DD's 'reckless behavior' in cave

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 144679

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "festuco" <vuurdame at x...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Lyn <erised86 at y...> wrote:
> 
> > Again, forgive me if I'm wrong (because it has been a while 
> > since I read HBP), but wasn't DDs 'reckless behavior' in the
> > cave caused by what he was drinking?
> >  
> 
> I wondered when I read that chapter if DD's behaviour that night
> was due to the FF potion. But I wondered if JKR wants DD' death
> be somehow connected with addiction or substance abuse. I don't 
> think so. Yet I found his behaviour that night strange, to say
> the least.
> 
> Gerry
>

bboyminn:

Perhaps, I'm lost; exactly what 'reckless behavior' are we talking
about here. Everyone else, seems to tie my statement of 'reckless
behavior' to what Dumbledore did after he drank the potion from the
pensieve-like bowl in the cave. Personally, I was refering to the
actual drinking of the potion as well as Dumbledore behavior that was
unrelated to the potion. 

He seems to be charging forward with little or no regard for his own
life or safety. For example, to get into the inner cave, Dumbledore
seems to cut an artery since the blood spurts out of his arm and
splashed on the secret cave wall entrance. Why commit such a drastic
action even if he can heal it quickly? Why not just prick the end of
his finger, squeeze out a couple drops of blood and put them on the
wall. What Dumdledore did seems like 'reckless behavior' to me.

Then we have the drinking of the potion. I can't prove it, but I
believe that if Dumbledore had taken his time, he could have found an
alternate means. Think of Bill Weasley breaking curses on Egyptian
tombs; I seriously doubt that he would think drinking a dangerous
potion was the best way to get past it. The only logical reason I can
come up with for Dumbledore doing it, is that he was running out of
time. He didn't have the luxury of days, weeks, or months to show
Harry the meticulous method of curse breaking that the situation required.

Certainly, his behavior was irratic during and immediately after
drinking the potion, but that's what the potion is suppose to do. It's
suppose to create a mental state that makes you want to stop drinking
the potion because that is how it protects the Horcrux. Note that
after the potion is gone and after Dumbledore gets a drink of water,
he recovers, to some extent, very quickly. The potions job was done
and futher effect was of little value. 

Though I'm sure that Dumbledore's sudden extreme thrust was just an
extension of the potions effects. Once the potion was gone and the
Horcrux was accessable, the next protective enhantment would need to
be activated, and that was the Inferi. By the potion making the person
desperately thirst and by making the water unavailable from any other
source, the sticken wizard would drink the lake water, and that would
awaken the inferi. The action of the potion seem quite logical to me.

I could be wrong, but all of Dumbledore's actions immediately leading
up the cave as while in the cave seem to have an underlying sense of
urgency and desperation about them. And that makes me wonder it
Dumbledore's time on this earth was already running short.

Just a thought.

STeve/bboyminn