TBAY: KITCHEN SINK, now with acronym

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 45498

BlueSqueak and Grey Wolf look out the window of the Safe 
House, where they have been joined by Melody, who is polishing 
up the Magic Dishwasher. GreyWolf has just been archiving the 
latest posts in the DISHWASHER controversy.

They see Pippin trundling up the beach with a whacking great 
can(n)on. 

"Surrender!" she calls through the window, "I am about to blow  
this eyesore of a theory off the shores of the Bay and tote the 
ruins off to the GARBAGE SCOW where they belong. Leave, 
while you still can!" 

GreyWolf ignores her and continues reading over his previous 
remarks  (way back in message 45318) "  Dumbledore will not 
respect his enemies's rights, since that sort of action tends to 
lose wars (and I supose now you'll tell me that Dumbledore is 
Evil because he doesn't give Voldemort's right to freedom)."

The Pipsqueak agrees. "Yes, that's one of the basic 
assumptions of Spygames: An awareness that some (ideally the 
minimum necessary) bad means may have to be used to attain 
good ends." (post 39662)

"Oh, I see." says Pippin.  "So Dumbledore must accept that 
there is no good and evil, only the power to defeat Voldemort and 
those too weak to use it?"

"Let's say, " says GreyWolf, patiently " that Dumbledore hadn't 
prodded Voldemort into using the potion: 200 years from then, 
Voldemort finds another way of resurrecting (by rediscovering the 
PS, for example), makes a come back when no-one even 
remembers him anymore, and this time he is truly immortal. 
What would be the result? That you could say bye bye to the 
entire muggle population, and to anyone else who dared opose 
Immortal!Voldemort. Not a pleasing perspective."

"Yes, but," says Pippin,  "that's not how Dumbledore thinks. 
Dumbledore has a pre-modern consciousness. Part of that 
warrior ethos Elkins is always on about. We don't have a warrior 
ethos. Our Generals don't think that way.  *They* know that 
chivalry is dead. It lies buried in Flanders fields amid the 
crosses row on row and all that. But it isn't dead for Dumbledore. 
He believes in gallant last stands, and  that  God  or JKR or 
whatever will defend the right, and who knows what other 
pre-modern rot. Collective responsibility, for example. Shame as 
a positive social force.  After all, he *is* a hundred and fifty
years old. That ought to be enough grayness for anybody."

"Meta-thinking!" snarls GreyWolf, for about the twentieth time.

"Not this time," says Pippin, pointing proudly to her can(n)on. 

 "We  know that Dumbledore believes all this, I say,  because he 
awards Neville 10 decisive Gryffindor points for his utterly 
doomed,  futile, absurd, dare I say Quixotic attack on the Trio at 
the end of PS/SS"

"If Dumbledore thought like Dishwasher!Dumbledore, it wouldn't 
have occurred to him to  reward Neville for that. Because after all, 
Neville  had no better odds against the Trio than  the wizarding 
world would have  against Lord Properly Re-embodied 
Voldemort. 

"And there was another way that Neville could have stopped the  
Trio.  A way that wasn't hopeless at all. A way that would have 
worked, if he had used it. All he had to do was  compromise his 
principles, to the ideal minimum necessary, as Pipqueak puts it.  
He wouldn't even have had to break any Hogwarts rules. In fact, 
plenty of people would have said he was doing the right thing.  

"Because all he had to do was snitch  to Percy. (Although, if 
anyone had ever found out, Neville would have got his head 
transfigured into a toilet.  I am sure Amos Diggory would gladly 
do the same to Dishwasher!Dumbledore, if he could. )

"Yet Dumbledore goes and rewards Neville for his utterly 
pointless and completely misguided gallantry  in front of the 
whole school. He not only rewards him, he does it in a way that 
makes it clear he thinks  it's the  Gryffindor Edge to fight a 
hopeless battle just because you're too, well, noble, to do 
something that would have had a lot better chance of success."

"Dishwasher!Dumbledore  would never have thought to do that, 
not unless he is as dissociated as young Barty Crouch, or as big 
a hypocrite as Barty Sr.  Dissociated people can't maintain  
honesty. Dumbledore's not dissociated.  And he's no hypocrite 
either.  No hypocrite could teach teenagers for 50 years and not 
be found out."

As Pippin cranks her can(n)on into position, GrayWolf, 
Bluesqueak and Melody can see the writing on the side:

K.I.T.C.H.E.N.S.I.N.K. -- Knighthood Is Triumphant, Chivalry 
Happily Endures, Neville Shows It's Not Kaput

Pippin