#and maybe one w wasted potential but that doesnt take away from all the amazing ones we already have so ajdkfkf

[kate-m-art]

Keep seeing Zelda movie news reactions and like feel like my only contribution right now is I'd much prefer live action to an illumination style animated movie...

[unproduciblesmackdown]

either it was a case of a) ignoring obvious context clues or b) forgetting outright statements in the books or most likely c) both, but i didnt Get that lucius malfoy had been the like head death eater pre-voldemorts quasideath. it makes sense obviously but it makes everything even more ironic? poetic? whatever that basically voldemorts handling of the malfoys was one of the most dumbassed things he did, both by complete accident/coincidence/luck and by voldemorts own crappy choices which make it infinitely easier to off him like i hadnt really thought about it in an organized fashion before knowing that lucius used to be #1 but i guess that just made it more beautiful or something. because its in part all great and heartwarming and stuff that the good choices of good people doing their best does lead to direct successes, but its also great when things that arent supposed to be important or even relevant come into play and small undignified things end up being as crucial as the more grand and dramatic stuff. plus, dumbledore is representing the Man With A Long Con Plan, and he sucks. whereas harry is always just playing by ear and doing all the real work out here anyways it all also makes sense why draco malfoy remains so prominent throughout the series, even in say, book 4, where he truly does nothing impactful save tell harry he sucks and be transfigured into a ferret by a death eater. he's in the top ten characters per mention re: the series as a whole, and even stays in the top twenty chars by mention in dh, where he's hardly even around. i know this from trivia games. and he's like the first hogwarts peer harry meets, right. but the point is despite being introduced as a rival who seems to be heading towards simply being a nuisance, his tangential arc is not only important even when he's only being an annoying dumbass but also voldemort's own bullshit causing his own demise like firstly, it was useful that lucius malfoy was Death Eater Man The First because he essentially raised his child in a cult in an attempt to pretty much clone himself, which sort of worked until like, book 6. which, a fun fact if you overlook these kinds of connect-the-dots clues in the books like i do, means it makes sense why draco made an attempt to befriend harry in the first place and why that attempt was so blindingly crappy: that pre-voldemorts return, former death eaters thought harry potter might turn out to be the next mega evil wizard, so it was probably a lucius-endorsed maneuver, what with it being repeatedly established that lucius's strategy in things is to associate himself with powerful people and try to gain influence and protection that way. but when harry was like fuck off with that, draco realized that harry was just an sjw, even though technically antagonizing hp was not lucius-endorsed. and the cult thing comes into play both in the worst friendship offering of all time and in draco wanting to knock harry down a peg at all times, in that not only was draco brought up on the belief of wide concepts like wizpremacy and blood purity and a voldemort renaissance would be amazing and death eaters are the best, but also the concept that as a pureblood and a malfoy they had an elitism that would be recognized anywhere, so not only should harry have been interested in befriending him and recognizing him as top quality but so should the whole god damn school, neither of which happened, so he takes it all out on harry on account of being jealous and a little shit but maybe that self-appointed rivalry wouldve died down if harry hadn't also been drawn into the pettiness of it all, thank god for it, because it is a) vital to murdering voldemort and b) pretty funny sometimes, when thats the context of the situation, on account of draco's role fluctuating between harmless annoyance to actual threat/antagonist even within the same books. e.g. how in poa, he's sort of indirectly causing real problems via hippogriff executions, but at the same time the part where he shows up and has snape make ron and harry do his potion for him is a little hilarious. i think ron hit him in the face with a crocodile heart in CoS, maybe. potions is where its all happening. but anyways, the point is that harry kind of drags draco along in remaining relevant because theyre both dumb as hell, and immature. like, draco's relevant in the first book because all the little things are more relevant to harry then and he's presumably not happy about once again being hated for no good reason. and in the second one, the trio think draco is the heir of slytherin for a while. he has the buckbeak thing in the third book, in goblet of fire he's really just there in the background being annoying, unhelpful, racist, etc, as per usual but its all so unimportant i barely remember half of what he's even doing in that book. but anyways, like with the other books, despite being outstripped as a real "threat" in harry's world by that point, its still important he's relevant in the fifth book as well, because he's obviously important in the sixth but in a way that started in the fifth book, which means by extension its a way that started in books 1-4 as well because in book 5, even though for once he has some mild direct form of power besides the really powerful yet indirect factor of having a rich dad involved in politics, malfoy still doesnt really manage much. until he manages the fairly major victory of raiding dumbledores army. which didnt turn out to be important since they got out of that tight spot, but it was important because it introduced draco to the room of requirement the 6th book is like, its funny that the reason harry suspected malfoy so much besides seeing a sort of suspicious conversation or two, is mostly just that he's got a grudge against him and also is wondering why draco seems to have gotten a hobby besides annoying him all the time, which is funny because its just accurate. and also relies on their history in all the previous books. but what was really up was that, again, voldemort was ruining everything for himself. on account of deciding to make an example of the malfoys as a way of punishing lucius for totally botching the dept of mysteries thing. like, thats great and all, but it kind of backfires in the whole death-eater-cult thing draco had going on in that he was seeing evidence that being a death eater actually was the worst and everyone was jerks, and that the guy he was modeling himself after was now the lowest amongst them, and voldemorts a dick and his return is actually shitty, and again that they arent seen as The Best for being malfoys, and things arent The Best because voldemorts back, but instead it is bullshit and theyre considered the worst for being malfoys. and the whole Cult Teaching Style really backfires in that sense since when parts of it get disproved to someone the whole thing is now liable to collapse too. and his execution mission was Useful in a load of ways. including that besides the regular voldemort stress there was the stress of malfoy figuring out he wasn't actually up for murder re: katie bell and ron almost dying in the crossfire. which you'd think he mightve thought of before voldemort returned with all his murder agenda, but maybe he really did just assume he'd make a great stone cold killer. presumably there wasnt a lot of thinking shit through about taking on the whole mission in the first place anyways, then the room of requirement is important because he needs it to actually succeed, which apparently none of the masterminds behind the whole thing (voldemort, dumbledore, snape) accounted for. and that whole deal on the astronomy tower just did the important stuff of a) proving to draco that he can't actually kill anyone and b) showing harry that draco disarmed dumbledore, for the whole elder wand business and then the other reason that voldemort inadvertently turned the malfoys against him was that, by sending their son off to die while simultaneously antagonizing them at all times, of course he made the situation such that by the 7th book even bullshit lucius is really mostly interested in their family making it out alive, which as per usual means doing whatever it takes with whoevers on top to do so. total #malfoys, ttly slytherin. but anyways? honestly? there were such infinitely better ways to use the fact that the malfoy family actually gave a shit about each other besides "you did this wrong so i'll kill your kid as punishment." on account of that just gives them reason to resent voldemort, would have left them with a lot less to lose should draco have actually died (did voldemort expect dumbledore to actually kill a 16-yr old who was one of his students or something? he sucks but hes a lot more passive in his negligence towards his student body), it was a waste of draco's potential use on account of he was clearly not only more competent than voldemort expected but also? he had been raised from birth to think voldemort was the best and his rule would be the best and being a death eater would be the best. and voldemort not only threw away a would-be useful death eater to die but also basically disillusioned draco of all his ideas about what life w voldemort around was like. and then theres the fact that, since voldemort knew lucius and narcissa cared enough about draco to suffer at his death, why wouldn't he have instead essentially used draco as a hostage to have their motivation be centered around that rather than gaining or maintaining status. its not like there were that many powerful death eaters at his disposal. i mean, narcissa is probably on the level of the best of them yet her abilities are really never called upon. like, she was ready to kill or die for draco, when she gave draco her wand it meant both she and lucius didnt have a wand at that point but she wasnt fucking around. and voldemort considered draco throwaway anyways and thought the best card he could play was to kill him? when he was that valuable to such powerful people? okay pal, sure. i mean probably he really didnt realize the extent to which the malfoys (particularly narcissa lbr, the saving grace of moms theme) actually cared about draco as their kid and not just like family honor shit or whatever, since thats a theme with him and then of course, besides voldemorts wasted opportunities there, draco's whole suicide-mission-that-actually-worked-out came into play when the trio gets caught by death eaters in dh and brought to his house and draco doesn't narc harry over to voldemort. on account of its fairly established to him by that point that he's not about killing anyone, even if it would moreso redeem his family to turn him in or be kind of anti-voldemort not to. this is useful when a) it means voldemort doesnt show up and murder harry a few times and b) it means harry's also alive to bust out and get some wands from draco. which he would also need for the elder wand business and which he would recognize as a crucial advantage because he'd witnessed draco disarm dumbledore because voldemort was a dumbass and gave him that mission and he could do it via the room of requirement which he found because of antagonizing harry during year 5 because of the longstanding feud he and harry had maintained ever since the hogwarts express ride before year 1 when their interaction stemmed from draco's dad being a major death eater player and then anyways despite kind of getting in harrys way again in the room of requirement which is a whole bit that feels almost nostalgic in that situation, with the battle being elsewhere and the broomsticks and everyone just taking a moment in the hall afterwards to be like jesus christ i need a gatorade. but it was useful in harry saving draco from dying then, which was funny with ron's line about if we die for them i'll kill you, but yknow harrys spontaneous heroics and neither him nor malfoy being interested in the other actually dying or anything. and then them saving malfoy again from some random death eater, which was an even more optional life saving maneuver. technically harry couldve lied i guess, but it was relevant when his life depended on telling narcissa that draco was alive in hogwarts as far as he knew. i dont think he realized why she was asking and what the effects of his answer would be until after he'd actually done so, so i guess its not as though he had the chance to weigh the option of lying anyways. plus, all that spontaneous heroics stuff and harry not being a particularly good liar and the thing that i cant remember if its canon or inferred theory that narcissa is a really good occlumens/legilimens, whereas harry is bullshit at that. but anyways, what was really important there was The Theme, aka that moms keep saving the world via the sake of their kids. and for that to happen in a literary sense draco had to be alive, even though maybe the intent wouldve counted, who knows, whatever anyways and then of course its relevant again when harry doesnt kill voldemort with his own twin wand even though that would be the dramatic and strategic thing to do, but with a wand he happened to snatch on improv of some rando bullshit student in his year who voldemort tried to have killed off because he's a wipe and terrible at everything, which is also how the horcruxes thing played out. and he keeps underestimating everyones mom. and thats how draco despite seeming largely useless for most of the series winds up being so useful he's mentioned in the final confrontation with voldemort right up to the point of harry actually killing voldemort. and its all because of death eaterdom doing itself in and voldemort doing himself in too and because draco and harry happened to have a mutual stubborn pettiness going on, but not so much so that they were going to let the other get killed. what with them being 17 and everyone having some god damn sense, particularly malfoy with his sense-gaining experience of the year prior and the whole not being twelve factor tldr the themes are: harrys spontaneous heroics, voldemorts self-destructive lack of comprehension of Love, your mom, and being a petty shithead and having a few ridiculous happenstantial encounters are whats important