MAGIC DISHWASHER: the re-cap (VERY LONG)

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 39854

*Introduction*
--------------

On Tuesday, 6/11/2002, Pipsqueak ("Pip") made an interesting post with 
the name "The Spying Game and the Shrieking Shack (VERY LONG)". She has 
since publicly recognised that she didn't expect it to grow into one of 
the finest discussions the board has had lately, with about 100 
messages fighting for and against it. It has grown so big, in fact, 
that it has defeated it's own purpose: to have a discussion were 
everyone could state their opinions. Thus, after Amanda brought this 
fact to my attention, I decided to get a post made on how it all 
started, hoping that those who haven't followed from the begining can 
catch up.


*References*
------------

Pip's original post can be found at number #39662. For those on 
webview, it should be accesible from the "Up thread" link of this post, 
and for those who join us through mail, you can see it online at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/39662.

The rest of the discussion can be found in the subsequent posts (follow 
the links on the botom of the first post for most of them), under names 
such as "The Spying Game and the Shrieking Shack", "Voldemort's support 
in and pre-GOF", "Voldemorts Resurrection", "Problems with "The Spying 
Game"", "Two clarifications", and lately some of the "Time-Turner" 
posts (especially the ones done by myself), "Of Toes, rats and 
Wizards",  and of course "MAGIC DISHWASHER", ranging from #39679 to    
#39843. 

Note: this post is nowhere near complete, since it will probably be 
out-dated by the time I finish it, it does not include all of the 
threads and Pip hasn't finished the theory (GoF awaits, Pip!). It's 
only intended as a guide.

Note: this post is written by a defender of the theory. Even if it's 
not the case, it will state oppinions defended by MAGIC DISHWASHER as 
correct and attacks against it as incorrect. Don't feel offended. It 
would probably ask too much to my knowledge of English to keep a tone 
of fairness through all of the post, so I'm not going to try. Just 
remember that most of this is not "hard" canon, just interpretation 
(and "soft" canon, of course).


* The Basis*
------------

In post #39662 Pip explains a new theory, with as much canon as she 
could pack into a 500 word essay, in which she explains how Dumbledore 
has been engineering most of the things that have been going on in HP 
books. The difference with previous Omnipotent!Dumbledore posts is 
that, in this case, Pip presents the theory with a belivable 
background: a terrorist war between Voldemort and Dumbledore which has 
been fought in an underhanded way, with information being the ultimate 
weapon and being obtained, not by unspecified magical means that only 
Dumbledore could use, but by spies and counterspies in both sides.

She then uses this premise to work out what really was happening at the 
shack at the end of PoA. Snape arrived to the shack with a basic 
objective: have Harry save someone's (read: Peter's) life (stablishing 
a life debt to Harry) and then allowing that person to scape. For this 
plan to work out, however, he has to seem unaware of Peter's existance, 
or several things would go wrong for Dumbledores master plan, so it has 
to be Harry who takes the iniciative, not Snape himself, and it has to 
be done before someone utters the phrase "the rat is Wormtail aka Peter 
Pettigrew" in his presence. Thus, he goads Harry into attacking him 
(unfortunately, he also goads Hermione and Ron, and is effectively 
knocked out, which he didn't want), so Harry takes control.

On a side note, you can read why Dumbledore (and through him, Snape) 
knew that Peter was secret keeper *and* an Animagus in post #39662. 
It's too long to repost it here.

For this plan, Dumbledore (the master mind) was working on the premise 
that Black wanted to kill Peter, and that Harry would stop him, thus 
saving Peter's life. Dumbledore wasn't sure Black wasn't a DE and Snape 
was sure Black and Lupin were *both* DEs/traitors.

Finally, it is explained why Snape's knock-out was not in the original 
plan: he was the backup sent by Dumbledore for this showdown (in the 
same line Dumbledore himself was in PS and the fenix/sorting_hat/
godric's_sword in CoS), and thus he was there to protect Harry from 
whatever attacked him... and to help Peter scape when no-one (not even 
Peter) was looking.


*The Counter Attacks*
---------------------

Pip's theory inmediatelly got *a lot* of attention from people wishing 
to explain where it had gone wrong. At first, attacks came from the 
expected places, but soon both Pip and me were running all over the 
place putting out bush fires:

Note: the "potion" refers to the one used by Voldemort to regain his 
body

	* The life-debt can't be that important (Lana, 39679): 
Defense: Pip bases her theory on two facts: 
1) Harry will be able to destroy Voldemort thanks to that life-debt
2) The potion Voldemort uses is fatally flawed
You have to accept both for Dumbledore's plans to make sense

	*Snape's act is a little too well done (Porphyria, 39685):
Defense: Snape pulls off an Oscar interpretation, and multitasks all 
the way. (Tautology)

	* Dumbledore isn't that bad: if he knew Sirius was innocent, he 
would have never allowed him to go to Azkaban (Marina, 39688)
Defense: Dumbledore didn't know when Sirius was captured, only knew 
after the DEs started to mutter in Azkaban and info leaked out 
(possibly through Hagrid in CoS)

	* The real Mastermind is JKR, not Dumbledore (David, 39694)
Defense: Yes, it is, but metathinking is not fair play and nontheless, 
"it still moves": JKR *is* the one behind everyhting we discuss, but 
the theories are supposed to get close to the logical thinking she used 
when creating the master plots, and this one does that.

	* The reembodiment of Voldemort is a catastroph and Dumbledore 
didn't want it (Pippin, 39697)
Defense: In the Vapour form Voldemort is not only inmortal but capable 
of scheeming too. Dumbledore's plans to destroy him necesarily pass 
through re-emboding him, thus making him mortal. And to do that, 
Dumbledore arranges matters so that he uses a potion which is flawed.

	* Harry could not make choces in the shack, which is against JKRs 
modus operandi (Pippin, 39697)
Defense: Harry is forced to grow up and make his own decisions all 
throught the scene (and metathinking is not fair play).

	* Voldemort is intelligent, not a stupid evil overlord (giving 
Harry chances by giving him back his wand for a duel against him) 
(Marina, 39702)
Defense: Voldemort needs to demonstrate he can kill Harry single-hand, 
or at least make him flee.

	*Peter's scape and the potion are unrelated (Marina, 39700)
Defense: Peter has a life debt to Harry: it's part of the flaws 
Dumbledore has engineered into the potion (together with Harry's blood)

	* If Dumbledore could cut down Voldemort's options until he chose 
a especific potion, he could cut *all* the options and leave him as a 
Vapour (Marina, 39710 and 39738)
Defense: Dumbledore cannot cut all the options, only make the potion 
the most desirable to Voldemort. Then too, Dumbledore *wants* Voldemort 
to re-corporate, or else he will continue to be inmortal.

	* Voldemort is THE expert in magic in the world and knows 
everything about the potion, since it's a dark art. Dumbledore cannot 
be planing in winning him in his area of expertise. (Naama, 39731)
Defense: The potion is not a dark art. Snape probably knows about it, 
but didn't know it was flawed until recently. Voldemort doesn't know at 
all (or wouldn't have used it), since it doesn't fall into his area: 
inmortality, and the potion only grants a mortal body (not 
inmortality).

	* Sending Harry to the Graveyard makes Dumbledore Evil, which is 
OoC and against the Plan (Naama, 39731) and Harry is too important to 
risk in the Graveyard scene (Marina, 39738)
Defense 1: Dumbledore did not plan the Graveyard scene, and expected 
Harry to be safe in Hogwarts from it.
Defense 2: Dumbledore has contingency plans for the situation in which 
Harry dies in one of the showdowns, which include the flawed potion. 
Still, Dumbledore tries to protect him by sending back-up (himself, 
Phoenix, Snape). The fact that Harry only had Cedric "Spare" Diggory 
gives credit to defense 1 (Dumbledore didn't see the Portkey!Cup 
twist).

	* There is only two ways to resurrect Voldemort (the stone and the 
potion).
Defense: that we have been told of. There must be other ways (if there 
are not, Dumbledore didn''t have to plan as much, since Voldemort's 
options are already limited). Some of those other methods of attaining 
a body aren't flawed as the potion is, so Dumbledore makes them  more 
difficult to use so that Voldemort uses the potion (see the epilogue, 
ahead).

	*Peter's scape doesn't help Dumbledore's plan, since it helps 
Voldemort regain it's body but menaces Harry the Teenager (Marina, 
39749)
Defense: it furthers both. Better have Peter life-debted to Harry than 
any other DE helping Voldemort with the potion.


*Epilogue: the Origins of the Name*
-----------------------------------

When Eloise asked in message 39823 whether the MAGIC DISHWASHER is an 
infringement of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Act ;-), I don't think 
she realised how close to the truth that wild guess was.

MAGIC DISHWASHER (Mysterious Agendas Generate Interesting Conclusion: 
Dumbledore Is Secretly Hatching Ways to Assure Superiority for Harry in 
the Emerging Resolution) (Marina, post #39751) was born out of a 
humourous example I set to Marina when trying to explain that 
Dumbledore had indeed arranged the potion idea by restricting all the 
other resurrection options. 

One of these (absolutely false and certainly ridicule) options 
involved, in some unspecified way, an enchanted (or magical) 
dishwasher, so I explained that one of the members of the old gang 
(Arthur Weasley) was tasked to pass laws that would make them so 
unavailable that Voldemort would prefer the potion to the dishwasher 
option. 

As it is normally the case with silly examples, it stuck, and by the 
time I had started to work in an acronym, Marina had already worked one 
out that fits so perfectly I adopted it inmediately (for some reason, 
experience tells us that acronyms are best devised by an oponent to the 
theory. Maybe they can see the basis of it, while the defenders see 
only the attacks. Or maybe it's just casualty).

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf