What use is there in Dumbledore dying?

[Milz]

No: HPFGUIDX 133204

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "huntergreen_3" <patientx3 at a...>
wrote:
> With all these theories floating around that Dumbledore and Snape 
> arranged the death, and Snape is not really at fault, and it was all 
> a great plan and all that, I have one burrowing question: what use is 
> there in Dumbledore dying? 
> 
> There's plot-use of course, and it means something in Harry's quest 
> and all that, but from inside the book, why would Dumbledore plan his 
> own death? What would be gained?
>

Exactly, there isn't a reason for Dumbledore to fake his death. The
series ain't called "Harry Potter" for nothing! It's been about
Harry's coming of age and how he has to face a powerful enemy since
book 1. Sure he gets help, but in each book Harry has become more
competent at solving his own problems and taking command of his own
destiny. To have Dumbledore magically appear during the final battle
with Voldemort and to have Harry defeat Voldemort with more than 95%
help from Dumbledore or any other character defeats the entire theme
of the series: Harry Potter's growing up and being able to take care
of himself. Harry is the alter ego of every child, who needs to grow
into an adult.

I realize there are plenty of theories around that Dumbledore isn't
dead, but may I be the party-pooper here and remind everyone that at
there were theories abound that Sirius wasn't dead either.

I've come to take Rowling's work at face value. She's been up front
with us, dropping various clues and hints---clues and hints that can
be easily dismissed or missed when we allow our wants and desires for
these characters to obscure the fact that Rowling calls the shots in
the HP-verse. 

> 
> I don't believe in the secretly good!Snape theories, not in the least 
> bit. I would like to believe them, I really would, I liked Snape as a 
> character before this, even would defend him, but there's no getting 
> around the fact that he murdered Dumbledore. He said the curse (and 
> we know he's very powerful, I have no doubt he could kill someone if 
> he wanted to....and from the look on his face, he *wanted* to), it 
> hit Dumbledore, and there's no blocking AK, Harry's the *only* one 
> who has ever survived it. He's dead. As dead as Sirius.
> 
> I don't see what there is to be gained in Snape mantaining his cover 
> when there's no one left to spy to. The Order seemed as shocked as 
> Harry at Snape's death. And is a spy really worth the life of 
> Dumbledore? Is Snape really more valuable than Dumbledore? 
> 
> I think that Snape knew what he was getting into when he made the 
> Unbreakable Vow. Otherwise, unless he's ESE!, he shouldn't have made 
> it. Or he should have made it, and broke it, and sacrificed his life 
> for Dumbledore. 

I don't believe in the Snape is good theories either. Way back in
PS/SS Dumbledore told Harry that each of us had choices to make. Snape
had a choice not to make that unbreakable vow. He could have easily
told Narcissa that he only does Voldie's bidding, not hers. But he
didn't. Did he? Sure you can hypothesize that Snape was under
Dumbledore's orders, but that is only a hypothesis and from what I've
seen of the Sirius isn't really dead theories during the last
book....I wouldn't bet a Chocolate Frog on that.

I think each of the Three (Harry-Ron-Hermione) has an adult
counterpart. Harry's is Voldemort. Ron's is any number of the pure
blood Death Eaters. 

And Hermione's is Snape. Both were excellent students. BUT the major
difference was that Hermione wasn't a teenaged outcast like Snape was.
 She started off like him in PS/SS. But after the Troll incident,
Harry and Ron became friends with Hermione----And that's the
cautionary tale of Hermione and Snape: no child is an outsider by choice.

Re: Dumbledore fallibility

I wrote this earlier in another post, but I think this was very clever
of Rowling. Not only did her characters blindly believe that
Dumbledore was never wrong, she got her readers to think the same. And
that's the other cautionary tale: it's okay to trust, but don't trust
so much that you blinded to your own instincts and sensibilities.

Milz