Is Dumbledore Vain?

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 27591

David Frankis started the thread by quoting that Sunday Times article:

> The costume designer said that JKR sees Dumbledore as having
> personal vanity - he dresses up a lot

John Walton wrote:

> We had a teacher like that at school -- the Senior Master, in fact,
> who was always impeccably dressed in classically-styled clothes -- 
> nice shirts, ties, suits and shoes. I've always seen Dumbledore as 
> the wizarding equivalent of him.

Rowena Grunnion-Ffitch wrote:

> We have been told Dumbledore has a vain streak, (one might guess
> this for oneself what with the flowing hair and robes and his
> praise of his own brilliance)

It occured to me today that perhaps Dumbledore is NOT VAIN, but 
merely understands his obligation to his position(s): Headmaster 
of Hogwarts, leader of the anti-Voldemort resistance, greatest 
wizard of the century. Maybe he shows his respect for Hogwarts and
his awareness that it is an honor to be Headmaster by dressing, and 
speaking, in the manner expected of a Headmaster of Hogwarts. Maybe
he has found the the students and the 'wizard in the street' will pay 
more attention to what he is trying to teach them if he dresses, and 
speaks, in a way that impresses them. 

One could argue (as I sometimes do, because I HATE wearing 
uncomfortable clothes, and as Lupin may have done if Dumbledore 
offered him an advance on his salary to buy some new robes for the 
teaching job) that it is up to those people to learn to not be so 
shallow as to judge people only by their clothes, not his 
responsibility to coddle their prejudices. But if that happened, 
Dumbledore could have replied: "As a teacher, you have a whole school 
year to teach them not to judge a wizard by his robes. As bearer of 
the bad news of Voldemort's return, I may have only moments to 
persuade listeners to believe me. I don't have time to educate them 
out of all their prejudices."

There is something relevant that I learned from watching all the 
episodes of Blake's Seven in a marathon --- the people in that 
distant future society have some WEIRD customs, one of which is that 
they do not have a rule of etiquette that requires false modesty and 
putting oneself down. 

I watched many many episodes in which characters said immodest things 
before I understand that they weren't being a bunch of braggarts. 
When the mad scientist who invented Oreck said he was the biggest 
genius in the galaxy, I thought that he was likely right, but saying 
so was one symptom of his insanity. When Avon was doing something 
difficult and told one of the other regulars the high-falutin' 
equivalent of 'bugger off and stop worrying whether I can pull this 
off, I am very good at this stuff", I thought he was just being rude. 
By the time that the psychohistorian who had been hired by the 
Supreme Commander was taping his good-bye video to her, and he said 
that there was no master in the psychohistory guild who was better 
than him at predicting the behavior of individuals, and therefore he 
knew quite surely that she was going to order him assassinated, and 
that was why he couldn't stay around to say good-bye in person, I 
finally understood what was going on. 

I realised that their unimaginably strange and alien culture simply 
takes it for granted that people will tell the truth about their 
abilities and accomplishments, not lie and say they are less than 
they really are in order to avoid seeming to boast. What a concept.

Do we know that wizarding folk who were raised in wizarding 
culture -- Weasleys, maybe -- are resultant to admit to being 
good at stuff? Maybe they have that same weird custom as the sci-fi 
people I was talking about.