The Riddles' Murders (WAS: The only one he ever feared?

[ginnysthe1]

No: HPFGUIDX 117572


Kim's snipped post:
>Dumbledore's the "greatest wizard in the world" according to the 
opinion of many (myself included ;o)), but his behavior is so 
inexplicable at times.  Maybe he's getting too old (such as in the 
way Harry describes him at the end of OotP) and that advanced age 
affects his behavior, but 50 years ago when young TR killed his 
father and grandparents, DD was still a youthful 100, wasn't he?<

To which Patrick replied:
>It seems that many people have this opinion, but I find myself 
wondering if the issue isn't that Dumbledore is "loosing it", as it 
were, but rather he has so much more life experience then any of us 
would, and he is so magically advanced that we can't really 
understand what he is thinking.  While, I do agree he has 
his "senior" moments (and he's pointed this out as well, OotP) 
perhaps his methods and thought processes are too far beyond what we 
can comprehend with our (or their, in the WW) current 
knowledge/experiences. Any thoughts...  [signed] Patrick...who 
doesn't think DD's as eccentric as I once thought...<

Kim asks Patrick:

What did you think of the rest of my post insofar as it might relate 
to your view of DD's life experience and magically advanced state of 
mind (which you could easily be right about)?

Here's the rest of what I'd written:  "... So what guided [DD's] 
decision to keep it to himself if he did indeed suspect the student 
Tom Riddle of killing 3 Muggles in Little Hangleton? Sometimes DD 
reminds me of Emperor Claudius (in the PBS/BBC series "I, 
Claudius") ... when he said, "Let all the poisons that lurk in the 
mud hatch out..."

And:  "But also this reminds me <snip> [of] the possibility of DD 
having heard a prophecy about the birth of Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort 
years ago, in the same way that he'd been the one to hear the 
prophecy about the coming of the vanquisher of Voldemort. Maybe he 
thought he couldn't interfere in the unfolding of that earlier 
prophecy either."

I think I was sort of getting at part of what you're saying about 
Dumbledore when I compared him to Claudius.  I think Claudius too had 
seen so much in his lifetime that when chaos descended once again, 
the wisdom of his years told him to just let the chips fall where 
they may this time.  Besides he was too old and sick to do anything 
about it by then anyway.  Of course Dumbledore is Dumbledore, not 
Claudius and he's still far more powerful a wizard than Claudius was 
a man at that time in his life.   And what do you think about the 
prophecy idea (which of course is pure conjecture at this point)?

I agree though that there's more to Dumbledore than anyone can truly 
appreciate.  There are so many things we don't know about him and may 
never know.  Where was he born, where did he grow up, who was his 
family?  What other experiences did he have in his long life besides 
the references we've heard to his defeat of Grindelwald and his 
relationship with Nicholas Flamel?  

Kim (who'd like to read all the books again focusing only on her 
favorite characters so she could get to know them all as well as 
possible)