[HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore

[Christopher Nehren]

No: HPFGUIDX 116449


On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 19:19:22 EDT, Juli scribbled these
curious markings (which I've mostly snipped):
[snippage]
> A phrase in the LOTR keeps coming to my mind, right near the end 
> Gandalf says "my time is over, for I was the enemy of Sauron", I 
> think that phrase could also be applied to DD, He IS the enemy of LV, 
[more snippage]

... except for the teensy weensy, itty-bitty, minuscule fact that Harry
(or Neville, depending upon your interpretation) must kill or be killed
by him. I would say that Dumbledore is *an* enemy of Voldemort,
yes -- but not "the" enemy.

> I believe DD knows a LOT more than we believe, he seems to know 
> everything that happens in Hogwarts, even before things happen. I 
> read somewhere that it could be because frog-cards, and Bill did say 
> that DD didn't care if they fired him as long as they kept him on the 
> frog-cards. How else could he have known when in PS Harry was 
> spending his evenings at the mirror of Erised, and that Harry would 
> be in that final encounter with LV/Quirell? I have no idea how DD 
> knows the future, but I'm sure he does know what's about to happen.

Well, there's always everybody's favourite, the Time-Turner! I don't
see why everyone dislikes them. Time travel isn't that difficult to
understand, especially if you imagine time as a pseudo-spatial
two-dimensional graph, and then graph absolute time on one axis and
timeline branches on the other ... but I digress. Back to the point:
Dumbledore's apparent omniscience. He's already demonstrated a
willingness to use time travel both to aide a student in her education
(I highly, *highly* doubt that devices like Time Turners are free for
professors to hand out even to students like Hermione, at least not
without some paperwork) and to save lives. Who's to say that he doesn't
use one to monitor his school?

And then there's an idea that you came so close to hitting, but you
missed. It gave me the idea, though. We've seen in OotP (and probably
elsewhere, but since I've finished reading OotP most recently, it's the
book freshest in my mind) that photograph inhabitants are free to roam
to other photographs -- they're not even restricted to their own. And,
since photograph inhabitants are apparently limited in what they *can*
do, I don't see it as too much of a stretch that many of them would
lend themselves to gossipping. Hence, I see it as entirely possible that
one of the myriad and sundry photograph inhabitants would be able to
keep Dumbledore -- or anyone else for that matter -- fully apprised of
any usual or unusual goings-on.

Further, there's also Fawkes. That phoenix really gets around, and
fast. I suspect that we haven't seen all that Fawkes can do.

And then there's also the possibility that Dumbledore himself has some
intrinsic ability of which we're not aware. Perhaps he has some sort of
ability to perceive the future? This would possible explain a lot of his
actions regarding Trelawney. It would possibly impart to him knowledge
of how difficult true prophecy is and thus he would have more respect
for the otherwise mostly fraudulent Trelawney.

> Hoping I made any sense at all...

Well, you did, at least to me.

Best regards,
Christopher Nehren

-- 
I abhor a system designed for the "user", if that word is a coded
pejorative meaning "stupid and unsophisticated".  -- Ken Thompson
-
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