Dumbledore the Counselor (was: Dumbledore the General)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 124424



> > Pippin:
> > Then it would also have been morally wrong to leave Harry in 
the  WW, where he would have been abused by fame and 
fortune. If  you don't think so, consider the fate of so many child 
movie stars  of the thirties and forties, compared to the way 
famous children  are sheltered today. There's a reason that 
Chelsea Clinton and  the English princes weren't in the news 
much when they were  minors.<<

Phoenixgod2000:
> Pippin, if Harry can survive his childhood with a strong moral  
background, then he could have survived fame and fortune with 
strong  morals as well. <

Pippin:
It seems a bit, well, arbitrary to me to state that Harry's great 
inner strength would have seen him through fame and fortune 
better than it would have seen him through the Dursleys. How on 
earth could Dumbledore, or any of us, know that? 

Then there's the admittedly vexed question of whether Harry only 
developed that inner strength because he knew he needed it to 
survive. Harry was exposed to Muggle culture which carries that 
message very strongly, but would he have learned that  in the 
wizarding world?  Or would he have thought that inner strength 
comes from having good bloodlines and doesn't require any 
effort on his part? 

Phoenixgod2000:

I agree that there would have been a lot of pressure on him but I 
am sure that any parents that were selected by Harry would have 
shown some judgement, taught him restraint and kept a lid 
 on his spending. That's what good parents do, even the parents 
of  child stars.
. Do you really think that Harry would have grown up 
> spoiled if he had been raised by a good pureblooded family 
like the  Weasleys or the Boneses? I doubt it.<

Pippin:
Our culture knows that's what good parents should do. But that's 
a modern development, built on the tragedies of the past.  
Consider  the Dionne quintuplets. Those children were so 
adored by the public that they became a freak show. No one 
realized the harm it would do, except for a few prescient people 
who weren't listened to. That's the position Dumbledore would 
have been in.

Phoenixgod200:
> I personally think that the best thing DD could have done would 
have  been to fake Harry's death and hide him somewhere else, 
like France  or America, as just another war orphan. <

Pippin:
And deprive Harry's survival of its meaning for the WW? "Harry 
Potter shone like a beacon of hope for those who thought the 
dark days would never end," -- Dobby CoS, ch 10. There might 
not have been a wizarding world for Harry to come back to, in that 
case.

Pippin