Dumbledore and the Dursleys

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 123146


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Alex boyd" <alex51324 at h...> 
wrote:
> 
<SNIP
> 
> "But!"  I hear you saying.  "Dumbledore left him at the Dursley's 
house.  
> Doesn't that make him responsible?"  Maybe, but I sort of think 
that that 
> scene was motivated more by economy than a sense that Dumbledore 
ought to 
> have a continuing responsibility to Harry during his childhood--JKR 
probably 
> didn't want to invent a Wizarding Department of Social Welfare just 
for that 
> one scene.  Or, to Watson it, if I offered to drive a friend's 
orphaned 
> child to his new guardians (maybe I'm close friends with this 
theoretic 
> deceased person, maybe I just happened to be going that way, I 
don't know),  
> I wouldn't feel that that gave me the right to meddle in the new 
family's 
> business for the next eleven years.
> 
> Alex

I agree with most everything you say up to this part, Alex.  And the 
reason I disagree is that, for whatever reason, Dumbledore IS the one 
who makes the decision with regard to Harry.  He IS NOT simply 
dropping him off in answer to some law or somebody else's decision.  
He MADE the decision.

It is entirely possible that JKR wrote the scene this way for reasons 
of narrative mechanics as you point out.  So what?  For whatever 
reason, THE SCENE IS WRITTEN THAT WAY.  Therefore, to excuse 
Dumbledore on the basis of "economy" is simply to say "well, it's a 
book and it doesn't make very much sense sometimes so we'll just have 
to take the bad with the good and accept that DD is one of the heroes 
and we shouldn't ask questions."  

Now, I get the strong impression sometimes that this last policy is 
the one JKR herself would like to advocate.  Hence all the epitome of 
goodness stuff, basically saying DD is a good guy and JKR is very 
uncomfortable with the thought that the kind of "realism" applied to 
someone like Fudge or Umbridge should be applied to DD.  But 
unfortunately that just doesn't work for me or for a lot of other 
people.  JKR has written her scenes, now she needs to explain them or 
face people who will continue to find a glaring gap between what she 
keeps saying the characters are MEANT to be and what the actually ARE 
in the text.

Of course JKR can do absolutely anything she wants and tell us all to 
like it or lump it.  That is the power and right of the author.  But 
we can say anything we want about what she writes, and judge it by 
whatever criteria we find appropriate.  That is the power and the 
right of the reader.

Lupinlore