[HPforGrownups] Re: Acceptable Abuses?

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 96009

On 15 Apr 2004 at 0:42, kyntor70 wrote:

> Dreadnought wrote:
> 
> > The question is, though, who are you to decide that this is what is 
> > necessary? Who are you to decide that Dumbledore should not be 
> > keeping Harry in the dark?
> 
> Kyntor replied:
> 
> Actually, it was Dumbledore himself who admitted to Harry in OotP 
> that not telling Harry about things sooner was a mistake.

And is he right now? Has he suddenly started making the right 
decision after 15 years of making the wrong ones?

Yes, Dumbledore now believes he made mistakes - that doesn't mean 
he's making the right decisions now. It doesn't even mean he 
actually was wrong before - maybe he was right before, and he is 
mistaken now.

Eagle eye hindsight is a marvellous thing. We can nearly always say 
"I think I got it wrong." It's very hard to be sure though.

Now, yes, I do think Dumbledore got it wrong - but it's much easier 
to criticise than to be the person who actually had to make the 
decisions.

> Dreadnaught wrote:
> 
> > But imagine yourself in the book - how would you cope if you were 
> > in the position of Albus Dumbledore - if you had to deal with the 
> > real consequences of the choices you make, in an environment where 
> > fear and terror is a normal part of your life. Where you are the 
> > only one who has to make the decisions, and you're the one who has 
> > to live with the consequences of your decisions.
> 
> Kyntor replied:
> 
> To be absolutely truthful, Dumbledore is not having to suffer the 
> consequences of the choices that he made.  He knew that a child was 
> being abused and he did nothing about it.  It wasn't just any child 
> either, it was a child that he is responsible for.  It was Dumbledore 
> that took Harry to the Dursleys after his parents were killed.  The 
> Dursleys didn't want Harry, Dumbledore forced, tricked, or 
> manipulated them into taking him.  Because Dumbledore did that, he 
> bears some of the responsibility of the abuse Harry endured.  Also, 
> Dumbledore is a headmaster of a school.  one of his responibilities 
> is to protect his students, and yet he knowingly sends a student home 
> every summer to house where he will be abused.  Dumbledore has not 
> only betrayed the trust of a child that he is responsible for, but he 
> has also betrayed his sacred duty as a headmaster to protect his 
> students.  Dumbledore has yet to face any consequences of those 
> choices.  This is very harsh, I know, but it is true.

No, I don't believe it is.

*You* think it's true - that doesn't make it so.

>From my point of view, I think Dumbledore has most certainly faced 
consequences from the choices he has made.

He has faced the loss of people I think he probably cares about it. 
He was involved in the decisions to protect James and Lily - and 
they died. He has to face their loss. He has to face the loss of 
Sirius, he has to face the realisation that somebody he cares about 
- Harry - has lost both his parents and the closest thing to a 
parent he ever knew, at least partly because Dumbledore has made 
mistakes. He has to face the fact that he is responsible for Harry 
having 11 years of misery with the Dursley's. He has to face the 
fact that bringing Arthur and Molly Weasley into the order has 
exposed their four youngest children to danger.

I could go on - but I think I've made my view pretty clear. 
Dumbledore is facing consequences for the choices he has made - and 
if he is the type of person I think he is from the books, these may 
be pretty devastating consequences. Other people have faced 
consequences because of his choices as well - but that doesn't me 
he doesn't as well.

Further, I don't believe it is the 'sacred duty' of a headmaster to 
protect his students. Codswallop, in my opinion. The most sacred 
duty of a teacher, or a headmaster, in my opinion is to do whatever 
is in his or her power to ensure that their students will reach as 
close to their potential as adults as his humanly possible.

This duty does impose a certain duty on a teacher or headmaster to 
protect the child certainly - because if the child is too damaged 
by their childhood experiences, they will not be able to reach 
their full potential. And that protection is important - most of 
the time.

But not always. Indeed, in my opinion, sometimes the absolute WORST 
thing a teacher can do is protect a child too much. Sometimes you 
have to expose a child to something in the short term that you 
could protect them from - in order to ensure that in the longer 
term, they will be better for it.

I attended eight different schools as a child, for all sorts of 
reasons. Some took the view that they needed to protect a child at 
all costs. Those schools were absolutely useless to me. They were 
so protective, that they stifled their students. One school took 
the almost exact opposite approach - they didn't protect me at all 
(because the only way they could have done so would have been to 
violate some of their very strongly held, and utterly absurd, 
operating principles). That school was an unmitigated disaster.

Two of the schools I attended took the middle ground - they didn't 
seek to protect us at all costs, protecting us wasn't their sacred 
dury - their sacred duty was to ensure we became the best possible 
adults we could be. That meant they stepped in to protect us some 
of the time - probably most of the time - and certainly they did 
so, in any case where it seemed likely there could be long term if 
they did not. But they also accepted that sometimes protecting us 
was the wrong thing to do. Overprotection can be nearly as bad as 
none at all.

You need to look at the big picture in any case. Now, when dealing 
with Harry Potter, Dumbledore is faced with the reality that 
according to the prophecy he knows about, Harry is going to have to 
face the most evil wizard of the age. And he will live or die as a 
result of that encounter. It is Dumbledore's responsibility as a 
teacher - as Harry's primary teacher - to ensure he is ready to 
face that. Even if that means he can't have a perfectly happy 
childhood.
 
> As much as I would like to go off on some giant conspiracy theory 
> where Dumbledore wanted Harry to be abused so that he would be really 
> easy to manipulate.  I really don't believe that is true.  I think 
> that Dumbledore does care for Harry, but I do believe that he has 
> made some horrible mistakes.  I still don't buy that just because 
> Harry had to live with the Dursley's, he had to be abused.  I do 
> believe that Dumbledore could have stopped the abuse if he would have 
> made the effort.  His horrible mistake was the fact that he never 
> made the effort.  Dumbledore could have transfigured Petunia and 
> Vernon into pigs for about 10 minutes and then transfigured them 
> back.  After the Dursleys stopped screaming he could have simply 
> said, "The next time you abuse or neglect Harry, I am having bacon."  
> That would have probably of been the end of the abuse.

So, in order to protect Harry from the possibility of abuse, 
Dumbledore should have abused Mr and Mrs Dursley?

Harry should have had his safety ensured by Dumbledore engaging in 
terror tactics?

I can understand valuing the rights of a child over those of 
adults. But... well, you see, this presupposes that Dumbledore was 
able to predict precisely what the Dursleys would do to Harry.

And I see no evidence to suggest that he could.

Dumbledore did *not* directly observe the Dursleys - or, at least, 
we have no evidence that he did. He might have - but I'm inclined 
to believe that having left Harry with the Dursleys, Dumbledore 
stood back and didn't directly observe Harry for the next 11 years. 
Mrs Figg was placed in the area to keep some eye on Harry, I think 
because Dumbledore felt it would be dangerous for whatever reason 
for a proper wizard to maintain the surveillance - including 
himself.

Professor McGonnagall, observed the Dursleys for one day before 
Harry was delivered to them. As far as I can see from the canon, 
there is no reason to suppose they were observed at all prior to 
this. Now, Professor McGonnagall does make a slight effort to 
disuade Dumbledore from leaving Harry - but her reasons don't talk 
about the possibility of abuse. She points out that the Dursleys 
are very unlike wizards - which is something Dumbledore wants by 
the way - and she refers to Dudley kicking his mother - and I doubt 
Petunia did anything in response. And in the end McGonnagall 
accepts what Dumbledore says - and honestly, I don't think she's 
the type who would have given in so meekly, if she'd suspected a 
baby was likely to be abused. So I don't think we can reasonably 
suppose Dumbledore had any reason to assume Harry would be abused.

Dumbledore acknowledges that he knew by leaving Harry with the 
Durselys he was condemning him to ten dark and difficult years.  
That doesn't mean he knew exactly what Harry faced. It doesn't mean 
he knew that Harry would be abused.

What he did know that Harry was in danger - and he believed that 
placing Harry with his blood relatives gave him the best chance he 
had of survival to age 10.

And Harry did survive.

> Dumbledore's mishandling of Harry could have had dire consequences 
> for the wizarding world.  JKR has only shown us one other instance of 
> child abuse in her story, and that was Tom Morvolo Riddle, Jr.  
> Just imagine what could of happened if Harry would have turned out 
> filled with hate against the world that let him suffer and eager for 
> revenge.

Plenty - but he didn't.

Instead, I think Harry is more likely to have taken from the abuse 
he experienced, something similar to what I gained from mine. A 
sense of justice, and a belief in doing what is right.

When Harry and Dudley are attacked by Dementors in Order of the 
Phoenix, Harry stands ready to defend Dudley. He has no reason to - 
he has more reason to hate Dudley than most people on the planet. 
Dudley is the source and the symbol of his abuse.

Yet Harry stands to defend him - at the cost of his life if need 
be.

Is that inherent in Harry? Is it a product of his upbringing? Who 
can really say.

But the point is, Harry *DIDN'T* turn out filled with hate against 
the world.

Some of us blame Dumbledore based on hindsight - about how things 
have turned out.

OK - that may be valid in some cases - but if it's valid when 
assigning blame for his mistakes, it should be just as valid when 
he gets it right.

Harry has turned out OK - perhaps better than OK - in many ways.

And that's just as much a result of Dumbledore's choices as any suffering might be.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
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