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Notes -
The US Department of Education just posted Malfoid slop:
"There's Magic in Learning"
https://x.com/usedgov/status/2115069815505203483
Or rather, there is Magic in Yearning, Make Romance Great Again, am I right? …
Two weeks ago @KingOfTheBailey had an excellent post about the trend:
https://www.themotte.org/post/3960/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/486219
I want to note three things two weeks later:
Original:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=L5g-17uLO90
AI Anime versions:
Kind of sloppy but neat:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=g6jjXAASi_Q
Better animated, but very Korean:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4mkZ8jEYySo
For example this illustration of Dracina casting a peacock as patronum is striking:
https://x.com/CaboVT/status/2106491934818853274
And was then canonized in this AI Battle of Hogwarts scene:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y6tAajsc9PY
And then discussed how a (male) peacock can sort of make sense as a representation of Harry for Dracina.
Then there was first an illustration of Harry/Dracina fighting Voldemort together with the same wand:
https://x.com/Aurondarklord/status/2106975585507418609
Which sparked this AI scene:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=VgfNf79t3oo
I don't care how cheesy or juvenile or klischee it is; narratively it just makes sense: Draco is the rightful owner of the Elder Wand, we have the redemption arc of Slytherin and Voldemort is defeated (again) by the power of love. Could this not be done with a male Draco? Why not a good old fashioned friendship? One argument I read was that women often see rivalry as sexual dominance (e.g. the gay romance in Heated Rivalry) and so Rowling couldn't work out an honorable defeat/submission of Draco to Harry. So a Harrys + Dracos male friendship would actually need a more extensive rewrite than a female tsundere Dracina being in love.
Anyway, now that the US government involved (Hello fellow kids!), doesn't that mean the ship is sailed and the trend run its course into being old and uncool?
Not necessary, I want to officially register my prediction that with the start of the HBO series (December 25, 2026 (Christmas Day)) AI is good enough (or will be good enough in coming years) to replace Draco scenes with reimagined Dracina scenes. There will be alternative Malfoid-episodes which can be torrented.
Okay, I find this genuinely dispiriting.
Part of what was appealing about the whole Malfoid trend was the explosion of creativity in fan art (i.e. real fan art, drawn by actual humans), and fan fiction. There's a whole online fan artist space that likes to jump on trends, they jumped on this one, and they produced a lot of really sweet material. Moreover, though arguably some of it was politically inflected, for the most part it was apolitical. Cute girl, everyman hero, they get together. It was fun. I'm in favour of romance stories for boys.
It's frustrating for a bunch of highly politicised jackals to jump on that and try to appropriate it, especially when they're doing so with low-effort AI garbage.
Even just in-character, presumably part of the appeal of the Malfoy character and family is that they're meant to be aristocratic and traditional - hearkening back to an older, better way of doing things. They're also meant to be elitist; they have high standards, and so part of the story is the everyman studying and measuring up. Every part of this premise seems like it should cut again populist botslop.
I realise I have no power to accomplish this, but what's in my heart is an offended, "Get this rubbish off the internet. Now."
Agreed. The fun from Malfoid IMHO came from seeing repressed creativity burst forth, and highlighting a male romantic angle that has been underappreciated in recent years. Government agencies trying to ride everyman trends is just cringe.
I mean, fundamentally it's just Dramione for men, isn't it?
It reminds me a bit of a comment (a tweet, I think? or maybe Tumblr?) I saw once describing a gender-flipped Twilight, where an everyman, maybe slightly schlubby, self-insert protagonist meets a hot goth vampire chick who is inexplicably into him and fights a similarly hot wild werewolf chick for his affections, and male replies going, "Oh my gosh. I get it now."
Malfoid feels like that but for Dramione or Zutara or any of the other famous 'bad boy' ships with screaming female fandoms.
I don't know much about "Dramione," but I do think that Malfoid is a compelling male fantasy -- the idea that a hot chick from the other tribe/side/etc. is into you. As I recall, this was part of the fantasy regularly portrayed in James Bond movies.
(Of course it doesn't hurt that Malfoid is coded conservative. I think a lot of men are tired of the very common trend of women being into progressivism.)
FWIW I would see such a plot as a bit too on-the-nose. Which is probably part of the reason I find Twilight to be a bit cringe, and the same thing about many James Bond movies.)
Anyway, at the end of the day I think you've touched on the main reason why Malfoid is controversial: It tweaks the Harry Potter story in such a way as to cater to male desires in a compelling way. For a lot of men, that's great. For feminists, that's a big problem -- things are supposed to cater to women, not men.
I did notice Balioc being confused about this the other day, and I think that's a big part of it? Ginny is of pure-blood ancestry and from a large family, but the Weasleys are coded lower-middle class. They have ordinary interests. They're not classy. The father is a civil servant working for a salary. I'd say they come off as pretty centre-left. Moreover, Ginny is a character who was first introduced as a young girl with a crush on Harry, so in a sense going out with her feels like settling.
There's an element where, for lack of a better way of putting it, picking the Weasley is 'marrying down', while picking the Malfoy is 'marrying up'.
Moreover, I think the implicit message one gets from Ginny is "I love you just the way you are", and the implicit message from Malfoy is "you better shape up", and I think there is something about men that responds to the latter message? We like rising to the challenge. Proving yourself isn't a cost - it's part of the appeal!
(That was why, when I wrote positively about them, I was focused on growth? Both partners overcoming their moral defects?)
The Harry Potter series is sort of shaped like a bildungsroman, right? It is a story about a young man's adolescence and maturity, as he grows from callow child to capable adult. However, the Potter series as published does not really fulfill this potential. It's often been remarked on, I think, that even by the last book, the theoretically-eighteen-year-old Harry is still written the same way he was when he was twelve, where he's a bit passive, a bit incompetent, and has too many of his victories served up to him on a plate. (It is, to be fair, not unique to Harry - almost nobody in the series meaningfully changes.) If you diagnose that problem, well, one of the implications of the Malfoid romance is that Harry is pushed to sort himself out and grow more mature. I think that growth in competence is something male readers really enjoy. The wider genre of stories about male protagonists who start out mediocre-to-incompetent and then achieve self-mastery is a huge one.
At any rate, if we're putting a political lens on this, I can see the stereotype that the left, perhaps in a more feminine-coded way, says "we will look after you", and the right, in a more masculine-coded way, says "we will give you opportunity but you have to pull yourself up on your own".
Harry Potter does change, in the fifth book. Unfortunately, almost entirely for the worse, becoming a sullen and whiny teenager who was perhaps the inspiration for Anakin Skywalker's personality in the Star Wars prequels. His changing back to his earlier personality is actually an improvement.
It's true, he was given a slightly different personality for the fifth book. It was hardly a better one, though!
The first few books are very good, and the setting and premise of Hogwarts are fantastic. I completely understand people who want to take that premise and remix it into something more coherent and creatively successful.
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