Brittany Maresh

writer

Even before the movies came out, Draco Malfoy was one of those characters that people split two ways on — love or hate. He was a foil to Harry Potter–even though they were the same age, their upbringing was polar opposites. He was rich instead of poor. Pureblood instead of mixed. Raised with magic instead of as a muggle. Light hair instead of dark. And he chose to go to Slytherin, gladly, instead of to beg his way into Gryffendor. There was all this potential there, and people loved it. Or hated it, if they were solid with Harry.

It wasn’t that Tom Felton was hot (though that plays a huge part in it now, I believe), it was that he was such a 2-D character compared to everyone else that people were forced to believe that somewhere in there, he had to have some depth. They could see the potential that J.K. Rowling couldn’t show since I have decided to believe that it was Harry’s prejudices and not her own that muddled our perspective of the Slytherins.

I think a lot of controversial characters work like that. People like them because there’s just enough there that they can see the potential, and not enough there that they have to if they don’t want to.

-Brittany Maresh