[HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore's Philosophy (WAS: MAGIC DISHWASHER: Spying Game Philosophy

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 81358

I, Debbie wrote:

> I didn't - and still don't - see Dumbledore's decision 
> not to tell Harry about the prophecy sooner as a mistake.  What 
> Dumbledore now sees as a *mistake* was to treat Harry as a human 
> being and not as a weapon.

David responded:

I don't understand the argument here.  You seem to be saying that 
Dumbledore has a dilemma: either keep Harry in ignorance, and allow 
him the freedom to make his own choices, or tell him the truth and 
so manipulate him; to turn him into a weapon, as you put it.

This seems a false dilemma to me.  True, when Harry is very young, 
to burden him with too much knowledge might be to paralyse him, but 
as he gets older he should be able to bear the truth without losing 
his freedom - indeed knowing more makes him more free because his 
choices are better informed.


Debbie:

Harry already understands by the end of PS/SS that Voldemort is after him.  But it's one thing for a child to have the knowledge that he will be forced to defend himself, and it's another to know that the entire WW is depending on him to vanquish Voldemort.  Dumbledore was right to withhold that, I think, until Harry better understood his own will and knew the WW a bit better.  Dumbledore says he made a mistake by not telling him everything five years ago, and I simply don't agree with this.

David again:

It seems to me therefore there is a crossover point - encountered by 
every parent - when it is better to let a growing child into a 
secret.  [snip]  If, at the end of GOF, Dumbledore had told Harry aboutt the 
prophecy, how would that have reduced him?  If so, how, at the end 
of OOP, does Harry knowing about the prophecy *not* do so?

Debbie:

My issue here is that Dumbledore perceives his error to relate directly to the prophecy.  I believe Dumbledore did err in OOP, but it was a more general refusal to give information to Harry.  The time to level with Harry was, I think, not at the end of GoF but when he arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place, after he had an opportunity to process and gain some distance from Cedric's death and his encounter with Voldemort.  He arrived demanding to know what was going on and was told very little.  He wasn't told what Voldemort was doing to his mind, or that Voldemort might try to use the mind connection to lure him away, or why Dumbledore wouldn't give him the time of day, in my mind the worst of Dumbledore's errors.  Dumbledore admits these mistakes.  Correcting these mistakes does not require Harry to learn what the prophecy says, though arguably this would have been an appropriate time to tell him about it.  

In fact, knowing what the prophecy said might have caused Harry to do something foolhardy that would ensure Voldemort's victory; this is the same Oedipus dilemma that trapped Voldemort --trying to thwart the prophecy may itself have led to the prophecy's fulfillment adversely to himself. 

The very facts that Dumbledore recites to indicate that Harry was ready to know the prophecy, i.e., how he has risen to the occasion time and time again against challenges that should have been far beyond him, suggest that Harry was well on his way to fulfilling the prophecy without any knowledge of it or its contents.  Specific knowledge of the prophecy is just another burden that Harry must carry.

Debbie 



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