DD as a grownup (was: Re: Plot in OotP)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 118176


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, annegirl11 at j... wrote:
> But anyway, I wanted to add that DD is also a general in a war. He 
> may be kind and sympathetic, but he is capable of cold-heartedness 
> if that is what is necessary for the war effort. Keeping Harry with
> the Dursleys, imprisoning Sirius at 12GP; all things that were 
> necessary for their bodily safety but emotionally cruel. DD makes 
> the hard decisions because he's earned the right to; but you can't
> wield that kind of power without having a necessary side of cruelty. 
 

Once again, a perfectly plausible explanation, but it runs yet again 
into JKR's statements about Dumbledore.  She not only said he is a 
good person, she said he *is* goodness.  The only comments she has 
made that come close to this issue are that he "unwillingly allows 
Harry to confront some hard realities he would rather protect him 
from" so that Harry will be able to *survive*.  JKR seems to work 
very hard to excise all notion of "harshness" or "cruelty" from 
discussion of Dumbledore.  About the only possible exception is when 
she mentions that he tolerates Snape because he teaches the students 
some important life lessons, and even there she makes it clear that 
this is something he believes to be in the interest of the *students* 
not of Hogwarts or wizarding society.

Therefore, it seems counter to her statements to postulate that 
Dumbledore does this or that "for the sake of the war effort."  She 
seems to believe he acts for the interest of the person involved.  
Thus she seems to want us to take at face value that he placed Harry 
at the Dursleys because he was trying to keep *Harry* alive, and that 
he had Sirius stay at Grimmauld Place because he was trying to keep 
*Sirius* alive.

Let me offer a possible explanation/commentary that might be in line 
with these statements of JKR.  Dumbledore we know is around 150 years 
old.  Maybe many of his actions fall into the category of "old man's 
mistakes."  When you are 150, I suppose a lot of things look rather 
ephemeral, and it is easy to adopt a detached attitude.  Dumbledore 
seems to do this with emotional issues, and I believe it is a natural 
part of his personality, not a strategy for winning the war or 
manipulating people or anything else.  He has lived so long he has 
learned that time heals wounds and that goals have a way of fading 
into dust, and he just can no longer appreciate the depths of pain 
and emotion experienced by people with a different perspective.  He 
admits as much about Snape, and comes close to admitting it about 
Sirius.  As for Harry, this is somewhat harder to comprehend, but if 
he honestly believed Petunia might come around, and he honestly 
didn't expect the extent of the Dursleys' abuse, I could see it.  He 
might have thought "It will be dark and difficult but Petunia will 
come around eventually, and time will help alleviate the problems.  
On the whole it won't be any worse than a lot of other people 
experience in disturbed homes."  I can see this more easily in the 
question of why he tolerates Snape.  He might think "It's just a 
potions class anyway, and the students who learn to take it in that 
vein will be better off. Most of them will grow up to laugh at 
Snape's self-importance and shake their heads over how silly the 
whole thing was."

Lupinlore