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

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 135194


> Julie says:
>  
> I thought what JKR has said was interesting too. Dumbledore doesn't
> have a confidant, i.e., that *one* person you can share everything  
with.
> He carries too large a burden for it all to be shared with one  
person.
> He shares much about running the school with McGonagall, I 
> think, who is clearly one of his oldest friends. But he doesn't seem
> to share much with her about Order business, especially any of
> it that involves Snape or Harry. 

That is a good point.  However it is also a matter of 
interpretation.  The emphasis JKR put on Dumbledore's isolation seems 
to indicate that he has a generalized failure to connect on multiple 
levels.  After all, NO ONE has a confidant in the global sense you 
indicate, or at least very few of us do. 

>  
> Meanwhile, we get the impression he does share quite a bit of
> Order business with Snape, which only makes sense as Snape
> is DD's inside man in the DE (or as inside as he can be without
> the kind of full "betrayal" that would convince LV beyond of his 
> loyalty beyond a doubt--such as killing DD). And I also think 
> DD and Snape do share some plans relating to Harry, as with
> Occlumency and perhaps the HBP textbook.

Well, I don't think we know much about this, and arguments can be 
made either way.  I think postulating that the HBP textbook was some 
plot of DD's and Snape's is quite a stretch, although at this point 
nothing much could surprise me.  As to generally sharing Order 
business, a spy who comes into frequent contact with a murderous mind-
reader is about the LAST person you want to impart crucial secrets 
to, even if that spy is extremely good at shielding his mind.

Obviously Snape and Dumbledore do have quite a bit of communication, 
as you point out with regard to Occlumency lessons.  But precisely 
what is communicated is still quite a mystery, and JKR seems to 
indicate that DD was probably holding his cards very close to the 
vest even with Snape (as we know he was with McG).
 
>  
> And then there's the stuff he shares only with Harry, about 
> the prophecy and the Horcruxes (though Snape may know 
> about the latter, while McGonagall is certainly in the dark). 
>  
> I agree that Snape isn't DD's confidante in the fullest sense, 
> any more than McGonagall, or Mad-Eye Moody, or Harry. But
> DD has still trusted Snape with a *lot* of information,  especially
> over the past several years. If DD's trust in Snape is misplaced,
> then DD has made a huge mistake, VERY huge, far more so
> than any other misjudgment we've seen from him, because
> it affects exactly those he has sworn to protect, the Hogwarts
> students, and Harry himself. They are all now in much greater
> danger from Voldemort and the DEs if Snape has truly joined
> them. This magnitude of misjudgment makes DD not only
> fallible, but I think his standing as a great wizard would be  
> somewhat tarnished.

I agree that for Snape to have been ESE these last seventeen years 
would not reflect well on DD at all.  However, as Nora has pointed 
out, there is a LOT of territory between completely ESE 
and "Dumbledore's man through and through to the death."  To take the 
Occlumency example, Dumbledore was confidant after knowing Snape more 
than two decades (counting Snape's time as a student) that Snape 
could put aside his personal feelings for James to meet the pressing 
needs of the moment.  Dumbledore was mistaken, and Snape's failure to 
do as required was a contributing factor to the tragedy that 
followed.  It may well be that this was meant to show us how 
dangerously disconnected Dumbledore had become from the emotional 
lives of the people around him, and thus to prep us for Snape's 
betrayal if and when DD pressed him too hard on a sensitive subject.  
That doesn't make Snape ESE for seventeen years.  It does make him a 
badly damaged man under tremendous pressure who has started to 
experience all sorts of mental and moral fissures. And DD by his own 
admission did not understand how deep some of those cracks went.

Does this make DD a fool?  Not at all, it makes him human.  Many 
intelligent and resourceful people badly underestimate the emotional 
reactions of people they have known for decades -- as any divorce 
lawyer will attest.  And the more detached, to use JKR's word, one 
is, the more likely it is that something like this will happen.



>  
> As for the good cop/bad cop, I still see that as a viable 
> reason why DD allows Snape to run his classes as he saw
> fit. DD knows how Snape feels about Harry, how hard (and
> sometimes even unfair) Snape is, but DD also knows that
> there are some things Harry needs to learn from Snape. 
> So while DD didn't set it up that way, and Snape isn't even
> aware of it in that sense, DD allows the good cop/bad cop
> game that goes on between Harry, Snape and himself to
> continue, because it serves as a learning experience on 
> several levels for Harry (both because Snape does have 
> skills Harry needs to learn, and because if Harry can't stand
> up to Snape, who may dislike him but won't actually harm
> him, how can he stand up to Voldemort, who wants to wipe
> him off the face of the Earth?).
>  

True.  But really that just comes down to the fact that Dumbledore 
has reasons for his actions and policies, which I don't think anyone 
ever doubted.  The classic meaning of good cop/bad cop is that this 
is a deliberate drama consciously set up between the players.  That 
is the theory that was popular among fans, and the theory to which 
Nora is referring, I believe.  And that is the theory that seems to 
have been dealt a body-blow by various recent revelations.  It just 
doesn't seem that Dumbledore acted on that level of intimate 
cooperation with anyone.  Indeed, Harry may be the first person in 
many, many years to reach the kind of rapport with Dumbledore he had 
achieved at the end of HBP.  That may well have been a large part of 
DD's affection for Harry, that he saw in him a young man who could, 
after so very long, be the confidant DD had been denied.


Lupinlore