Character SWOT analysis

Aug 25, 2005 08:04

Due to certain unforseen, er, complications the two-week trip turned out to be a three-week one, and although said complications were unwelcome, the extra week I stayed in Auckland wasn't half bad at all :-) Offline friends who've been delightful companies and great support during the little advanture, who read this LJ- I shall stay in touch *this ( Read more... )

hbp, random

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Comments 21

sistermagpie August 25 2005, 20:14:37 UTC
Welcome back ( ... )

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_rp_zeal_ August 25 2005, 22:48:15 UTC
If they had both grown up in "good" families Sirius' rebellious nature may have made him a bad guy while Draco's desire to live up to his father's example would make him a good one. Neither person seems essentially free of cruelty or free of love.

Exactly. Strengths in one situation can often be weaknesses in another, hence why when I argue Draco and Ron are like twins born to different parents even the Draco-haters kind of agree with me, look at Ron sprouting all those horrible muggle-loving rhetorics that his daddy taught him ;-P!

And anyway you actually can blame a person less when it seems to be their nature to have little compassion and other positive human feelings, right?

Which reminds me, actually, of a recent post there where someone pointed to Harry feeling badly about his sectumsempra curse as proof that he didn't belong in Slytherin, at heart.Hahaha! That one was great- in fact it was part of the reason that drove me to write this post. Didn't someone also say that Harry is so much a better person than Draco because he ( ... )

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sistermagpie August 26 2005, 00:59:41 UTC
Hahaha! That one was great- in fact it was part of the reason that drove me to write this post. Didn't someone also say that Harry is so much a better person than Draco because he felt bad about cutting Draco open, while Draco was only too happy to break Harry's nose while he was down? And later also showed no remorse for having nearly killed two schoolmates?
Ugh--yes, that was the one. He showed no remorse...except that the whole story kind of hinted that the point was that Draco did indeed feel horror at what he had done. I mean, Harry was grateful for Ginny stepping in and saying that the curse was a good thing, so it's not like he was overcome with guilt in ways Draco could never be ( ... )

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romeoambiences August 26 2005, 01:31:12 UTC
Harry is a better person than Draco

I could argue that Cedric was a better person than Harry, (I came up as Mrs. Cedric Diggory in a quiz which I wish I had saved.*grins*) but I'm still more interested in Draco.

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go_back_chief August 25 2005, 21:17:28 UTC
Ah, I'm so envious of you for having been to NZ! But it's great to have you back! :D

Anyway, if anyone wants to decide which characters they love and which they hate based on ethics, it's their pejorative, but I can't help feeling a confunded every time I talk with such a person, especially if they assume that I base my liking on the same standards. For instance, there was this guy at FAP once, who asked the Draco-fans "which of his character traits do you truly admire?" or something like that, and I was all "why do I have to admire a character I like?" I'm not even sure I admire everyone I like in real life -you'd love a baby, wouldn't you? But would you admire him/her? Plus, it seems so weird to me to decide whether I like a fictional character or not on the same standards as I evaluate real people by. After all, I don't have to interact, or deal with the characters, and it would be quite a lot to expect of real people that they are interesting every time I meet them, in order for me to like them. So that kind of reasoning just ( ... )

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_rp_zeal_ August 25 2005, 23:01:42 UTC
It would be like me asking people who like Cho which of her traits they find funny, because of course everyone, like me, base their liking of a character a lot on if they made them laugh! I am not sure if I'll like a RL Snape if he treats me the way he treats Neville, or Draco if he treats me the way he treats Hermione but most importantly- this thought won't even come across my mind because it's not my instinct to think of fictional characters as RL people. Sure, we evaluate characters using a lot of RL parameters (when A breaks B's nose we consider it a bad thing, even in a fictional world), but it's very different from actually thinking of them as someone you have to live, work or go to school with in RL.

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romeoambiences August 26 2005, 00:52:19 UTC
Welcome back! I so envy you. I want to visit there too.since

I don't base my liking of a character on their goodness/ethics relative to another

I don't have a set formula for liking a character...although intelligence usually factors in somewhere. But I've liked jerks and villains and noble heros......I do tend to be irritated with "heros" that come off too self-righteous. (Probably the reason I am easily irked by the "good" of HP.)

are you saying the good characters are bad while the bad characters are good?!

Hehehe....My brother accused me of this and called me Palpitine.
And perhaps I am. *laughs*

And on Harry vs Draco

I still see Harry as a fairy tale character and Draco as more of a real boy.

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_rp_zeal_ August 26 2005, 14:44:50 UTC
But I've liked jerks and villains and noble heros......I do tend to be irritated with "heros" that come off too self-righteous

Same here! The Sues and Stus annoy me to a great deal too, but I seldom come across them in works I like- let's just say Ginny was a particularly nasty experience.

I still see Harry as a fairy tale character and Draco as more of a real boy.

Interesting. I know a lot of readers identify with Harry, in a wouldn't-it-be-ideal-if-I-were-him-minus-possible-impending-death sense :P But it's Draco who everyone thinks they know one or two in RL... Though I tend to disagree with them, since what they mean is simply they've come across bullies in their past, but being a bully is not even the main story of Draco, and I doubt many people truly have met "bullies" that focus on targets who have beaten them time and again :P

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romeoambiences August 26 2005, 17:43:01 UTC
I should clarify. I don't know any Harry Potters or Draco Malfoys. But Draco's fears and his love for his parents seem more realistic to me than a fearless Harry. Maybe it's because I am not fearless.

I doubt many people truly have met "bullies" that focus on targets who have beaten them time and again :P Heh...I think JKR wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to represent Draco as a bully, but she doesn't allow him to actually intimidate anyone. (He probably does intimidate the younger years but we see other characters doing this as well...characters that many of the readers you mentioned would defend ( ... )

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cook32 August 26 2005, 02:42:59 UTC
lucky you! 3 weeks holiday is a beautiful thing to have in the middle of the year, especially for those of us who no longer have 'summer vacation' LOL ( ... )

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_rp_zeal_ August 26 2005, 14:55:30 UTC
I know! Don't we all miss good ol' summer vacations? It's one of my biggest regret that I hadn't chosen a career in school teaching- though pupils everywhere were probably better off without teacher!RP :-P

I am actually okay with Harry himself, really, it's just the authorial voice stressing to us time and again just how heroic and capable of loving etc he is (not), and his army of fans who basically claim he can do no wrong that pissed me off. Why would I not like a character for not being the most heroic/kind when I love Snape and Draco?

Haha, nice to have another table fan on the flist ;P

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ackonrad August 26 2005, 20:57:45 UTC
But to certain individual who alleged to have ditched HP for QAF (you know who you are), you'll be back, take it from someone who has cheated on HP with so many other obsessions she thought would've overthrown Teh HP for good but all turned out to be passionate but brief affairs. It's not the source material that possesses such staying power of attraction, it's the fandom ;-P

*giggles* I take it that you were talking to me. :) I believe you, honest, even though it doesn't look this way right now at all. I still continue reading the HP posts on my flist - it's just that I have little to no wish to reply to them. It's kind of sad, really - I've never thought it would've come that far.

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_rp_zeal_ August 26 2005, 21:40:18 UTC
Of course I was talking to you, the bloodHP traitor :P!
Yeah there were more than a dozen times when I earnestly thought, "Who needs HP when I have [insert other source material]? I probably won't even be checking LJ again!"

Yeah. Right.

Though it's different with everyone, so instead of assuming you are just another weak-minded cheater like myself, I was merely wishful thinking aloud when I said you'd certainly be back :D

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