Omniscient Dumbledore (Was Re: Snape's AK Failed!!!, and DADA responses)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 135097

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

<snip>

> Snape, on the other hand, is one of Dumbledore's most trusted 
> confidants.  When it comes to Order work I was under the impression 
> that Snape was pretty much Dumbledore's second.  If Snape does turn 
> out to have been Voldemort's man all along, it means Dumbledore was 
> *completely* fooled.  

Confidant is an interesting word, because that is exactly what JKR 
says that Dumbledore *does not have*, in the latest interview.  I 
suspect that we've been overestimating how much Dumbledore actually 
tells Snape, in the sense of planning things out as an explicit line 
of attack.  It seems much more Dumbledore's style to let Snape go his 
own way, and then only step in when necessary.  I can't see the good 
cop/bad cop team that's been hypothesized, anymore.  I really can't 
see the idea that Dumbledore and Snape set up half the things we've 
tended to think they have.
 
<snip>

> Snape, however, is very much Dumbledore's baby.  McGonagall 
> suggests that the entire Order thought it strange that he was so 
> trusted.

I'd say the theme of second-hand trust and its dangers was a huge one 
throughout the book--I do a little dance at having called that one 
absolutely dead on. :)

<snip>

> If Snape really is ESE it means that Dumbledore examined that 
> question and came up with the completely wrong answer.  It would 
> mean, in other words, that Dumbledore is a fool.  And it would 
> mean, IMO, that any "wisdom" he passed along to Harry would be 
> suspect.

This seems to me to be excluding some potential pathos and latitude 
here, which is that Dumbledore could have been partly right and 
partly wrong in trusting Snape.  That is to say, there could have 
been reasons good enough for Dumbledore to trust Snape, but given 
Dumbledore's canonical personality flaws, he failed to pick up the 
lingering resentments and dangers within Snape's personality and 
character.  Snape could have changed or slid *after* he told 
Dumbledore his story, which would make the whole situation Deeply 
Tragic.  Given the pretty solid confirmation of Rowling as an 
essentialist who believes in character, I wouldn't be shocked.  [See 
the Gaunt family story...]

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the lesson is indeed that while 
Dumbledore is very wise, Harry is going to have to surpass him in the 
field of action and not make his same mistakes, not merely be someone 
following Dumbledore's lead.  And that means not taking Dumbledore's 
word as law, but investigating upon his own, maintaining and checking 
close personal ties as opposed to taking the hands-off approach.

-Nora notes that the essentialism sits uneasily upon her shoulders, 
but that it's been there in flaring lights since book 2 at least