Dumbledore-Puppetmaster

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 135835

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Kathryn Jones <kjones at t...> 
wrote:

<snip>

> He has set a sixteen year old boy, knowing that he might also have 
> to die to fulfil the prophesy, against the other most powerful 
> wizard of the age, half prepared, with vague instructions, little 
> effective assistance, and yet he says that he loves Harry. I have a 
> little trouble with that.

There's an easy answer to that objection, although the Conventional 
Wisdom on the list doesn't necessarily want to hear it--Dumbledore 
didn't intend to die there, and he had a lot more to tell and teach 
Harry.

> There is no way that Snape would be stupid enough to apply for the 
> DADA position every year for fourteen years knowing that there was 
> a hex on the job. He applied because Voldemort had told him to do 
> so, they needed to maintain the fiction that Snape was still doing 
> what Voldemort told him to do, and Dumbledore refused to  accept 
> the applications so as to keep Snape in his position as long as 
> possible.

This is, of course, assuming for sure that Snape *knows* that there 
is a hex on the job.  I can see Snape being stubborn enough to 
continue to apply.  Admittedly, there's a knot with the text and 
interview comments here that's a little messy, and not worked out to 
my satisfaction either.

My general problem with the whole theory is that it goes more than a 
little contrary to a lot of Dumbledore's observed style, and the 
authorial interpretation of such (which is a valuable tool).  When 
JKR said that DD didn't go to comfort Hagrid earlier because he 
wanted Hagrid to work it out on his own, it made a lot of things make 
sense.  Dumbledore is about plans and knowledge and working things 
out, but he also has to leave more than enough room for all the 
people on the board (not merely players) to act in free will and work 
upon their own characters.  For instance, his attitude towards Snape 
in the classroom fits with the description above if you think of it 
as DD giving Snape the room to try to fix himself, rather than 
ruthlessly using Snape's own inclinations to an end.  (It's a rather 
ineffectual end, if that's what it is).

Ruthless, but puppetmaster?  I haven't seen any solid canonical 
support for anything as convoluted as the DISHWASHER in the past two 
books.  I saw a Dumbledore doing a lot of extrapolation and flying by 
the seat of his pants this book.  No one is *that* good to have all 
plans survive.

-Nora chills in the evening