Dumbledore- Time, Wisdom, & Spies

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 116492


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214"
<dumbledore11214 at y...> wrote:
> 
> > Juli replies:
> > Although time travel isn't *that* complicated, it would bring 
> > terrible consequences, why wouldn't DD just go back and fix 
> > things? ... I don't believe he can  manipulate time, I think he 
> > *sees* the future, not in a Trelawney 
> > kind of way, ...
> > 



> Alla:
> 
> Because DD knows that consequences could be dire. ...edited...
> 
> If I were to choose from Dumbledore's possible powers, I would 
> definitely pick the power of do something with time.
>
> Alla


bboyminn:

First point, nothing says Dumbledore can't go back and /view/ time
(that is, the past) while not altering or interferring with it. He can
use his knowledge of the very near past, to make immediate decisions. 

That said, the excess use of the Time Turner becomes an easy out. It
allows a lazy author an easy solution to any problem that might occur.
Plus, mucking about with time, changing the past, can have extremely
complicated consequences. Look at the 'Back to the Future' series of
movies. Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) spawn disasterious timelines, and
kept going back in time messing around until he fimally created a
timeline he liked, but that final timeline was completely different
than the way things would likely have occurred if left alone. So, the
/time/ that was or would have been, is now lost forever. Now compound
that with 20 or 30 Marty McFly's (or Albus Dumbledore's or Harry
Potter's) going back and mucking about, that spell disaster in any
language. 

Back to Dumbledore, let me remind everyone that he is over 150 years
old. In his time, he has seen the folly of man again and again. He has
seen mischievious students, power hungry politicians and businessmen,
war, misplace priorities, etc... etc... again and again in his life. I
think that's way he's so calm all the time; he has a 'been there seen
that' attitude. 

This also gives the world around him a degree of predictability. He
knows curious student will be curious, he knows weak politician are
ruthless in their effort to hold on to their power, he know that bad
guys will be bad in predictable ways (he's read the Evil Overlord's
Handbook), etc.... 

That may appear to give him a degree of 'all knowingness', but mostly
it's just the wisdom of time and experience.

I also think all that time and experience, especially when applied to
an already extremely intelligent and talented man, makes him very
perceptive. He sees things that other people miss because they are
familiar to him; he has seen them many many times before.

In this vein, while some will speculate that it was some special
magical ability that allowed Dumbledore to know that Harry was under
the invisibility cloak in Hagrids hut, it may have simply been a
hyper-awareness of his surrounding. He may have notice a sagging or
movement in the floor boards, heat radiating from the bodies, sound
made by Harry that were passed off as background noise by other. 

It's also possible that the invisibility cloak is not perfect. There
may be ever so slight visual aberrations that are missed by the
inexperienced eye, that were noticable to Dumbledore. 

As has already been discussed, Dumbledore has hundreds if not
thousands of spys in the castle. Every hallway, every corridor is
lined with spys in the form of magical portraits. Imagine trying to
get away with anything with that many eyes watching you and ears
listening to you. In addition, is suspect that many of the rooms have
portraits as well. Then top that all off with a couple dozen ghosts
who certainly have an enhanced ability for stealth, and I don't think
we need to give Dumbledore a god-like omniscience over the past.
present, or the future. 

One last note on portraits vs pictures (photographs). I once compared
photographs to TV commerials, they create shallow but easily
recognisable caricatures. Portraits on the other hand are more like
movies in that they capture the subject's personality with greater
depth and in more detail, but ultimately they fall short of the real
person; they are deeper, but still limited in the depth they can
portray (as confirmed by JKR).

That's one reason why I don't give much weight to the idea of
chocolate frog cards acting as spys. I simply don't think that photos
have sufficient depth to be anything but a cartoon/caricature verion
of the real person. Also, while it has been somewhat implied, we
really have never heard a photo communicate in any way. There have
been implied minor vocalization, but no photo has ever talked. 

You can believe what you will, but until it's proven otherwise, I have
to take photos as extremely limited devices, and Dumbledore as just an
extremely wise, talented, and experienced man.

Just a thought.

Steve/bboyminn (was bboy_mn)