An essay that takes itself far too seriously (as per the usual. ^^)
Wow, there are so many disclaimers on this thing it's uncanny. If two is uncanny. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that I most likely was not the first person to look at the interview this way and I'm not trying to claim I was. It's just a personal example I happen to have.
Stephen Fry:
Mafloy, Goyle & Crabbe are almost irredeemably bad. There's almost nothing about Goyle and Crabbe who really are repulsive. Malfoy I suppose is very stylish in his nastiness.
JK Rowling:
He's very stylish in the film.
Stephen Fry:
And in the books as well I think?
JK Rowling:
Yes, he does have a certain flare.
Stephen Fry (heavily paraphrased):
Then there's characters like Snape, who are bad but there is a certain ambiguity about him. You can't quite decide because there's something quite sad about him. Something very lonely. We're slowly (after five books) getting the idea that maybe he is not so bad after all.
JK Rowling:
Yes, but you shouldn't think he's too nice. Let me just say that. It is worth keeping an eye on old Severus Snape, definitely.
OK, so, I've put this excerpt up for a reason as you might have guessed. There's all this talk about how, because JKR's interviews are verbal, she doesn't have as much control over the kind of information she's presenting, and so we should all just take what she has to say at face value and not try and analyze it at all because clearly, there's no point. I've heard it one time too often, and so I’m going to offer up my personal proof as to why taking JKR’s words at face value is a bad idea.
As a disclaimer, I do realize that there are two versions of the interview quote I’ve pulled above. I’m using the version that I’m using because it was the one on which my pre-book 6 interpretation was based and that’s what I’m discussing. For this particular argument, however, the differing transcripts don’t actually matter all that much, because I’m not dealing with any arguments about whether or not we can trust transcribers so much as whether or not analysis of an already widely accepted source is feasible. Such as...I don’t know, the IoD. After all, if it can be used to back up essays, the authenticity of the interview text itself must be trusted; this is the platform I’m working off of, so I’d rather not turn this into an argument about the inaccuracies of interview transcription because that’s not the point. In fact, however, the differing transcripts might even strengthen my argument, because if I can analyze an interview that has been paraphrased in parts and come up with what I think to be a fairly accurate interpretation of what's going on, imagine what could be done with a source like the IoD?
This interview was done some time after the fifth book came out and before the sixth and was actually the thing that gave me the slightest bit of hope where it came to Draco. The thing is, what JKR means to make us assume and what's actually true are two very different things because (get this!) JKR wants to mislead us. On its face, this part of the interview seems to confirm that Draco Malfoy and his friends are, in fact, irredeemably bad (on some sites, it's 'evil'). She doesn't say it out loud, but she doesn't deny it either. Right, sweet, let's move on.
Except let's not.
Before the sixth book came out, I wrote in a comment to a post that maybe there was a reason JKR had avoided confirming that Draco was irredeemably evil. After all, in a previous part of the interview (and in multiple interviews before) she had bluntly stated that she thought people were getting too fond of him; why not just put a lid on the whole thing right then and really pound it in: DRACO IS IRREDEEMABLY BAD STOP LIKING HIM NOW.
Honestly, she wasn't ever going to get a more perfect lead-in and she had always been so very firm when speaking about how much silly fangirls bothered her, scared her, even; it was the completely logical thing for her to do. Not only logical, but natural, if her other interviews were anything to go by. Clearly, that was the meat of Fry’s statement; Draco’s ‘flare’ or whatever was just something he’d tacked on at the end. He wanted to discuss the kind of cruelty the baddies were capable of. And yet, instead of condemning Draco and addressing the larger statement, which would have made sense, JKR chose to focus on the minor part and bring in Tom Felton. And that’s the piece that really made me suspect because, like I said, it just made no sense in light of the fact that earlier in that very same interview, she’d complained about how popular Draco the character was becoming and how that worried her. Tom Felton really had nothing to do with the books themselves, it was completely random the way she brought it up; in fact, Stephen Fry had to deliberately lead her back to the books in the next question. And now I'm willing to bet that she had been hoping that Fry would take the bait and start talking about Tom Felton, so that she could wag her finger at the fangirls for a bit and then be done with Draco for the duration of the interview without having actually said anything relevant or new about him at all.
At the time, because Draco's fans tended to be subject to a lot of ridicule, I only noted that, even after he turned the interview back to Draco, she was very tight-lipped and immediately latched onto Snape - who we already knew at that point was someone to watch, if only because of his questionable loyalties. That was not new information. Perhaps, I thought then, JKR didn't confirm Draco's irredeemable evilness because maybe, just maybe he wasn’t actually irredeemable. And perhaps she was so eager to change the subject because...she was going to do something with him at some point in the next two books. Risky to say at the time, actually, especially since I was new in fandom.
But times change, don’t they?
Because now we know that that's quite possibly what she did. Draco did have a large role to play in book 6, and one which cast considerable doubt on his being even remotely 'evil' (I'd go with 'mean', personally) not to mention irredeemably so. He wouldn't have killed Dumbledore in a 'million years', remember? Of course, if I'd said that in fandom at the time and not just in a little comment buried safely in a hundred comments in a Draco fan's journal, people would have laughed. People would have told me I was a desperate fangirl putting too much stock in JKR's ability to manipulate an interview and an interviewer. That there was no point in analyzing an interview because JKR wasn't actually that careful about what she said. Perhaps even that I was...delusional.
Wake up. JKR's books are a multi-billion dollar franchise; she is going to try to mislead us wherever she can. And so the only way to really get at whatever truth happens to be in them is to look for what she doesn’t say as well as what she does; what she cuts where there’s no sense in cutting it; who she doesn’t talk about and what she avoids dealing with. And at the bigger, more obvious things she somehow feels the need to repeat over and over again when certain things come up (like the inevitability of Ron/Hermione). In the above example, she tried to avoid talking about Draco by talking about Tom Felton, which no one would have thought to question, but which also made no sense.
So, honestly, I think the silliest thing you can do is take JKR at face value and not question the things she says or her motives. To me, if he’s proven anything, Draco’s proven that.
Stephen Fry:
Mafloy, Goyle & Crabbe are almost irredeemably bad. There's almost nothing about Goyle and Crabbe who really are repulsive. Malfoy I suppose is very stylish in his nastiness.
JK Rowling:
He's very stylish in the film.
Stephen Fry:
And in the books as well I think?
JK Rowling:
Yes, he does have a certain flare.
Stephen Fry (heavily paraphrased):
Then there's characters like Snape, who are bad but there is a certain ambiguity about him. You can't quite decide because there's something quite sad about him. Something very lonely. We're slowly (after five books) getting the idea that maybe he is not so bad after all.
JK Rowling:
Yes, but you shouldn't think he's too nice. Let me just say that. It is worth keeping an eye on old Severus Snape, definitely.
OK, so, I've put this excerpt up for a reason as you might have guessed. There's all this talk about how, because JKR's interviews are verbal, she doesn't have as much control over the kind of information she's presenting, and so we should all just take what she has to say at face value and not try and analyze it at all because clearly, there's no point. I've heard it one time too often, and so I’m going to offer up my personal proof as to why taking JKR’s words at face value is a bad idea.
As a disclaimer, I do realize that there are two versions of the interview quote I’ve pulled above. I’m using the version that I’m using because it was the one on which my pre-book 6 interpretation was based and that’s what I’m discussing. For this particular argument, however, the differing transcripts don’t actually matter all that much, because I’m not dealing with any arguments about whether or not we can trust transcribers so much as whether or not analysis of an already widely accepted source is feasible. Such as...I don’t know, the IoD. After all, if it can be used to back up essays, the authenticity of the interview text itself must be trusted; this is the platform I’m working off of, so I’d rather not turn this into an argument about the inaccuracies of interview transcription because that’s not the point. In fact, however, the differing transcripts might even strengthen my argument, because if I can analyze an interview that has been paraphrased in parts and come up with what I think to be a fairly accurate interpretation of what's going on, imagine what could be done with a source like the IoD?
This interview was done some time after the fifth book came out and before the sixth and was actually the thing that gave me the slightest bit of hope where it came to Draco. The thing is, what JKR means to make us assume and what's actually true are two very different things because (get this!) JKR wants to mislead us. On its face, this part of the interview seems to confirm that Draco Malfoy and his friends are, in fact, irredeemably bad (on some sites, it's 'evil'). She doesn't say it out loud, but she doesn't deny it either. Right, sweet, let's move on.
Except let's not.
Before the sixth book came out, I wrote in a comment to a post that maybe there was a reason JKR had avoided confirming that Draco was irredeemably evil. After all, in a previous part of the interview (and in multiple interviews before) she had bluntly stated that she thought people were getting too fond of him; why not just put a lid on the whole thing right then and really pound it in: DRACO IS IRREDEEMABLY BAD STOP LIKING HIM NOW.
Honestly, she wasn't ever going to get a more perfect lead-in and she had always been so very firm when speaking about how much silly fangirls bothered her, scared her, even; it was the completely logical thing for her to do. Not only logical, but natural, if her other interviews were anything to go by. Clearly, that was the meat of Fry’s statement; Draco’s ‘flare’ or whatever was just something he’d tacked on at the end. He wanted to discuss the kind of cruelty the baddies were capable of. And yet, instead of condemning Draco and addressing the larger statement, which would have made sense, JKR chose to focus on the minor part and bring in Tom Felton. And that’s the piece that really made me suspect because, like I said, it just made no sense in light of the fact that earlier in that very same interview, she’d complained about how popular Draco the character was becoming and how that worried her. Tom Felton really had nothing to do with the books themselves, it was completely random the way she brought it up; in fact, Stephen Fry had to deliberately lead her back to the books in the next question. And now I'm willing to bet that she had been hoping that Fry would take the bait and start talking about Tom Felton, so that she could wag her finger at the fangirls for a bit and then be done with Draco for the duration of the interview without having actually said anything relevant or new about him at all.
At the time, because Draco's fans tended to be subject to a lot of ridicule, I only noted that, even after he turned the interview back to Draco, she was very tight-lipped and immediately latched onto Snape - who we already knew at that point was someone to watch, if only because of his questionable loyalties. That was not new information. Perhaps, I thought then, JKR didn't confirm Draco's irredeemable evilness because maybe, just maybe he wasn’t actually irredeemable. And perhaps she was so eager to change the subject because...she was going to do something with him at some point in the next two books. Risky to say at the time, actually, especially since I was new in fandom.
But times change, don’t they?
Because now we know that that's quite possibly what she did. Draco did have a large role to play in book 6, and one which cast considerable doubt on his being even remotely 'evil' (I'd go with 'mean', personally) not to mention irredeemably so. He wouldn't have killed Dumbledore in a 'million years', remember? Of course, if I'd said that in fandom at the time and not just in a little comment buried safely in a hundred comments in a Draco fan's journal, people would have laughed. People would have told me I was a desperate fangirl putting too much stock in JKR's ability to manipulate an interview and an interviewer. That there was no point in analyzing an interview because JKR wasn't actually that careful about what she said. Perhaps even that I was...delusional.
Wake up. JKR's books are a multi-billion dollar franchise; she is going to try to mislead us wherever she can. And so the only way to really get at whatever truth happens to be in them is to look for what she doesn’t say as well as what she does; what she cuts where there’s no sense in cutting it; who she doesn’t talk about and what she avoids dealing with. And at the bigger, more obvious things she somehow feels the need to repeat over and over again when certain things come up (like the inevitability of Ron/Hermione). In the above example, she tried to avoid talking about Draco by talking about Tom Felton, which no one would have thought to question, but which also made no sense.
So, honestly, I think the silliest thing you can do is take JKR at face value and not question the things she says or her motives. To me, if he’s proven anything, Draco’s proven that.