Dumbledore the General

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 124333


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:

<snip>

> Betsy:
> In a completely cold-blooded way of looking at things, Sirius's 
> death may actually be a good thing.  Sirius was coming apart in 
> OotP and he wasn't being the best influence on Harry.  His death 
> takes him out of the way and makes for a nice rallying cry to help 
> motivate Harry in taking down Voldemort.  It's even more personal 
> now.

You're not the first to raise the cold-blooded argument, but let me 
argue against it in a slightly more meta way (and out comes the fuzzy 
bunny).

One of the few good things to come out of some struggling with some 
really nasty hard incomprehensible material (that I now have to try 
hard not to write like) lately was an appreciation for the idea of 
Stimmung--translate it as 'mood' or 'disposition'.  With a little 
creativity and argument that I will spare you all, this can be played 
with in literary works as well; the author's (or the work's, but 
that's another argument) disposition-towards-being is manifested in a 
work.

I'm going to venture the argument that the cold-blooded proposition 
is decidedly not in JKR's Stimmung.  We have an endorsement from 
authority of the mercy given to Pettigrew, despite all the grief that 
has caused.  [I'm leaving aside Agent!Peter here, of course, because 
I also think it doesn't fit.  I think.]  The cold-blooded perspective 
appears decidedly out of place if we want to try to generate readings 
which are coherent to the world of JKR's world.  I'm going to fly 
with it for now being as I done think it makes for less backpedaling 
later, which is always a prime goal of mine.

<snip>

> I also think that Harry's emotional well-being is a priority with 
> Dumbledore.  I just think he handles it differently than others on 
> this list would want him to.  But it does seem to work for Harry, 
> and I doubt we'll see an emotional basket-case in the next book.

Basket-case, I doubt, but fissures underneath the warmer front put up 
at the end of the book are certainly possible.  And the unqualified 
faith in Dumbledore is gone; he is now more human but also more 
fallible, which makes the proposition that he is badly mistaken about 
a number of things even more thematically tempting.

What I would argue is that Dumbledore has practically self-admitted 
(as I believe Alla has dragged up some of the canon for) that he has 
not always really *understood* what is/was really needed for 
emotional well-being.  That's the problem with being a powerful old 
man.  It is an entirely other thing to know in a theoretical sense 
what interactions are/should be like, and to experience them from an 
unempowered position.  I could fill in the blanks there for the 
explicit examples, but I'll leave it for each to do with as he wishes.

-Nora walks around and mumbles about the thingly nature of things