Dumbledore's mistakes

[Doriane]

No: HPFGUIDX 74630

"Richelle Votaw" wrote:

> 1) Not telling Harry about the prophecy to begin with.  A mistake?  
> Maybe.  May also have been a mistake to tell an eleven year old (in 
> so many words) he has to save the world.  No win situation on that 
> one.

A middle choice maybe. Explaining to Harry that because of what 
happened to him, he will be a choice instrument in the battle that 
will take place against LV, and that he has to fine-tune this 
instrument (learn as much as possible, practice, etc...), while also 
insisting on the fact that he's not going to be alone in that fight, 
that there are tons of other people who are already engaged, people 
he will learn to know, people he will be able to rely on when he 
needs to. It would have given Harry a direction, a sense of going 
somewhere, a goal to work towards, as well as the feeling of 
belonging to a whole team. Not telling him anything left him feeling 
like nobody had any idea what was going on with him and that he was 
completely alone in the midst of his problems. Not good.

> 2) Not telling Harry specifically why he wanted him to study 
> Occlumency.  Big mistake.  Snape's "because Dumbledore said so" 
> reasoning isn't enough for Harry, especially after the way 
> Dumbledore had been acting toward him.  And after everyone raving 
> about how Arthur would've died if not for Harry's dream, you can't 
> really blame  Harry there.

Yep. Big, big mistake. First because teenagers need reasons to do 
things. Trying to force them to do something, especially without 
telling them why, is almost the surest way to ensure that they won't 
do it. And second because it terribly reinforced Harry's paranoia : 
everyone knows things about me and they won't tell me. And since they 
don't tell him, why should he tell them anything ? In effect, this 
single decision ensured that all communication between Harry and the 
adults that could have helped him was severed. Mega-mistake.
As for the fact that he actually saved Arthur's life thanks to the 
dream, DD and Co made another major mistake there. Someone should 
have talked squarely to Harry about it, explaining to him that yes it 
was useful that he had that dream, but that the price he might pay 
for it was way too big. That on the one hand it helped the Order that 
he had that dream, but that on the other hand it was going to do 
terrible damage to himself and to the Order if LV ever managed to 
take him over.

> 3) Seemingly not noticing (or not doing anything about it) that 
> Sirius was rapidly deteriorating while basically kept caged.

I think we are getting to the heart of the reason behind DD's 
mistakes : as someone else said, he's got too much on his plate. He's 
taking care of Hogwarts, the Order, Umbridge, the MoM, Harry, LV, 
etc... And he's almost never delegating any responsibility ! I know 
he's the greatest wizard, but I think *he* knows that a bit too 
much ! He refused to delegate anything to anyone and he refused to 
discuss his decisions with those who were concerned by them, which 
led him straight to the biggest mistake anyone can make : assuming 
that other people are going to act as you would. I can understand 
that Harry does that, because he's a teenager, he's got to learn. But 
DD should have known better. He should have known that neither Harry, 
nor Sirius, nor Snape, were going to act as he would have. He asked 
nearly-impossible things from them, assuming that they, like he would 
have, were going to swallow their pride and pain and get to work for 
the good of everyone. Except that they didn't, they couldn't, because 
they don't have his wisdom and experience and endurance.

> Someone mentioned that being back in that house to Sirius may have 
> been a lot like being back in Azkaban again.  I agree, a lot of bad 
> memories must have been there.  Sure it was okay when the house was 
> full of people, but I'm sure there were a lot of long lonely days 
> and nights there.  How could Dumbledore have helped?  I'm not 
> entirely sure, but surely something could have been done.

Simple : remove him from there. Why did Sirius have to be in GP ? 
Lupin didn't seem to be living there, why couldn't Sirius have gone 
to live with him ? Or maybe in Hogwarts ? In the Forbidden Forest ? 
Anywhere but in GP. And yes LV and the DE know about his being an 
Animagus, but so what ? Great big black dogs are not that rare that 
Sirius would automatically be in danger if he were outside, as long 
as he wasn't among people who would pinpoint him as being Padfoot.

> 4) Okay, this is picky, I'll admit it.  But as soon as Dumbledore 
> got ready to explain everything to Harry, he made another mistake.  
> He starts right off with "I know how you're feeling, Harry."  He 
> just broke rule number one of dealing with someone who is 
> grieving!  Never ever tell them you know how they feel.  Even if 
> you do.  Never say you do, it only opens the door for their "no you 
> don't" which was Harry's response, of course.

That's the number one rule of dealing with someone in pain, but also 
the number one rule of dealing with a teenager. I remember being one 
and honestly thinking that almost noone had ever been in as much pain 
as I was. I was a pretty empathic kid otherwise, but still I couldn't 
get myself to believe that other people could hurt as much as I did. 
And now when I hear teens reacting the same way, I'm appalled at how 
self-centered they are, and I have to forcibly remind myself that I 
was exactly the same.
But as I said before, DD has too much on his mind to still be able to 
try and figure out how Harry is really feeling and reacting. He still 
believes that Harry will react the way he DD would. Hence that 
mistake.

> I'm sure I've left out a number of mistakes, but these particular 
> ones just bounced to the top.  Four four years Dumbledore was the 
> god like figure to Harry.  Now, suddenly, he has taken a huge 
> tumble.  Any additions to this list?

Yes, but not in OoP. In GoF, Percy gets a major telling-off for 
failing to notice that his boss was being controlled by LV. Okay, but 
what about DD ? How could he fail to notice that his so-called friend 
Mad-Eye Moody was NOT the real Moody ??? After those many years of 
working together in the Order, of being friends, he can still spend a 
whole year working with him and not notice how much different he is ? 
I don't care that Crouch Jr did a good job of imitating Moody, DD 
should still have noticed *something* ! I think it was already an 
illustration of DD being so confident in his abilities, in his being 
the greatest wizard around, that he's loosing interest in other 
people and he's failing to truly take care of them. My feeling is 
that DD is taking the different people around him for chess pieces 
that will move around at his will. And because he's so sure to be the 
master of the game, he fails to anticipate the moves of his 
opponents, as well as the fact that his pieces are not going to do 
what he told them to do.
I hate to say that, but I think DD has to humble himself a bit.

Del