Dumbledore's Philosophy (WAS: MAGIC DISHWASHER: Spying Game Philosophy

[Marie Jadewalker]

No: HPFGUIDX 81465

First, a disclaimer.  I haven't read anywhere close to everything 
that people have used to speculate about the prophecy, so if this is 
plowing old ground, I sincerely appologize.  I know others have 
questioned Dumbledore's straightforward interpretation of the 
prophecy, and things Debbie said here made me see one reason why he 
may have done so.  

> Debbie:
> 
> Yes!  As a leader, Dumbledore uses a laissez-faire approach.  
> Dumbledore's dilemma is that his best weapon is Harry, a living 
> human being.  He does not manipulate others into doing what he 
> wants them to do, and certainly not Harry.  To give Harry all the 
> information at the beginning – or even as soon as he asked – would 
> be manipulative.  Because of the nature of the prophecy, it would 
> be the equivalent of telling Harry exactly what's expected of him.  
> It would be an attempt to control a weapon that he cannot control.  
> The best Dumbledore can do is to provide Harry with the tools he 
> will need if he chooses to take on the role.   As I see it, this is 
> Dumbledore's entire plan:  to keep Harry alive until he could 
> decide for himself.
> 
> In fact, one of the reasons I hated chapter 37, The Lost Prophecy, 
> was because 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.
> 
[snip quote]
 
> I think Dumbledore overstates his error here; it is the lament of 
> one grieving the loss of Sirius.  The DEs were astonished to 
> discover that Harry did not know about the prophecy, because they 
> cannot conceive that Dumbledore would treat Harry as more than a 
> weapon.  Were it not for his and Harry's grief, I don't think he 
> would ever assert that caring for Harry for himself was a mistake, 
> because that's the great divide that separates good from evil.  

[snip]

> And isn't it Dumbledore's heart that allowed Harry the freedom to 
> grow in the understanding that leads him to make the choices he 
> makes?  Dumbledore lets others learn things for themselves because 
> he values them as human beings and not as occupiers of particular 
> roles.  Harry was no exception.  Dumbledore's refusal to use Harry 
> in the way the DEs expected him to may have resulted in Sirius' 
> death, but it may have saved Harry, and will save countless others 
> down the road if the end result is to vanquish Voldemort in the 
> future.  If Dumbledore had simply told Harry at age 11 what he was 
> expected to do, Harry might have rebelled.  Why should he sacrifice 
> himself for Dumbledore, whose idea of TLC was to leave him with the 
> Dursleys?  And in OOP, Harry *did* rebel, in large part because he 
> thought Dumbledore didn't care about him.
> 
> I've never been part of the MD camp, and don't get there after OOP, 
> notwithstanding Dumbledore's references to his plan.  See, I think 
> Dumbledore's plan was to keep Harry alive until he gained enough 
> understanding to choose for himself whether to accept the 
> responsibility of being the weapon.  The lie that Pip points out 
> (claiming that Dumbledore's Army is his own creation) is made to 
> protect Harry at nobody's expense but his own.  And I also think 
> Dumbledore has done it exactly right, notwithstanding his own 
> protestations to the contrary.
> 
> The conflict between our love of humanity and our love for 
> individuals has always existed, and being a leader means that 
> sometimes very hard choices must be made.  Dumbledore has told 
> Harry something he did not want to have to tell him because he 
> cared about him.  But if a plan to improve the condition of 
> humanity is not combined with a love of those humans as 
> individuals, then people are nothing more than weapons.  Dumbledore 
> won't make Harry his weapon; Harry must choose that for himself.  
> To be honest, Harry seems to have chosen to be the weapon even 
> without Dumbledore's information.

As numerous people have observed, it is very important to Dumbledore 
that people be allowed to make choices.  I also somehow doubt that 
the prophecy will end up being as simple as the kill-or-be-killed 
interpretation that Dumbledore let Harry leave his office with.  How 
do those two things fit together?  Well, I agree that Dumbledore was 
questioning his past choices because he was grieving for Sirius 
(although I don't think he made particularly bad choices either), but 
there may be more to it than that.  

What if Dumbledore HAS worked out another possible interpretation of 
the prophecy?  What if he believes that the only way for Voldemort to 
be permanently vanquished is for Harry to be unwilling to kill him, 
even if not doing so would mean his own death?  If Harry's current 
anguish about having to become a murderer persists, he might make 
that choice, even if he believes he can kill Voldemort.  So even if 
Dumbledore realizes that the outcome of this hypothetical encounter 
would not be Harry's death, Harry has to believe it would be.  
Because only then can he make the truly noble choice TO die because 
to do otherwise would make him someone he doesn't want to be, someone 
who would see himself as unworthy of love (as his self reflection 
seems to indicate).  We know (or believe, anyway) that Lily's self-
sacrificial love of Harry stopped Voldemort the first time and forged 
a link between Voldemort and Harry.  I think Dumbledore may believe 
Harry's power that the Dark Lord knows not lies in his unwillingness 
to kill, but if Dumbledore tells him that directly, it will nullify 
Harry's choice.  He cannot truly choose to die rather than kill if he 
thinks that doing so would not actually result in his death, and that 
is why Dumbledore let him make such a simplistic interpretation of 
the prophecy.  He respects Harry's right to choose, and more than 
that, he knows that the choice will have to be genuine to be 
effective.  

I think he is also, as others have discussed, trying to help Harry 
become the person who would make the right choice.  Not directly, but 
through conversations like the one in POA when he praised him for 
showing mercy to Peter
 perhaps it is not Peter who will eventually 
save him.  Perhaps Harry's final salvation will come not through 
Harry being the kind of person who WOULD show mercy to not just a 
Peter Petigrew who was weak and cowardly, but even to a Tom Riddle 
who is a merciless killer.  Voldemort certainly would not understand 
that sort of thought.  And that might just be his undoing.    

~Marie