Foolish, but benign, DD (was Etiquette)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 142666

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ornadv" <ornawn at 0...> wrote:
<SNIP>
> 
> Orna:
> I agree that DD could have bullied the Dursleys into treating 
Harry 
> better. The mere owl-post addressed towards Harry in the cupboard 
> was enough to give him a room upstairs. But, that wouldn't be the 
> point. I mean – the whole thing about caring and loving is that it 
> has to be done willfully. 

Well, I think that would have been VERY MUCH the point.  In a lot of 
ways, DD comes across as a fool no matter how you cut it.  If he was 
not a fool to trust Snape, he was a fool to believe in the 
possibility of the Dursleys acting well, and a fool for not 
forcefully intervening at a much earlier date.  Which goes with the 
idea of him being rather too detached to really understand what's 
going on around him, sometimes.

Now, I will allow that JKR didn't start out to make DD look like a 
fool.  But, unfortunately, she backed herself, and DD, into a corner 
with that ill-considered final speech in OOTP and then had to rescue 
him with some hand-waving and tacit rewriting of cannon.  
Unfortunately, the only escape hatch within reach was to fall back 
on Dumbledore as the detached and foolish, but benign and well-
meaning, old man who really doesn't always understand the people 
around him.  It makes DD look like a bungler, particularly 
considering his disastrous failure to handle the Snape/Harry 
relationship (and once again regardless of whether he was correct to 
trust Snape or not), but better a benign bungler than a cold 
manipulator.


Lupinlore