejected, actually; MB, Draco, and to some extent the Weasley clan are the only people in NA who we see as positively responding to her. Most of her fellow students view her as, at best, "politically slippery." (And then, of course, there's Queenie.) Draco's parents, as far as I can remember, have consistently declared her to be an unsuitable match. (If the engagement-to-Sally-Anne theory is true, this would become an even more final rejection; regardless of its accuracy, Pansy must undoubtedly must be wondering something similar after Easter hols.)

So this puts her continued attempts to cozy up to the Weasleys in a completely new light. I hadn't really known what to make of these before, as what I saw as the common explanation (currying favor with Arthur for a Ministry contact) seemed horribly facile and also insulted her intelligence. (Arthur is hardly highly ranked.) Instead, like Lucius, she might have seen the Weasleys' closeness and both wondered at and envied it. By insinuating herself into the family via Arthur, Ron, and Ginny, she may subconsciously be trying to take up a position with them similar to Harry's—adopted child/sibling.

I see her post about the murder to be drastically different in tone from essentially everything else she's written which leads me to believe that the "unfortunate occurance" shook her pretty deeply. She's really rather affectionate with the Weasleys and I've always had the impression that she does care about them on some level (regardless of reason.) On the other hand, she was raised in a DE family and has quite a few DE and otherwise not-fluffy connections. I think she's dealing with something of the same moral dilemna that Draco, but Draco is much more inclined to see things in black and white. He also has his father and Harry as rather obvious examples of the two moral extremes here.

(cont)

ungemmed @ April 28 2004, 02:12:54 UTC

(cont)

I think your reading of Pansy as essentially uncomfortable with moral judgements is highly plausible, given that. She's extremely mature, even precocious, when it comes to reading (and manipulating) other people's behavior; in that way she's the exact inverse of Draco. Similarly she seems unable to call anything black or white; as you said, she never condemns anything. I don't think she's ever praised something without similar qualifications, either. So I think the root of that might be a conflict of personal loyalties similar to the one Draco is experiencing; however, Pansy understands people's motivations better and has no clear-cut moral crossroads before her. It's therefore far more difficult for her to make the ethical decisions that Draco (whose circumstances, though not much easier, are likely less complex) is having difficulty making himself.

An alternative reading, I think, might be that she herself is trying to make sense of Draco's behavior. They've been dating, or at any rate pseudo-dating, for an extremely long timespan now and have been close friends for even longer. I think it's safe to assume that by now defending Draco's behavior has become a knee-jerk reaction for her. However, his horrible treatment of Lavender (and, if they're still dating, apparent infidelity) are both inexcusable enough to give her pause. I think she's become less exclusively Slytherin-apologist since the Outing and by now she may be wondering why she feels compelled to defend Draco. Draco seems to be pushing her (ostensibly his girlfriend) out of the way in favor of Harry and Lavendar (who would each fufill different functions that previously Pansy had.) When viewed in that light Draco's behavior is in fact quite insulting to Pansy and she may be reconsidering her impulse to defend him.

black_dog @ April 28 2004, 03:26:21 UTC

If the engagement-to-Sally-Anne theory is true, this would become an even more final rejection; regardless of its accuracy, Pansy must undoubtedly must be wondering something similar after Easter hols.

Interesting -- I guess I could go either way on how Pansy feels about the Sally-Anne thing. On the one hand, it's been strongly suggested that she's a beard for Draco to maintain the pose of heterosexuality, that she herself is more interested in Millicent, anyway, so it's tempting to think that while they're friends, the "relationship" was never more than an elaborate cover. But maybe she really expected to be Mrs. PS in a sort of socially advantageous open marriage with each of them maintaining a lover. If that's the case, she really might have been blindsided and shocked by all the fuss about Sally-Anne, whatever it may mean.

So this puts her continued attempts to cozy up to the Weasleys in a completely new light. . . . By insinuating herself into the family via Arthur, Ron, and Ginny, she may subconsciously be trying to take up a position with them similar to Harry's—adopted child/sibling.

I hadn't even thought of that! But it would make sense. She used to be colder to Ron, and only gradually warmed up to him over the last year, I thought, but there definitely seems to be a real connection now -- and of course there's the mini-crush, maybe, on Arthur. You're right, an infatuation with the Weasleys seems very likely once you start thinking of Pansy as needy rather than as merely manipulative.

I see her post about the murder to be drastically different in tone from essentially everything else she's written which leads me to believe that the "unfortunate occurance" shook her pretty deeply.

True, but I still found the phrase "unfortunate occurrence" kind of chilling -- it really struck me even the first time I read her post to the Weasleys after the murder. But if you're right about Pansy sort of "waking up" to a conflict of loyalties -- first because of the murder, second because of Draco's abandonment of her romantically, and third because of his startling cruelty to Lavender -- then I could definitely see her development taking the course you suggest.

So maybe, she starts out (say, a year to six months ago) being genuinely slippery, she sees herself as a diplomat for the DE side, able to explain away and put a favorable spin on all sorts of creepy behavior. But then she genuinely starts falling for the Weasleys, so it starts to shake up her cynicism, her unthinking commitment to her side. And then the murders affect her deeply. And then Draco's behavior offends her and strips away her sense of security among her own allies. So she's sort of scared now, no longer the confident, smooth apologist for her allies when she posts. She's still clinging to her image of herself as a diplomat, but the explanations are starting to feel hollow and she's wondering, maybe, if it's time to make more explicit moral commitments.

Yeah, I buy it. It works better than my family theory, because her family is a constant, and what needs explaining is the change. I guess I wasn't sure if Pansy was changing or just my reading of her, but if you see it too then I'm not hallucinating it. :)

So do you see her recent post as confused and almost distraught, the way I do? Are you worried about her being overwhelmed by these contradictions, or do you think she's strong enough to find her ground and stand on it? Does she even need to ultimately take a side? You make an interesting comment that she has no "clear cut moral crossroads" before her, and can therefore probably get away with equivocating on some big issues. But I wonder if it's going to be possible, even for someone who's not one of the principal antagonists, to maintain their neutrality once the conflict starts getting more intense.

ungemmed @ April 28 2004, 22:52:22 UTC

On the one hand, it's been strongly suggested that she's a beard for Draco to maintain the pose of heterosexuality, that she herself is more interested in Millicent, anyway, so it's tempting to think that while they're friends, the "relationship" was never more than an elaborate cover. But maybe she really expected to be Mrs. PS in a sort of socially advantageous open marriage with each of them maintaining a lover. If that's the case, she really might have been blindsided and shocked by all the fuss about Sally-Anne, whatever it may mean.

I agree with you here, but I think that my previous points about their relationship still hold true whether or not Pansy's merely a beard. There's quite a difference, in this situation, between Draco having a mostly secret relationship with another boy and Draco very publicly becoming involved with another girl. (Or even worse, possibly two other girls.) Loyalty seems to be one of Pansy's prime motivators, and I think she's rather offended by Draco's blatant disloyalty to her. After all, Pansy has historically despised Sally-Anne, and Millicent tends to back her up on this (the recent "that thing" comment, for example.) Draco putting Sally-Anne ahead of his much older friends is a bit shocking in that light.

::laugh:: Every time I read her latest post I see something different, to be honest. I can definitely see where you're coming from, but the only conclusions I'm willing to be definite about are that it seems a bit more rushed than her earlier posts, and that the tone jumps around a lot. This might be indicative of distress, but it might be something else as well. I really don't know.

I think that if anyone will be able to maintain their neutrality, or at any rate make sure to keep peace with the winning side, it'll be Pansy. But I also wonder if anyone will be able to. Pansy's extremely intelligent, but intelligence and strength of will are extremely different concepts.

Actually, now I want to qualify my previous statement that Pansy's good at reading others' behavior. I think that to some extent she's skilled at this, but her failing in this area might be an inability to find the ultimate cause of someone's behavior. In other words, she has a good grasp of actions but not of human nature. Ultimately, this might be what determines both her decision-making ability and any decision she makes—one of the main roots of her behavior, I think, might be a drive to understand others (which would explain her easy sympathy). If her actions right now are based on shallow or flawed readings of others, then I think matters might become more clear to her as her gift for understanding develops. I think that once she's certain of her stance she'll ultimately have the strength of will to stand by it, but finding a position she can be absolutely certain about will be the difficulty.

(Nraged: running with scissorstheories.)

sistermagpie @ April 28 2004, 03:16:13 UTC

I do think she's probably had to grow up somehow doing this sort of thing--she makes excuses for her father's behavior and doesn't come flat out and say she can't stand her mother either.

Pansy does often speak up about the bias she perceives against Slytherins, and even though in both these situations with Draco he deserved people coming down on him hard, the challenges Pansy makes concerning their charges is still often true in both cases. She was pretty vocal about not liking the way she was treated after the attack last year, when she got pushed down the stairs. If her intentions towards the Weasleys have always been honorable, then she's put up without a lot of animosity on their part for no reason.

She avoids dealing with the reality of what Draco has done, calling it an "unfortunate occurrance," etc., and her claims that Lavender is a sweet girl who didn't deserve this treatment do sound completely false ("of course I don't know her..." etc., as if there was really anything Lavender could have done that would have made her deserve what Draco did).

What's great, of course, is that despite that, a lot of Pansy says is just true but it's considered bad to say it. The "correct" response to this is to be up in arms over Malfoy physically hurting Lavender and not suggest that her arm is broken because she's been committing a slow suicide in front of everyone for over a year and perhaps this is the bigger problem here. Draco should be punished for what he did, which was not breaking her arm a la Paulie Walnuts but cruelly using her eating disorder to torment her and just being generally mean. Whatever Pansy's angle, it makes sense to me she'd be uncomfortable with her friend's nose being broken being something to cheer about.

If the violence is the big horrible thing here than why would one punish a person for shoving someone lightly and not intentionally breaking somebody's nose? Because he deserved it? Who decides that? Harry hit Draco because Draco made him angry--he wanted to kill him. Is that okay, to break a bone because the person made you angry? So is Draco's problem that he did what he did in cold blood? I agree there's a difference between hitting someone in anger and planning it, and of course I see that Draco provoked his attack and Lavender did not but exactly how far does that go?

So, I don't know what I'm saying about Pansy's post. I think it's slippery, with more than one thing going on with it, so that it can't be explained by just one simple motivation. She doesn't seem to be able to ever just be straight. I don't know how far it proves she has no ability to make moral judgments, probably because god knows I've been accused of that myself plenty of times because I failed to get properly indignant over something. I almost never see things in black and white; there's usually a qualification for everything and I get frustrated with people who do the opposite. So maybe within this game I'd be a bad guy, I don't know. But when I feel that way it's because I think it is morally correct, not because I'm at all unable to make a moral judgment. But I'm not Pansy, who is much more indirect about just about everything.

Whatever it means, I think Pansy's final words, that people "have their own problems which explain their behavior," is simply true, and is far more practical in the long run than judging and punishing, then judging and punishing again. That, to me, just often does not seem to be all that effective in doing much but making the punisher feel good. Figuring out what's going on always seems like the best idea to me--obviously, which is why I do it so obsessively even with fictional characters.:-)

I don't think this only applies to Draco either--Lavender *does* have her own share of problems that explain her behavior and she doesn't seem to have anybody able to help her either. Parvati seems to have caused her a lot of pain herself this year (not intentionally). Those, I thought, were the rumors Pansy referred to--the rumors that Lavender had been starving herself. Has anybody been helping her deal with her parents' divorce? It seems like this is the most attention she's gotten all year--and most of it's for Malfoy.

black_dog @ April 28 2004, 04:06:10 UTC

What's great, of course, is that despite that, a lot of Pansy says is just true but it's considered bad to say it.

A provocative thesis statement! I have to say that my problem with Pansy is that the things she says seem often not quite true, seem to be tendentious distortions of the sort you expect from a political spinmeister. *rubs hands gleefully* So, let's get down to cases!

If the violence is the big horrible thing here than why would one punish a person for shoving someone lightly and not intentionally breaking somebody's nose? Because he deserved it? Who decides that?

Yay! I totally disagree with your implied parallel! :)

OK then -- without totally justifying Harry's own violence, I would center my sense of the difference between the cases on 1. the positive moral value of honest indignation, however much it may need to be second-guessed and channeled; and 2. a reluctance to define violence per se as the problem; since it is grounded in natural human aggressivness and therefore somewhat inescapable, it does make a moral difference whether violence is a controlled response to viciousness or is gratuitous and predatory.

I don't defend Harry's attack on Draco, because he should have had the self-control not to break PS' nose however angry and provoked he may have been. But I do believe that in principle, controlled violence is an appropriate response to a genuine threat or injury, so I fault Harry for his lack of control rather than his instinct. I would certainly contend that violence would have been an appropriate tool to use to interfere with the DE attack on the Weasleys. Harry's mistake is not being mature enough to separate his feelings of indignation (which are hard-wired to be associated with violence) from an assessment of whether it is appropriate to express them. PS, on the other hand, has no comparable reason for his violence toward Lavender -- his behavior to her is vicious at the core. To suggest that the essential thing these two incidents have in common is "violence" is, I think, to reify the concept of violence into a kind of absolute evil, no matter the circumstances, in a way that simply ignores ordinary, intuitive experience of vicious behavior, honest indignation, the practical need for deterrence, and the hard-wired desire for retribution. I'm not making some sort of primitivist argument that you simply indulge these feelings uncritically. But those issues are the moral context for violence, and it seems meaningless and tone-deaf to abstract the idea of "violence" from that context.

god knows I've been accused of that myself plenty of times because I failed to get properly indignant over something

Hahaha, I think I've been guilty of badgering you along these lines in some of our discussions. Which doesn't mean I think I'm necessarily right, or that I'm not fascinated by the profound difference in our take on some things. It's a blast to be baffled and forced to rethink one's intuitions through that sort of confrontation. And I still owe you a reply on why I think PS is crazy and not just an ideologue :)

I think Pansy's final words, that people "have their own problems which explain their behavior," is simply true.

I agree that it's true, but it's trivially true. It explains nothing, it discriminates nothing. At best, I think it's a useful admonition to people who are too quick to judge, too complacent in their judgments about other people. But it provides no direct help in obtaining insight into other people or into deciding what to think about their behavior.

[continued . . . ]

black_dog @ April 28 2004, 04:06:31 UTC

[. . . continued]

I don't agree that "morality" is a matter of discipline and punishment; I think it's a matter of reasoning, in an open-ended way, about ways of living that are flourishing and less flourishing. I don't think anyone would argue that being mastered by one's resentments and fantasies is a good way to live. And there are relative degrees of such mastery, some of which are more problematic than others. I don't think anyone would argue that it is a good thing for other people to be injured by an affected person's uncontrollable expression of his resentments and fantasies. If a moral vocabulary helps to describe the complexities of a situation of conflict, helps to trace behavior to its roots in general tendencies of particular individuals, helps to move people toward a consensus (or at least a repertoire of useful opinions) on tendencies to be avoided and strategies for avoiding them, then it is doing a useful job. Saying that "everyone has his own problems" is an abandonment of that project.

Wow, am I a blowhard on this issue, or what? That's enough for now, I look forward to taking your return fire. :)

sistermagpie @ April 28 2004, 04:35:25 UTC

it does make a moral difference whether violence is a controlled response to viciousness or is gratuitous and predatory.

I agree, and Harry's own violence was not any of those things (though the reactions and comments to it sometimes suggested those things would be a good). Draco's own violence was not very violent, but it was vicious, gratuitous and predatory. However, from Pansy's pov, is it really that strange for her to bring up her friend getting his nose broken? Not because it's a direct parallel, but because he's her friend? There's two things being discussed here, my own reaction and Pansy's. To me, there's no parallel between Harry's breaking Draco's nose and Draco breaking Lavender's arm, but Pansy had some reason to bring the two of them up. I'm not sure her reason was necessarily that she couldn't see the difference between the two either. She may just want some way to voice something about other things.

I agree with you that violence is not an absolute evil and that the situations where different. But I don't think Pansy is setting out a legal case here so much as presenting a lot of the things she's reacting to, one of which could be the glee with which everyone reacts to Draco's getting hurt.

But it provides no direct help in obtaining insight into other people or into deciding what to think about their behavior.

To me, these are two separate issues. I can decide what to think about someone's behavior, but all that does is tell me how I feel. I know how I feel about Draco's behavior-it's nasty and inexcusable. But so what? Who cares that I think that? That doesn't help Lavender or change the situation. If I wanted to change his behavior I would need to understand it. Understanding the behavior doesn't have to be the ultimate goal-that can be getting the bad behavior to stop.

I don't agree that "morality" is a matter of discipline and punishment;

I agree-I think a morality based on punishment and reward is less than morality, myself, but I've been told this makes me immoral in the past. (Not by you, though.:-) Morality depends on the ability to reason why something is right or wrong-though most people never really reach that level in depth.

Saying that "everyone has his own problems" is an abandonment of that project.

If that's the end then it's an abandonment of the project. There's even less point in saying, "Well, he's got his own problems," then there is in saying, "He's a jerk," and punching him. Both of them assume the person is stuck and can't change. At least punching them might keep them away from you and your loved ones. But "everyone has his own problems," is great as a starting point for something more than that.

Now, with ps often the punishments he's takes do seem to have some effect, so I'm not willing to say the reaction to what he's done has added to the problem. Besides, it's not like I can think of asking Harry to act any differently than he did-his reactions were understandable-what else would Harry have done? But it wouldn't do much for the answer to this incident to be that ps is a jerk. Sadly, had this not happened, Lavender might just have dropped dead on her own and it would be sad but oh well. So it would be a shame for the result of this to just be that ps and the Slytherins are jerks when there's a possibility for something more useful.

So we're not actually disagreeing on any moral issues here than I can see. But Pansy's post may not necessarily be about just laying out those moral issues. We've rarely if ever seen her express feelings directly, and if she's trying to say something here about how she feels about something I wouldn't want to miss it-she's speaking about Draco but she may have a personal connection to it somehow as well.

black_dog @ April 28 2004, 14:43:13 UTC

Just a short reply on this, sorry I didn't see it last night!

There's two things being discussed here, my own reaction and Pansy's.

All right, that's fair. I was trying to address myself to what I saw as your framework for evaluating Pansy, but if I misjudged who a reaction was being attributed to, I'm willing to stand corrected. The things I was criticizing -- a suspension of critical judgment in favor of a too-easy universal empathy (or arbitrary sympathies), a willingness to casually suggest moral equivalences while not taking moral language seriously -- are things that I think are issues in all kinds of discourse in the broader community, so I really should put it in those terms, although the cut and thrust of direct argument is much more fun!

I can decide what to think about someone's behavior, but all that does is tell me how I feel.

This statement continues to interest me though -- my first reaction is to wonder why "how I feel" is not relevant to the description of another person's behavior. I think we share the goal of finding the best possible empathetic understanding of what makes another person tick, from the inside, and with minimum prejudice. But maybe there's a question of method here -- I don't see how that can be done without some evaluative element, without some alignment of that "inside" description to a model of where a person's attributes fit in the range of human possibilities, and why the differences between points on that range matter. Otherwise, one might as well be describing a geological formation or a complex wallpaper pattern rather than a person. I just don't know how to talk about people without some at least implicit reference to values. The way their habits and temperament and personality affect the quality of their life and that of the people around them -- and how we "feel" about those things, seems to be to largely define those effects -- seems inseparable from saying anything significant about them.

I think to some extent, we are both attacking straw men, both reacting to things we find troubling in kinds of discourse that we object to. I think perhaps you see the invocation of morality as too often a reduction of a person's complexity to a checklist based on someone else's will and prejudice. And I would agree with you that a lot of so-called "moral" discussion works this way, and so there's something to be said for restating the importance of empathy, of insisting that understanding comes first. I tend to have issues, on the other hand, with what I see (in general discourse, not in you!) as an excessively lazy subjectivity, a refusal to critically examine opinions and feelings and assertions and justifications to see if they are coherent and well-grounded and worth taking seriously. Stated so baldly, this is obviously a bit of a caricature. But I may stress the secondary movement -- the critical reaction to and revision of initial understanding -- without emphasizing enough that understanding comes first.

sistermagpie @ April 28 2004, 17:08:01 UTC

Ah, this is getting to really good stuff, then! Yes, I think we both are pretty much on the same page, morally speaking. That is, if we take Pansy's post as suggesting that people can't judge Draco's actions and that it's all the same, his being hurt and Lavender being hurt and the Weasleys being hurt, then her post is completely sinister. I do think in order to judge the person you have to get an accurate sense of what they are doing...to use the violence example aagin, if all we were told was that Draco broke someone's arm and Harry broke someone's nose, we would not have a clear picture of their actions. A person's motivations always colors their actions in some way--which doesn't mean that every action can be justified through motivation. But actions themselves, imo, are neutral. It's the context that we judge them by.

Also, I think it's naive and incorrect to try to achieve a universal sympathy, which is different than having basic compassion for all people. One can have compassion for a person while still judging their actions to be wrong and acting on that judgment. Part of what's compelling about the game is that we judge the actions of all the characters and like some characters more than others probably because of that. This is an interesting part of human nature. I still think it's interesting, for instance, that ps, for all his horrible nature, is still more successful in some ways than Lavender. At the moment, yes, characters want to kill him but Lav is even more pathetic than he is. As much as people like to say he's just pathetic and should be squashed like a bug, he has proved himself unsquashable thusfar. Even Parvati says that the good thing about this is that she hates Malfoy again so the house is unified. That's kind of a sad statement. Real compassion (as opposed to things that kind of look like it but aren't) is not something I associate with too many characters most of the time. It almost stands out when it really does appear, it's so special-which is good, imo.

But then also, because "we don't know what the hell is going on," there's even more of a drive to figure out where the "bad" characters are coming from. Their behavior is more bizarre and they don't explain themselves really either. They are more of a mystery at the moment, imo, so they get more focus. If we understood what was going on, it would probably be easier to judge them-as it is we can judge their actions but there is still this tantalizing question of why. Not that the other characters are completely open books either, but they're often more straightforward. Plus I think there's the temptation, always, to balance someone's behavior, so if someone is acting really bad you want to see some positive force at work, and if someone is really good it's easy to see the egotism at work.

So with Pansy I think we can both put down her argument if that argument is that what Draco did to Lavender is no different than what Harry did to Draco. (Though putting a cap on excessive high-fiving is always a plus for me.) But even if that is what she's saying, I'd be interested to know if she really felt that way or was just finding a way to rationalize her friend's behavior to defend her house. And if she was rationalizing, I'd still be interested to know why-does she just enjoy watching the lesser-than get theirs and get a thrill out of helping them get away with it? Does she feel it's us vs. them and is so biased "her characters" are always right? Pansy obviously isn't against acting out as she did with Sally-Anne, when she wants to take somebody out herself.

sistermagpie @ April 28 2004, 17:08:07 UTC

(con't)

I guess this again gets back to the stuff in the other thread, which was interesting too. It sounded like you were saying that there were certain beliefs that ps just couldn't possibly really have, so there would have to be some other explanation-that to actually support the DEs one would have to be a sociopath, so his claims of support must be just neurotic, a way of making himself feel better. To a certain extent I agree, just because the belief that other people (in this case, Mudbloods) are responsible for everything wrong in your life is just wrong, so it must involve a lot of denial.

Where I disagree maybe (unless I'm misunderstanding this part) is that to me it seems all too easy for people to support and agree with things like the DEs, especially in a passive way. I feel like for a lot of people it's really easier to be bigotted than to examine those views and see they're wrong. So if there's a terrorist attack there's always going to be very ordinary people saying whoever got hit had it coming-the same people who would be up in arms if their own country was attacked. And also it seems like people are often really happy dealing with a fantasy rather than reality, and will insist on fighting their own false image of "the enemy" even if it will get them killed. There are fundamentalist Christians who can be just as cruel as ps and cosider themselves pillars of virtue. I don't think all of them are necessarily neurotic. For instance, I'm sure there are many religious homophobes who have their own sexual issues, but there are, imo, just as many people who shouldn't have any issues with gay people at all yet would easily blame the victim of a gay-bashing. Suggesting this is a bad thing then just becomes attacking them for their faith and high moral beliefs.

sistermagpie @ April 28 2004, 04:11:58 UTC

(con't)

Also, I think I'm probably just being extra careful because it seems like the instinct with all of us is to look for the "good Slytherin" in this, the Slytherin who will react "correctly" to things. First it was Draco-the murders would shock him to the point of standing up to Lucius at last, but in fact he just kept going down the same road he'd been before. Then MB-she was trying to get Draco to deal with this correctly, but no, she was mocking the Weasleys just as always. And now Pansy-she gave the Weasleys a cake so surely *she* was the one who'd be be knocking on Gryffindor tower asking to be let onto the right side.

It's not that any of these things couldn't have happened, or that none of the Slytherins could ever want to switch sides. But I think I try to be extra careful about seeing it because it seems like it's what we naturally want to see with all of them. It's like when somebody said we could pencil Pansy in as one of the "good guys." I think it is tempting to want to do that, but that the Slytherins in particular have always resisted being "the bad guys" to begin with.

Ironically, one of the main themes of the posts of a lot of the Slytherins since the murders has been about understanding the reasons for behavior. It's been said over and over, in different tones. Even Pansy, here, comes back to that--everyone has their own problems, which explain their behavior. So it just seems like now more than ever we can't expect any of them to wake up and prefer the company of non-Slytherins when up until now their relationships with each other seemed to be the strongest things in their lives. I think thinking that any of the unholy three should be outgrowing the other two is something like waiting for one of the Weasleys to outgrow their family, somehow.

ungemmed @ April 28 2004, 23:05:49 UTC

I think thinking that any of the unholy three should be outgrowing the other two is something like waiting for one of the Weasleys to outgrow their family, somehow.

That's an interesting perspective because I think that on some level PS has been trying to separate himself from MB and Pansy since Easter hols. He's been rather blatantly associating with Sally-Anne, who both MB and especially Pansy have had a historical antipathy for. MB went so far as to tell him that on some level he had a choice between them and Sally-Anne, and he seemed to choose the latter.

In the wehavefive thread with MB, he also seemed uncomfortable and more distant from her than usual, although checking back I can't find any concrete examples and may just be slanting light through my own lens.

However, running off to Harry rather than those two is almost certainly a sign of some.... decreased closeness with them.

I don't know. "we don't know what the hell is going on."

sistermagpie @ April 28 2004, 23:55:55 UTC

Good point about Sally-Anne, and he was also definitely holding back in the MB thread. Though he also said that he was looking forward to seeing MB and Pansy back at Hogwarts and that was apparently genuine. He was unhappy at home over Easter while SA was there, wasn't he?

I do wonder, though, if there's tension between the unholy three and whether it would be good or bad for them to separate. (Like you, I feel like there's sort of something but maybe I'm projecting.) I'm not sure exactly how Draco feels about Sally-Anne. His posts about her and Nott are kind of interesting because they're relatively devoid of criticism. He's kind of lukewarm on Sally-Anne, saying he doesn't want to see the Perks every day etc., and he's sometimes insulting in the way he describes time with her, but he's not as OTT as he often is.

Same with Nott, really. Early on in the year he seemed to talk about him like he was this weird person he'd not really associate with but he's become a pretty constant figure in his life-seems to be somebody he hangs out with. Maybe even his early posts were just his way of talking about a friend without sounding nice.

So I'm not really sure how he feels about them. Does he really like Sally-Anne but try to be insulting because he knows MB and Pansy don't like her? They don't seem to have a problem with Nott. And how have Nott's feelings towards Draco changed? He and Sally-Anne are cousins but so far as we know I don't think Nott's ever done anything along the same level as Sally-Anne's suggestion of throwing the mudblood. Is Nott just sort of a popular guy who for some reason hangs out with Draco? Is there a reason he started pursuing him as a friend? Did his family want him to? Did he think of Draco as someone who could understand his own stresses with his family? Arrgh. I've no clue. But I can't think of any time when Pansy or MB has acknowledged him.

I'm not sure if his running off to Harry necessarily comes out of a problem with MB or Pansy. It may really could have had something with Harry being Harry rather than being the only person he felt comfortable with.

I have done nothing but ask questions in this post. Sorry!

ungemmed @ April 29 2004, 02:32:07 UTC

Oooh, interesting point about Nott! The players have confirmed that he's not a sinister figure (although that definitely doesn't mean we should assume he's lily-white) although he has book!canon DE parents. (right?) Clearly he's connected to Goyle and Draco via Iceland. Aside from Iceland we really don't know much about him—it almost seems as if the players are being deliberately cagey. There've been a few chances to bring him to the forefront, like the brief Nott/Parvati thing, but none of them have been permanent. Could inconstancy be one of his major character traits? ;)

I think that everyone in Slyth has been bumped up a few notches on the importance scale lately, which is somewhat frustrating when so many Slytherins are NPCs and the rest are so opaque. Evan, I think, is probably null program; he just seems so ineffective. The Ginny connection could wind up interesting, though. Queenie is essentially insane by now, and since she's both a loose cannon and ineffectual she's probably safe to overlook.

Nott, though.... I really wonder about Nott. And Sally-Anne. Draco fell through the stairs (or "fell through the stairs") while he was talking to her—what role did she play in that? I have a gut feeling that's important. Also, is it significant that Nott and Sally-Anne are related or is that just inbreeding?

(This is, I suppose, into a post of questions as well.)

sistermagpie @ April 29 2004, 03:34:07 UTC

You know, it's interesting you bring up Nott's parents being DEs in canon, because that's true and one thing about this game is it is very canon-based. Most characters start at GoF and go from there, but Nott didn't really appear until OotP. He was in the game before then, I think, but maybe just as Nott instead of Theodore Nott because we didn't know his last name yet? (Or wait, maybe the first time his name appeared when when he apparated to Germany after the attack, which would be just post OotP?)

Anyway, if we assume that Nott's enlarged role this year takes off from his canon role in OotP then he's known for being able to see Thestrels, being weedy-looking and for being the boy Draco, Crabbe and Goyle were discussing their DE fathers with.

Obviously that scene didn't happen because NA 5th year is different than Canon's, but I like the idea of Nott providing another DE son, only this one is able to have a conversation in ways Crabbe and Goyle really can't. He and Draco were both invited into conversations with their fathers after dinner, iirc. So do the two of them talk about these kinds of things? The main thing we seem to know about Nott is that he has odd interests at times (deciding to grow a beard, liking Iceland), Draco talked to him about Quidditch on the excursion and that he is very charming with ladies. He tried to contact Draco over the summer right around the time Draco was first asked to lunch with the DEs himself, and also tried to talk to him earlier in the year...maybe after Draco was having trouble sleeping? And he's Sally-Anne's cousin, though this doesn't necessarily mean they like each other. I can't figure out what the dynamic between him and Draco is.

Still, he's definitely become a constant presence and Sally-Anne never goes away. Whatever her motives are, she's been involved in at least two things that wound up getting Draco hurt: the mudblood incident and the disappearing staircase. Though also in both cases Sally-Anne didn't actually do anything to Draco, it was his own bad judgment that got him hurt. He chose to throw the mud blood and took the main brunt of everyone's anger for it; he was the one who knew he had to be alert on the stairs.

Yup, more questions. No answers.

a_player @ April 29 2004, 13:04:41 UTC

The players have confirmed that he's not a sinister figure (although that definitely doesn't mean we should assume he's lily-white) although he has book!canon DE parents. (right?)

Definitely. I was going to mention it earlier but I'm glad to see someone else did. I starred that he wasn't as evil as everyone thinks he is because he isn't really this paragon of evil that represents all of Draco's bad thoughts. :)

a_player @ April 29 2004, 13:09:00 UTC

Oh, and-- I didn't read your entire comment before I replied, sorry.

Could inconstancy be one of his major character traits? ;)

thestrand @ April 27 2004, 18:45:43 UTC

Your icon is so <3!

slinkhard @ April 28 2004, 08:50:44 UTC

Perhaps Draco and Pansy have been kissing.
Ew, teh straight! ;)
To repost:
Hahaha! I love Pansy.
She does make undeniably logical points:
- it's ok for Harry to hit Draco, but not for Draco to shove Lavendar?
- Lavendar wouldn't have broken anything if she hadn't been starving herself
- It's no worse than any of the 'pranks' 'other houses' may have pulled.

"But, of course, I wonder if people would be so horribly upset if Draco had been injured, and Lavender the one to do the pushing, or would people merely assume he deserved it for some reason or another?"

Much love to Pansy's player :X

And of course magpie:

"What's great, of course, is that despite that, a lot of Pansy says is just true but it's considered bad to say it. The "correct" response to this is to be up in arms over Malfoy physically hurting Lavender and not suggest that her arm is broken because she's been committing a slow suicide in front of everyone for over a year and perhaps this is the bigger problem here."

"If the violence is the big horrible thing here than why would one punish a person for shoving someone lightly and not intentionally breaking somebody's nose? Because he deserved it? Who decides that? Harry hit Draco because Draco made him angry--he wanted to kill him. Is that okay, to break a bone because the person made you angry? So is Draco's problem that he did what he did in cold blood? I agree there's a difference between hitting someone in anger and planning it, and of course I see that Draco provoked his attack and Lavender did not but exactly how far does that go?"

I think if you two teamed up, you could probably sell ice to the Eskimos ;)