[ SECRET POST #5092 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5092 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 19 secrets from Secret Submission Post #729.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I want to see people realize that they were wrong and put in the time and effort and energy into improving themselves and making it up to all the people they've hurt.

Seconding this. It's a frustration I have with a lot of Drarry fanfic. There's the tendency of writers to kind of shrug off Draco's years of cruel bullying as "Well he was young and he looked up to his dad and just didn't know better and then Voldemort forced him to do all the rest of it, and he never really had any choice you see." Sometimes writers even take it so far that they act like Harry is the one who should be apologizing to Draco for being self-righteous and insensitive and blind to Draco's pain. That drives me crazy. Like, no, Draco chose to be a cruel, racist, borderline sadistic little shitweasel. The fact that he may not have had any real choice to become a Death Eater and do Voldemort's bidding is one thing. But the fact that he was a teenager does not excuse the rest of his cruel, bullying behavior.

Even if people don't want to put in the work to write an actual redemption arc for him, I wish more people would have him acknowledge that he was an atrocious little shit in school, and that he doesn't deserve forgiveness from many of the people he hurt--but that he did realize the error of his ways, and change.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a hard time seeing Malfoy as Harry's bully, even though he definitely engaged in bullying behaviors. He never seemed to have any power over Harry and came off as an annoying pest for most of the series. He was more of a bully toward Ron and particularly Hermione.

[(Anonymous)]

No, I agree, I just find that point irrelevant. I don't care who he bullied. He was a bully. I'm not interested in seeing that swept under the rug and excused. I'd say the exact same thing if I shipped Dramione, or basically anybody else who was a good person in canon with Draco.

I'm not interested in seeing him made out to be "the real victim here" for any reason. Even if that reason isn't a ship, I'm still not here for it. I'm super here for seeing his character redeemed--just not by going, "He was never the REAL problem, and really he was just a helpless sad boi, and the golden trio was kind of insufferably self-righteous sometimes so who could blame him for being malicious to them for years?"

[(Anonymous)]

Well, it's a distinction I'd like people to make if people are gonna write Drarry fics, just so that I don't have to see the dynamics portrayed as bully/former victim. But admittedly, this is because I don't care that much about Draco and am much more invested in Harry's side of things, so I just want to get the facts straight. Malfoy never mattered that much to Harry unless he was attacking one of his friends, until the point in the story when he actively became a potential threat.

[(Anonymous)]

It's just not a distinction that's relevant to me in this particular conversation, which is about bullies and how they are handled in fiction, particularly wrt redemption.

Draco is a bully, there's no questioning that. Often I see his behavior summarily absolved or reframed entirely, which is not a form of character redemption I vibe with. Which was where the conversation began: ways of handling character redemption and whether we vibe with them.

I think you might be having a different conversation than the one I'm having. I'm not totally sure.

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt

Exactly! We see tons of that. 'It's not really his fault' or 'It was all someone else's fault' or 'Why didn't YOU help HIM?' and that is not redemption. That is retroactive whitewashing and I don't care for it.