A Number of Questions

[Mina-Clare Moseley]

No: HPFGUIDX 81683

Hello all. Longtime lurker, and I believe first time poster.

I've got a bunch of questions, mostly relating to OotP. Check out 
what I'm pondering and answer if you can:

1) A question posed by my mother. Is Sirius' mother still believing 
he is a traitor flinty or not? Sirius' brother was considered a 
golden boy and he served Voldemort. Mrs. Black died believe Sirius 
had gone to prison for being Voldemort's right-hand man. Is it flinty 
that Mrs. Black still called him traitor, or did she just know her 
no-good son could never be Voldemort's second-in-command?

2) Is Dumbledore a good general? He is the unequivocal leader of the 
Order of the Phoenix. Everyone goes to him for instructions on what 
to do.

Yet I see no evidence that Dumbledore truly knows what he is doing. 
He seems to want to have a "clean war". Meaning, he doesn't want his 
side to dirty their hands killing.

This is, first of all, a security risk. Kretcher was anything but 
loyal to the Order of the Phoenix. We already have evidence from 
Dobby in CoS that a House Elf, with enough will, can defy their 
Master. Kretcher's death would have prevented the death of Sirius.

A good general has to decide what is the acceptable loss in a battle. 
By this virtue, Ron strikes me as a good general. In PS, he knew he 
had to sacrifice himself (as far as he knew, he would die). What Ron 
knew is that it was most important for Harry to reach the end. He was 
superfluous. Dumbledore doesn't seem to realize that some sacrifice 
has to happen. A loyal member of the Order is a lot more useful than 
an addled, disloyal House Elf.

Also, when there was rumours of a spy within the Order, back during 
the first war. It seems to me Dumbledore never addressed this. 
Sirius, and no doubt James and Lily, suspected Remus. A dose of 
Veritas Serum to every member of the Order would have cleared this 
up. Of course, this is all conjecture. We only have vague account of 
what happened back then. It is also possible there is some block for 
Veritas Serum.

3) This last one is just a random wondering, not related to the books really...

Why are we so quick to pull out JKR's interviews in our musings? 
Considering JKR's wish to keep the plots of the books a secret until 
release, I would believe her to be misleading in everything she says. 
While their is a tiny grain of truth, I think JKR interviews should 
be very low on the canon totem (except for things such as "Lily Evans 
was in Gryffindor", a fact she had very little reason to lie about). 
I would say anything related to the next two books should be taken 
with not just a grain, but a whole shaker of salt.

That's about it. I'm sure I have some more musings, I just can't 
think of them at the moment.

~Mina

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