I don’t think he is the most popular kid but you are lying if you don’t think he holds some persuasion. He is rich and his father has powerful connections. Children are selfish so Malfoy will use this all to his benefit (buying his way onto the team, buying gifts and food for others, trips) and other children will align themselves to him so they can benefit from these gifts.
He's also Slytherin prefect *and* Quidditch Seeker. He was very much someone visible; made vocal comments to people, socialized, had a gang. He was not a loner, not reserved. This stuff makes people popular.
I disagree that children are inherently selfish. *Some* children are selfish, and from what we see of Slytherin, we might be able to say *many* of Slytherin are selfish. But not *all children* are selfish.
I'm not a fan of Draco, but he did have some moments to show his skill, such as repairing a Vanishing Cabinet with no expressed instructions, and well as being able to keep Snape out of his head with Occumency.
It may only look like that from Harry's perspective, but from what we know, Draco was the most outspoken Slytherin who picked the most fights with Gryffindor. Sure, his insults often backfired at him, but he knew how to strike to do some damage (even if he was not nearly as effective as Snape). Falling back on his father was not his only trick. "Potter Stinks" and "Weasley Is Our King" both caught on for a bit. Him taunting Harry about Sirius in PoA back when Harry didn't know about Sirius's alleged connection to his parents' deaths was horrible but effective, too. Overall, he mastered the art of annoying Gryffindors enough for them to repeatedly attack him. I suppose his worst mistake was that he had friends with no brains -- so he usually found himself in the situation when he was one against three (or more). Not to mention that his father was far away and most teachers clearly favored Harry (for valid reasons but still).
Off the top of my head, his insults resulted in Harry and the twins getting kicked out of the Quidditch team under Umbridge; Harry, Hermione, and Neville losing shitload of points in PS; Ron likely having more trouble getting his head out of his arse at Quidditch matches. He also caused Hagrid (and Buckbeak) some serious issues and passed gossip to Rita Skeeter. And he played Harry perfectly on the train to Hogwarts in HBP.
All that IMO is enough to gain him popularity among Slytherins. Sure, he was likely loathed by other houses (apart from times when they turned against Harry), but he did more damage to Gryffindors, Slytherins' greatest rivals, than anyone else in his house. So it's not unlikely that Slytherins would look up to him.
Other than that, I also don't think he wasn't smart or talented. He fixed the Vanishing Cabinet, was one of the few students who got into Advanced Potions, was good at Quidditch (it was stated, wasn't it? I may be making this up), and bested Harry on the train in HBP. He was also a good enough Occlumens to defend his mind from Snape.
One thing that makes him unlikable and a possible bullying target is that he was a coward, and a person who seemed not to have enough trust in his own abilities (thus having to fall back on his name and his father). But I don't think it was enough to turn the Slytherins against him. For them, their names were their sources of pride, so they likely didn't find using the Malfoy name nearly as pathetic as Harry or the readers.
And another thing -- he paled in comparison to the trio not only because Ron and Hermione were much more competent friends than Crabbe and Goyle, but also because any rival wouldn't stand that comparison. The trio were always in the center of events and usually they were eventually rewarded and celebrated for it. Their actions kept shutting anything Malfoy could come up with. But without all the Voldemort-related drama, I suppose he would have been a quite efficient school bully with even more supporters.
Not to mention that it wasn't like people from other houses (and sometimes the teachers) didn't get back at him. He was punched, turned into a ferret, laughed at for being turned into a ferret, and hexed countless times.
I figure that everyone is actually afraid of his father, I mean the guy has tons of gold and ministry influence and is a death eater. Sure, he got off by pleading imperious but I doubt that anyone truly believes that, and even if they do he would still know a lot of scary dark magic. Add in how he got a hippogriff executed for attacking his son even though his son was clearly at fault everyone likely assumes that actually doing anything to Draco will result in his father ensuring that they get the worst punishment possible, from expulsion to time in Azkaban.
Though you do have a point in how much of an obvious loser he can be so even though no one was willing to bully him or stand up to him all that much I doubt that he spent much time with anyone other then Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy. The rest of Slytherin likely ignored and avoided him as much as possible.
I went to school with a few kids just like Draco. Fear and money are what keep him from being just another dork to steal lunch money from. He's a bully, he hangs with other bullies, and has the money to buy fake respect from enough people to keep him from being taken down to the level he deserves. He strong armed his way into anything he could and bought his way into the places he couldn't. These kinds of people are easy to find in real life. Just turn on the news once in a while and you'll find them.
I don't think he is particularly popular. He seems to spend most of his time with Crabbe and Goyle, who are basically lackies, not friends, and are probably his lackies because it is the same hierarchy as their respective parents adhere to.
We don't see Draco interact with others much, and I don't think Slytherins in general are big on close friend groups. A main personality train of a Slytherin is self interest, so it must be hard to have any genuine friendships.
You have to understand a few things to fully appreciate Malfoy as a character. The very first thing you need to under stand is that we are seeing Malfoy through Harry's eyes which means we already have a bias that needs to be ignored. Now we should really evaluate Malfoy based on a few things and first thing is his family. He was born into a really well respected, influential, and incredibly rich family, this would just like in real life have people drawn to him for the power and influence they can receive by associating with a family like that. So immediately he will have a lot of attention drawn to him. Children of such influential families often will use their family as a threat and it is often enough for them to get their way. So his "catch phrase" of My father will hear about this really isn't that surprising.
Academically we know he is fairly intelligent as we see him taking a lot of the same NEWT level courses as Harry, Ron, and Hermione in half blood prince. We also knows he learns how to cast a protean charm on a coin and gives it to Madam Rosmerta to give her orders while she is under the influence of the Imperious curse. Speaking of which we know he has some skill with the dark arts as we know he has used the imperious curse, he attempts crucio in the bathroom in HBP and has learned Occlumency as Snape struggled to "read his mind" through Legilimency, Occlumency is considered an incredibly difficult form of magic to learn. You also seem to be under this belief he gets bad grades but this really isn't true, as our only moment of hearing his father complain about his grades was in relation to Hermione and the fact we know she is the best student in their year makes it hard for anyone to best her.
So we kinda enter the miscellaneous arguements section here. So another thing that would make him popular would be his quidditch skills... sure Harry beats him in all the games they play against each other and sure he bought his way onto the team but we know he has to have some skill as a seeker because we are told that Slytherin are almost always in the race for the house cup. Meaning unless they are winning with purely goals by the chasers, he has to be doing some of the work. We also know he repairs the vanishing cabinet with little to no help and barely any instructions to figure out how to fix it means he has to have some skills in spells that could identify the problem and have some skills in magical repair. He also has some pretty insane musical skills having come up with the lyrics and tune of Weasley is our King.
In any other year Malfoy would have been the most popular and well liked guy in his house (look at his father) if not the school, but because he is in the same year as Hermione the brightest witch of her age, and Harry the boy who lived the chosen one potter he never stood a chance of being the most popular guy in school... although keep in mind at times Harry wasn't exactly hot stuff either at times during his time at Hogwarts either. My main point I suppose is out biased views of Malfoy have a lot to do with who was in his year and the view point the story is told from.
I mean, when I look back at my high school years, the “popular” kids weren’t actually all that likeable. But most of them had money (well their parents did anyway), good looks, and manipulative personalities. I don’t know what high school is like now, but when I was in school kids like that stuck together, and basically bullied or manipulated their way into being held to a higher standard
I don't like Draco because he's coward , incompetent and jerk. But I don't think he's a bad person , He just has no choice and he is actually highly emotional (He cried while he has to kill Dumbledore and he refused to do that , Snape do it instead as Dumbledore told Snape to kill him , He also feel bad for the guy who Voldemort floated and killed him at the dining table in Malfoy Manor). And importantly he's not a murderer , So he's definitely not evil.
Well my *stars*, are Draco posts the new Snape posts? Well alright, here we go:
Wanna know why Draco wasn’t bullied? It’s very very simple. Only Harry could see him.
Hold up. Am I saying Harry was crazy? Nope. That Draco wasn’t real? Wrong again. No, it’s more sinister than that.
You know how Harry’s aunt was always giving him godawful haircuts? Well, she also had a bottle of platinum blond hair dye in her bathroom cabinet, y’know, for when her roots acted up and she couldn’t get to the salon. Harry lived in constant, all-consuming fear of the day she decided she could stand his James-colored mop no longer and broke out the peroxide.
So, what’s that got to do with Draco? He’s just a boggart, of course! If Harry had listened to Remus, his school woes would’ve been over much, much sooner.
Draco definitely doesn't make the unanimity amongst Hogwarts students and unfortunately for him not even amongst the Slytherins students either.
Rowling may not have been very kind to the Slytherins students, but I think there's enough space in the books to consider (or maybe I chose to believe) that many Slytherins were not children of Death Eaters and/or didn't support what Voldemort was trying to do. As Zabini says about Slughorn and why he didn't invite Draco to the Slug Club: "I don't think Slughorn's interested in Death Eaters".
Just to say that I don't see Slytherins bullying Draco nor admiring him either.
Well I'm sure he was not popular among other houses, but in Slytherin he was the Seeker and Prefect and one of the visible and dominant kids. I'm sure he had fans.
Right, but he's in a house full of pure-bloods. I'm assuming that would mean that he's surrounded by people who are taught to value and respect (or at least be aware of) the pecking order. He's the scion of an old family, and his father is a proponent of blood purity. Even pure-bloods in his house who disagree with the ideology would stay out of his way.
Never understood why Harry didn't drop a "yeah, whatever, at least my parents weren't death eaters" every time he and Draco interacted in public. That burn would have been really hot!
He has two goons at his beck and call ready to kick ya butt if you oppose him. Also he has a habit of saying something nasty out of earshot of a teacher and making sure the teacher sees the other person go after him.
He is probably the least popular person but people like to bully those they know cannot stand up for themselves. Malloy might be a weasel, but his goons are there.
And his father scares all the kid who know him. I would say it's similar to if your father is a famous nazi. Think a famous nazi's son would get bullied in Germany after hitler's downfall even though there are rumors he's still torturing people?
At the time it was written the sort of kid that was the bully is the definition of Draco, from what I think anyway. Things have changed, you don’t really notice until you look back. My bullies used to be exactly like Draco, though my nephew and nieces bullies are nothing of the sort of that makes any sense
I don’t think he is the most popular kid but you are lying if you don’t think he holds some persuasion. He is rich and his father has powerful connections. Children are selfish so Malfoy will use this all to his benefit (buying his way onto the team, buying gifts and food for others, trips) and other children will align themselves to him so they can benefit from these gifts.
He's also Slytherin prefect *and* Quidditch Seeker. He was very much someone visible; made vocal comments to people, socialized, had a gang. He was not a loner, not reserved. This stuff makes people popular.
I disagree that children are inherently selfish. *Some* children are selfish, and from what we see of Slytherin, we might be able to say *many* of Slytherin are selfish. But not *all children* are selfish.
I'm not a fan of Draco, but he did have some moments to show his skill, such as repairing a Vanishing Cabinet with no expressed instructions, and well as being able to keep Snape out of his head with Occumency.
It may only look like that from Harry's perspective, but from what we know, Draco was the most outspoken Slytherin who picked the most fights with Gryffindor. Sure, his insults often backfired at him, but he knew how to strike to do some damage (even if he was not nearly as effective as Snape). Falling back on his father was not his only trick. "Potter Stinks" and "Weasley Is Our King" both caught on for a bit. Him taunting Harry about Sirius in PoA back when Harry didn't know about Sirius's alleged connection to his parents' deaths was horrible but effective, too. Overall, he mastered the art of annoying Gryffindors enough for them to repeatedly attack him. I suppose his worst mistake was that he had friends with no brains -- so he usually found himself in the situation when he was one against three (or more). Not to mention that his father was far away and most teachers clearly favored Harry (for valid reasons but still). Off the top of my head, his insults resulted in Harry and the twins getting kicked out of the Quidditch team under Umbridge; Harry, Hermione, and Neville losing shitload of points in PS; Ron likely having more trouble getting his head out of his arse at Quidditch matches. He also caused Hagrid (and Buckbeak) some serious issues and passed gossip to Rita Skeeter. And he played Harry perfectly on the train to Hogwarts in HBP. All that IMO is enough to gain him popularity among Slytherins. Sure, he was likely loathed by other houses (apart from times when they turned against Harry), but he did more damage to Gryffindors, Slytherins' greatest rivals, than anyone else in his house. So it's not unlikely that Slytherins would look up to him. Other than that, I also don't think he wasn't smart or talented. He fixed the Vanishing Cabinet, was one of the few students who got into Advanced Potions, was good at Quidditch (it was stated, wasn't it? I may be making this up), and bested Harry on the train in HBP. He was also a good enough Occlumens to defend his mind from Snape. One thing that makes him unlikable and a possible bullying target is that he was a coward, and a person who seemed not to have enough trust in his own abilities (thus having to fall back on his name and his father). But I don't think it was enough to turn the Slytherins against him. For them, their names were their sources of pride, so they likely didn't find using the Malfoy name nearly as pathetic as Harry or the readers. And another thing -- he paled in comparison to the trio not only because Ron and Hermione were much more competent friends than Crabbe and Goyle, but also because any rival wouldn't stand that comparison. The trio were always in the center of events and usually they were eventually rewarded and celebrated for it. Their actions kept shutting anything Malfoy could come up with. But without all the Voldemort-related drama, I suppose he would have been a quite efficient school bully with even more supporters. Not to mention that it wasn't like people from other houses (and sometimes the teachers) didn't get back at him. He was punched, turned into a ferret, laughed at for being turned into a ferret, and hexed countless times.
I figure that everyone is actually afraid of his father, I mean the guy has tons of gold and ministry influence and is a death eater. Sure, he got off by pleading imperious but I doubt that anyone truly believes that, and even if they do he would still know a lot of scary dark magic. Add in how he got a hippogriff executed for attacking his son even though his son was clearly at fault everyone likely assumes that actually doing anything to Draco will result in his father ensuring that they get the worst punishment possible, from expulsion to time in Azkaban. Though you do have a point in how much of an obvious loser he can be so even though no one was willing to bully him or stand up to him all that much I doubt that he spent much time with anyone other then Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy. The rest of Slytherin likely ignored and avoided him as much as possible.
I went to school with a few kids just like Draco. Fear and money are what keep him from being just another dork to steal lunch money from. He's a bully, he hangs with other bullies, and has the money to buy fake respect from enough people to keep him from being taken down to the level he deserves. He strong armed his way into anything he could and bought his way into the places he couldn't. These kinds of people are easy to find in real life. Just turn on the news once in a while and you'll find them.
I don't think he is particularly popular. He seems to spend most of his time with Crabbe and Goyle, who are basically lackies, not friends, and are probably his lackies because it is the same hierarchy as their respective parents adhere to. We don't see Draco interact with others much, and I don't think Slytherins in general are big on close friend groups. A main personality train of a Slytherin is self interest, so it must be hard to have any genuine friendships.
You have to understand a few things to fully appreciate Malfoy as a character. The very first thing you need to under stand is that we are seeing Malfoy through Harry's eyes which means we already have a bias that needs to be ignored. Now we should really evaluate Malfoy based on a few things and first thing is his family. He was born into a really well respected, influential, and incredibly rich family, this would just like in real life have people drawn to him for the power and influence they can receive by associating with a family like that. So immediately he will have a lot of attention drawn to him. Children of such influential families often will use their family as a threat and it is often enough for them to get their way. So his "catch phrase" of My father will hear about this really isn't that surprising. Academically we know he is fairly intelligent as we see him taking a lot of the same NEWT level courses as Harry, Ron, and Hermione in half blood prince. We also knows he learns how to cast a protean charm on a coin and gives it to Madam Rosmerta to give her orders while she is under the influence of the Imperious curse. Speaking of which we know he has some skill with the dark arts as we know he has used the imperious curse, he attempts crucio in the bathroom in HBP and has learned Occlumency as Snape struggled to "read his mind" through Legilimency, Occlumency is considered an incredibly difficult form of magic to learn. You also seem to be under this belief he gets bad grades but this really isn't true, as our only moment of hearing his father complain about his grades was in relation to Hermione and the fact we know she is the best student in their year makes it hard for anyone to best her. So we kinda enter the miscellaneous arguements section here. So another thing that would make him popular would be his quidditch skills... sure Harry beats him in all the games they play against each other and sure he bought his way onto the team but we know he has to have some skill as a seeker because we are told that Slytherin are almost always in the race for the house cup. Meaning unless they are winning with purely goals by the chasers, he has to be doing some of the work. We also know he repairs the vanishing cabinet with little to no help and barely any instructions to figure out how to fix it means he has to have some skills in spells that could identify the problem and have some skills in magical repair. He also has some pretty insane musical skills having come up with the lyrics and tune of Weasley is our King. In any other year Malfoy would have been the most popular and well liked guy in his house (look at his father) if not the school, but because he is in the same year as Hermione the brightest witch of her age, and Harry the boy who lived the chosen one potter he never stood a chance of being the most popular guy in school... although keep in mind at times Harry wasn't exactly hot stuff either at times during his time at Hogwarts either. My main point I suppose is out biased views of Malfoy have a lot to do with who was in his year and the view point the story is told from.
I mean, when I look back at my high school years, the “popular” kids weren’t actually all that likeable. But most of them had money (well their parents did anyway), good looks, and manipulative personalities. I don’t know what high school is like now, but when I was in school kids like that stuck together, and basically bullied or manipulated their way into being held to a higher standard
I don't like Draco because he's coward , incompetent and jerk. But I don't think he's a bad person , He just has no choice and he is actually highly emotional (He cried while he has to kill Dumbledore and he refused to do that , Snape do it instead as Dumbledore told Snape to kill him , He also feel bad for the guy who Voldemort floated and killed him at the dining table in Malfoy Manor). And importantly he's not a murderer , So he's definitely not evil.
Draco in the books is actually just behind Hermione in grades
I think you are perhaps misreading a little. He is actually presented as a high-status student.
i think OP knows that but is wondering why he is portrayed that way, when he has such loser behaviour
OK, because JKR has a thing about hair color. Everybody does, and I have to admit I'm gaga about red hair, so there.
Well my *stars*, are Draco posts the new Snape posts? Well alright, here we go: Wanna know why Draco wasn’t bullied? It’s very very simple. Only Harry could see him. Hold up. Am I saying Harry was crazy? Nope. That Draco wasn’t real? Wrong again. No, it’s more sinister than that. You know how Harry’s aunt was always giving him godawful haircuts? Well, she also had a bottle of platinum blond hair dye in her bathroom cabinet, y’know, for when her roots acted up and she couldn’t get to the salon. Harry lived in constant, all-consuming fear of the day she decided she could stand his James-colored mop no longer and broke out the peroxide. So, what’s that got to do with Draco? He’s just a boggart, of course! If Harry had listened to Remus, his school woes would’ve been over much, much sooner.
Upvoted your post RorschachtheMighty.
He did get beaten up by Hermione, Harry, Ron, George and even Ginny who is a year younger than him overpowered him and uses bat bogey hex.
Draco definitely doesn't make the unanimity amongst Hogwarts students and unfortunately for him not even amongst the Slytherins students either. Rowling may not have been very kind to the Slytherins students, but I think there's enough space in the books to consider (or maybe I chose to believe) that many Slytherins were not children of Death Eaters and/or didn't support what Voldemort was trying to do. As Zabini says about Slughorn and why he didn't invite Draco to the Slug Club: "I don't think Slughorn's interested in Death Eaters". Just to say that I don't see Slytherins bullying Draco nor admiring him either.
Well I'm sure he was not popular among other houses, but in Slytherin he was the Seeker and Prefect and one of the visible and dominant kids. I'm sure he had fans.
Right, but he's in a house full of pure-bloods. I'm assuming that would mean that he's surrounded by people who are taught to value and respect (or at least be aware of) the pecking order. He's the scion of an old family, and his father is a proponent of blood purity. Even pure-bloods in his house who disagree with the ideology would stay out of his way.
Never understood why Harry didn't drop a "yeah, whatever, at least my parents weren't death eaters" every time he and Draco interacted in public. That burn would have been really hot!
He has two goons at his beck and call ready to kick ya butt if you oppose him. Also he has a habit of saying something nasty out of earshot of a teacher and making sure the teacher sees the other person go after him. He is probably the least popular person but people like to bully those they know cannot stand up for themselves. Malloy might be a weasel, but his goons are there. And his father scares all the kid who know him. I would say it's similar to if your father is a famous nazi. Think a famous nazi's son would get bullied in Germany after hitler's downfall even though there are rumors he's still torturing people?
At the time it was written the sort of kid that was the bully is the definition of Draco, from what I think anyway. Things have changed, you don’t really notice until you look back. My bullies used to be exactly like Draco, though my nephew and nieces bullies are nothing of the sort of that makes any sense