Yeah, but the commons and bedrooms seemed to be built to accommodate around that number of students. Though I suppose you could fanwank magical rooms that warp themselves to look as if they’re built for the exact number of students that will be attending. It’s not even that out there of a fanwank given that Hogwarts does, in fact, have magical rooms that alter themselves.
Didn’t he only have about three followers? As others have mentioned, Crabbe and Goyle weren’t very bright and their fathers were also presumably friends with Lucius Malfoy. Pansy Parkinson has a crush on Draco. Beyond that, Draco didn’t IIRC seem to have much influence beyond what comes with having a rich daddy.
As I recall, Harry was far more of a leader than Draco ever was. Wasn’t Dumbledore’s Army basically Harry’s baby through and through? I mean, sure, it outgrew Harry in Book 7, but that was out of necessity since Harry/Ron/Hermione weren’t around – not because Harry was inept.
^
DA was Hermione’s brainchild, not Harry’s. Harry’s test of leadership came in Book 7 and found him wanting at the start, but he recovered soon enough. Draco’s test (not so much in leadership but in general ‘evil wizard’ stuff) came in Book 6 and he came through after a lot of bungling (mission accomplished and preserving his humanity to boot --his mother showed signs of genius in both 6 and 7.)
I think the Malfoy character was a waste. The actor and the name were cool, the character wasn’t. I would like Slytherin to present a somewhat more proper alternative, noone of substance came from there after Snape.
Well unfortunately, the evil characters do get the short-shrift in Rowlings writings. Crabbe and Goyle were large, brutish and tremendously stupid. Malfoy was a bully and a coward. None of their circle is an intelligent, cunning threat to St. Potter at any point. Heck, even Voldemort, while intelligent and powerful, is extremely short-sighted in some respects and lacking wisdom.
He wasn’t supposed to be cool. He was supposed to be a spoiled, whiny little bully.
Doesn’t stop some people from drooling over him, but that seems to have more to do with the actor than anything actually written in the books.
I seem to remember that shortly before setting fire to the room of requirement, Crabbe and Goyle basically tell Draco that as his father’s out of favour, he no longer gets a say in what they do.
Even they don’t have any personal loyalty to him, it’s just that he’s from an influential family favoured by Voldemort.
I know that. I just think it would have been more fun if he had been cool instead. Give us an actual, intelligent antagonist. Isn’t Slytherin supposed to give you more power, but at a cost? I want him to be Snoop, not Namond (The Wire reference.).
Wasn’t that her entire point about evil? That it’s short-sighted and foolish?
The Harry Potter series has a number of characters who serve as antagonists, and most of them are a lot more effective and intelligent than Draco. He was never set up to be the “big bad” of the series.
Beyond that, I don’t think “Fails to make evil seem cool” is a fair criticism of a series of children’s books.
Heh. Also there wasnt enough sex.
In the earlier books, Draco struck me as being good at maneuvering Harry into breaking the school rules, so he could tell on Harry. And he did nearly get Hagrid fired.
No. Nothing like that at all. Slytherin is just the house for those whose main trait is (and there are other ways of phrasing it) doing whatever it takes to get what they want.
Several of the characters were designed to flank the readers’ expectations in the end. You could smell it on both Snape and the Malfoys. Children who have not read enough complex fiction to be aware of these things will not spot the rather formulaic ways that Rowling telegraphed some parts of the outcome and so may well be surprised by it. I do find it a bit troubling, though, that Voldemort had absolutely no redeeming qualities, a well-drawn villain should not be pure, unmitigated evil, otherwise he just looks too fake.
Hmm.. having read this, I’m almost intrigued enough to go through Paul’s Evil Overlord List to check off the ones that Voldemort did. Can a literary villain be too evil?
Of course. How could any character been “bigger bad” than Voldemort? Draco was simply Harry’s rival.
I recall Voldemort being more of a plot device or force of nature than an actual character. Sure we got some back story with the Tom Riddle stuff and whatnot, but ultimately Voldemort was just a convenient object used to put the actual characters in conflict.
To me, at least, when I read Book 7 the ending duel was almost superfluous, everybody around Voldemort was far more interesting than Voldemort himself, it’s how people reacted to him that made him menacing, not how he acted himself.
A crucial part of the backstory of the series is that Voldemort was willing to spare Lily Potter’s life if she got out of his way. Of course this wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, it was only because Snape asked him to, but it would have been easy for Voldemort to just lie about this. That Voldemort even attempted to keep his word suggests that he did possess some shred of honor or loyalty.
I think a case could be made that Miss Umbridge was at least as bad as Voldemort in the moral sense, although she was nowhere near as intelligent or skilled at magic and thus less bad in the sense of how much harm she was capable of doing on her own.
Umbridge liked kittens. Voldemort had a snake. That makes Umbridge less evil.
I read her being described as a cross between Margaret Thatcher and Hyacinth Bucket. Being a bloody Yank, I really don’t know how Mrs Thatcher was perceived but I like the Hyacinth reference.