TBAY: Re: Radio TBAY and the inconsistent behaviour of Al...

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 45270

PIPSQUEAK:  And I think we have a caller from Kent on the line.....

ELOISE:  That's right.

PIPSQUEAK:  Any shooting stars down there? Has Dedalus Diggle been up to his 
old tricks?

ELOISE:  Well as a matter of fact, yes. There was a huge one reported here 
last week and apparently someone recently took a remarkable photograph of a 
UFO over Tonbridge....but that's not why I called..

PIPSQUEAK:  Which was...

ELOISE:  Well, I really wanted to take up the point your last caller was 
making about Dumbledore's sanity.

PIPSQUEAK:  That would be Cindy...

ELOISE:  Yes. I mean it's pretty clear that Dumbledore *is* an eccentric, 
isn't it?
The first time Harry encounters him, at the start of term banquet, he asks 
Percy if he's a bit mad, after he starts the feast with the few words, 
"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"
Ans at the end of PS/SS, after he explains to Ron and Hermione exactly what 
had happened and expounded on his theory that Dumbledore had *allowed* him to 
face Voldemort, Ron's (proud) response is, "Yeah, Dumbledore's barking 
alright."

PIPSQUEAK: Your point being?

ELOISE:  That Dumbledore's behaviour is quite *consistently* not exactly what 
one would expect from your average, sane headmaster. He is perceived by those 
around him as being, well, a bit mad.

PIPSQUEAK:  You mean his inconsistency of characterisation is actually 
*consistency*?

ELOISE:  Exactly! It's a paradox  <sings> (A paradox! A most ingenious 
paradox!)
Oops, sorry, got carried away there. I don't think he *is* mad, but he's a 
bit *different* isn't he? I mean... Dumbledore just isn't really on the same 
plane as most of the other characters in the books. For starters, he's very 
old, so he has a different perspective on things and he has the friendship of 
someone even older in Nicholas Flamel, whose perspective on what is and isn't 
important in the greater scheme of things must be very different from your 
average mortal's. He also has a sense of humour, which is at times a little 
off-beat.

PIPSQUEAK:  Yes, he does. He laughs at things which frankly aren't funny, 
like the distress of one of his senior staff members.

ELOISE:  But as one of your previous callers pointed out, it *is* funny on 
one level. Unfortunately, humour tends to have victims. Unless we're laughing 
at ourselves, most of the situations we find funny are funny at someone 
else's expense.

PIPSQUEAK:  So it's OK to laugh at somebody else's expense? Snape's for 
instance? 

ELOISE:  Well, *I* laugh at his expense and *my* feelings about that 
particular character are fairly well known to those who've listened to these 
phone-ins before.
I don't think laughter is always cruel. I mean, sure, it's better to laugh 
*with* someone than *at* someone, but I often laugh at my children and it's 
not out of heartlessness, but because what they do is sometimes simply funny 
to adult eyes which interpret situations differently. Now sometimes it annoys 
them intensely and I have to explain that I'm not *making fun* of them, but 
simply that the situation they've found themselves in, or created, is amusing 
when viewed from outside. I think one of the reasons for Dumbledore's 
amusement is simply that, as I (and others) have said before, his 
relationship with Snape is rather like that of a father with a somewhat 
difficult child. We can be amused by the antics of those whom we love. I'd 
like to think that afterwards he took him to one side and said something 
like, "I'm sorry, Severus, I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but you must 
see that from where I was standing that situation really was quite amusing... 
If only you could have *seen* yourself!" And, of course, he wasn't just 
amused at Snape's behaviour. He was also enjoying himself because his lttle 
scheme had worked and he had saved Sirius from a fate worse than death. 
Wasn't he allowed a little elation? It was another of his more brilliant 
ideas.

If we combine his eccentricity with the fact that he *is* seeing the bigger 
picture, his having a sense of proportion about things which others don't 
necessarily share and a fairly wicked sense of humour, I think we have a 
pretty consistent character.

PIPSQUEAK:  So you don't see any inconsistencies at all?

ELOISE:  Well, I wouldn't go quite that far. I do think the awarding of the 
points at the end of PS/SS *is* an inconsistency of characterisation. But 
then I think that is driven by literary considerations.

PIPSQUEAK:  That would be metathinking...

ELOISE: It certainly would. Is that a problem?

Eloise