***Harry Potter spoilers below***
…for the three people left on earth who haven’t read the whole series yet. 
On Halloween, I’ll be at Bakka Phoenix Books in Toronto (well, maybe—Hurricane Sandy willing, anyway) as part of an author meet-and-greet for the World Fantasy Convention, and I’ve decided to go in costume as Narcissa Malfoy of the Harry Potter series.
Narcissa is an interesting character. She’s one of Voldemort’s followers and yet she manages to be very sympathetic, at least at the point in the story when we meet her. Her primary concern is for her son, and she’s willing to do whatever she has to in order to protect him. It’s ultimately her love for her son that saves Harry in The Deathly Hallows. When she leans down to confirm that he’s dead for Voldemort, she sees that he isn’t, and instead of exposing him, she asks the question more important to her than her loyalty to Voldemort or her own life: “Does my son still live?” When Harry tells her Draco does, she allows Harry to live also, telling Voldemort he’s dead.
Unlike her batshit crazy sister Bellatrix, she doesn’t appear to enjoy killing for the sake of killing, or even crave the power that her husband Lucius does, though she’s a believer in the superiority of purebloods. With the whole “blood purity” thing and the uber-blond hair in their family, the Malfoys remind me a bit of a wealthy Aryan family during World War II who’ve made the wrong choice, and once they realize it, don’t really know how to get out of it. While that certainly doesn’t excuse them, Narcissa’s act of love for her son keeps them all out of Azkaban after Voldemort is destroyed.
It’s also Narcissa’s motherly love that results in Snape killing Dumbledore—which, of course, was all part of Dumbledore’s plan. It’s my opinion that when Narcissa begs Snape to look after Draco and to kill Dumbledore if he can’t, that she’s really asking him outright to do it instead to spare Draco crossing that point of no return. She doesn’t want Draco to be capable of it. She knows it would destroy him.
So in the long run, I know I’m not really supposed to excuse Narcissa or even like Narcissa, but I have a soft spot for her. I love characters like that who make it difficult for you to cast them as either villain or hero, and I’m glad Rowling chose to redeem Narcissa Malfoy in the end. She brings the story full circle for Harry, who was saved by his own mother’s love, which is a wonderful undercurrent in the series itself.
How about you? Do you have a soft spot for any characters you’re supposed to think of as one of the bad guys?
About Jane Kindred
Excellent post, and a very nice job on J.K. Rowling’s part of bringing the series full circle at the end. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I like Narcissa, but she comes across as human and relatable and multi-dimensional in a way that many of the others don’t, including her husband. Lucius is nasty.
I’m sure the resemblance to the Aryans and WWII isn’t coincidental. Joanne Rowling and I are the same age, and I’m sure she grew up with all the same stories I did, about The War. There are parallells throughout the series, whether she put them there deliberately or they just crept in because of who she is, growing up when and where she did. I was born 20 years after the war ended, and it was still alive and well in people’s minds, and huge in the school curriculum.
I have a soft spot for Sethos, who for many years was the main antagonist – the Master Criminal – of the Amelia Peabody series. Of course, he became one of the family, so to speak, eventually, after ten or fifteen books. That’s often the way it happens: a writer will come up with a compelling antagonist, and eventually that antagonist will get sublimated by the good guys. There’s a real need we have as authors to “redeem” our characters, and it takes guts to only redeem them partway, as with Narcissa. Kudos to Rowling for pulling it off (and to her publisher for letting her).
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Jane Kindred Reply:
October 30th, 2012 at 10:36 pm
Thanks, Jenna! I agree it was a gutsy choice for Rowling and made for a much more realistic character.
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So interesting, Jane! You always make me think. I admit that I’ve seen all the movies, but haven’t read the last of the HP books. Not enough time, a sad excuse, but there you have it.
I intend to start at the beginning again one day and reread the early books and complete the series.
In current pop culture, I have a (very small) soft spot for Regina in Once Upon a Time. You see her conflict, where she began, her initial intentions, what she wanted, and what she’s become.
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Jane Kindred Reply:
October 30th, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Thanks, Misa.
I was actually thinking of Regina as I was writing this post, because she’s another interesting, multifaceted one. When I started watching Once Upon a Time, I had this sudden epiphany about what was missing in my own female antagonist and I wanted to kick myself. I also feel similarly about Rumpelstiltskin’s character. The writers on that show do a really good job with their villains; the heroes, on the other hand, have a tendency to be a little bland.
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