Idea post: Nature of the Beast
Nov. 29th, 2013 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lomonaaerenI think I have at least a semi-new idea for another Veela story.
I've read, and written, a lot of Veela stories where not only the Veela's desire to bond with someone but that person's responses are more or less instinctual. Everyone knows the right steps, not really because they've heard of them but because they feel it. And I like reading and writing those stories because there's a comfort in the idea of passion that's right because nature intended it, and also in the idea that even if you got caught up in such a strange situation, your first response would be the right one.
But people often feel a lot of behavior is "instinctual" that is strongly culturally conditioned. Case in point, gender behavior. The "right and natural and satisfactory" thing to do if you're a man or a woman or not either isn't universal across human cultures, and studies are now being done that show gender expectations and stereotypes and conformities are in place with the way people treat infants from birth, or before. (For example, the way parents in the US react when a baby boy cries because he hurt himself is different from the way they react when a baby girl cries for the same reason; the boys tend to be told that they're all right and there's nothing to cry about a lot more often than the girls). So then the child becomes eighteen months or two years old and starts displaying the supposedly gender-appropriate behavior, and everyone exclaims that playing with guns or liking the color pink must just be "innate."
But if you grow up in a different environment and no one explains these rules to you from birth, or treats you as if they expect you to confirm to them, or even entertains the idea that you might someday be exposed to them, and then you go into an environment where no one explains them because they already think you know them...
Yeah, I think that's what we call a mess in technical terms.
My idea here is that Veela and their mates are expected to follow a strict code of behavior: to always know from the beginning who has what right in the relationship, whether the mate should yield to the Veela or the other way around, when possessive behavior is appropriate and when it's not, what are "good" manifestations of the bond and what aren't, and so on. The problem is, that behavior isn't really conscious anymore, at least not in the way it's taught. So "everyone" knows it because they grew up in the wizarding world and have heard dozens of stories and heard the stories told and the gossip about people who didn't behave the right way and picked up their cues from the reactions, sometimes quite subtle, of other people.
But Harry grew up in the Muggle world, and didn't seek out a lot of information about Veela when he came into the wizarding one. Why not? He had no idea that there were these deep bonds, or that he someday might end up in a relationship with one. Meanwhile, no one thought to tell him, either, because they couldn't believe he might not know.
Not to mention, Harry's hardly had a normal life for a wizarding child or adolescent, either. Going from fighting Voldemort every year to dealing with vicious gossip to hunting Horcruxes to being expected to sacrifice his life doesn't condition him to be meek or yielding.
And so when Draco tells him that he's a Veela and Harry is his bondmate, and expects Harry to gladly welcome the bond and (what Draco can "feel" and "know") is his submissive role in the bond...
Yeah.
So this is a Veela story where Draco knows one way the story should go, and Harry doesn't know any way it should go, and his defiance has been bred so deep in him by his upbringing that simply surrendering without anyone telling him the reasons he should is, simply, not going to work.
And, for that matter, there's nothing that says Draco's role as Veela is natural and normal and inevitable, either, at least not for Harry. Maybe Draco has some things to learn, as well.
I've read, and written, a lot of Veela stories where not only the Veela's desire to bond with someone but that person's responses are more or less instinctual. Everyone knows the right steps, not really because they've heard of them but because they feel it. And I like reading and writing those stories because there's a comfort in the idea of passion that's right because nature intended it, and also in the idea that even if you got caught up in such a strange situation, your first response would be the right one.
But people often feel a lot of behavior is "instinctual" that is strongly culturally conditioned. Case in point, gender behavior. The "right and natural and satisfactory" thing to do if you're a man or a woman or not either isn't universal across human cultures, and studies are now being done that show gender expectations and stereotypes and conformities are in place with the way people treat infants from birth, or before. (For example, the way parents in the US react when a baby boy cries because he hurt himself is different from the way they react when a baby girl cries for the same reason; the boys tend to be told that they're all right and there's nothing to cry about a lot more often than the girls). So then the child becomes eighteen months or two years old and starts displaying the supposedly gender-appropriate behavior, and everyone exclaims that playing with guns or liking the color pink must just be "innate."
But if you grow up in a different environment and no one explains these rules to you from birth, or treats you as if they expect you to confirm to them, or even entertains the idea that you might someday be exposed to them, and then you go into an environment where no one explains them because they already think you know them...
Yeah, I think that's what we call a mess in technical terms.
My idea here is that Veela and their mates are expected to follow a strict code of behavior: to always know from the beginning who has what right in the relationship, whether the mate should yield to the Veela or the other way around, when possessive behavior is appropriate and when it's not, what are "good" manifestations of the bond and what aren't, and so on. The problem is, that behavior isn't really conscious anymore, at least not in the way it's taught. So "everyone" knows it because they grew up in the wizarding world and have heard dozens of stories and heard the stories told and the gossip about people who didn't behave the right way and picked up their cues from the reactions, sometimes quite subtle, of other people.
But Harry grew up in the Muggle world, and didn't seek out a lot of information about Veela when he came into the wizarding one. Why not? He had no idea that there were these deep bonds, or that he someday might end up in a relationship with one. Meanwhile, no one thought to tell him, either, because they couldn't believe he might not know.
Not to mention, Harry's hardly had a normal life for a wizarding child or adolescent, either. Going from fighting Voldemort every year to dealing with vicious gossip to hunting Horcruxes to being expected to sacrifice his life doesn't condition him to be meek or yielding.
And so when Draco tells him that he's a Veela and Harry is his bondmate, and expects Harry to gladly welcome the bond and (what Draco can "feel" and "know") is his submissive role in the bond...
Yeah.
So this is a Veela story where Draco knows one way the story should go, and Harry doesn't know any way it should go, and his defiance has been bred so deep in him by his upbringing that simply surrendering without anyone telling him the reasons he should is, simply, not going to work.
And, for that matter, there's nothing that says Draco's role as Veela is natural and normal and inevitable, either, at least not for Harry. Maybe Draco has some things to learn, as well.
