[HPforGrownups] ...once again Dumbledore!Abuse - a Balanced Approach

[Bruce Alan Wilson]

No: HPFGUIDX 142777

bboyminn wrote:
> Harry's life may have been unpleasant but he was alive and safe, 
> and miserable though that life may be, it is preferrable to the 
> alternative. 
<snip>
> Dumbledore made a hard choice, one that even he concedes was a bad
> choice, but bad as it was, it was also the necessary choice. There 
> was no other situation that afforted Harry the level of protection 
> he received from living in the presence of and under the 
> protection of his mother's blood. 


Bruce Alan Wilson:
I don't quite understand how the 'blood protection' thing works, but I'm not a sorcerer, so there's no reason why I SHOULD.  And there's
no reason why JKR has to show us all the machinery.


bboyminn:
> So, the choices were, Harry lives with his anti-magic uncle and
> bullying cousin, or he is tortured and murdered by psychotic Death 
> Eaters.
>
> Seems an easy choice to me.

Bruce Alan Wilson:
Exactly.


bboyminn:
> Sorry, but I don't see any inconsistency in Dumbledore's 
> character. He made an terrible but necessary choice. One that he 
> regrets but one that given the same circumstances he would likely 
> have made again.

Bruce Alan Wilson:
Hindsight is always 20-20.


bboyminn:
> One last note; I think part of the appeal of JKR's books is that
> characters are not Pollyanna, Saturday Afternoon Special, Sunday
> School Lesson picture perfect. Every character is flawed and makes
> mistakes, and they have to struggle to do the right thing, and 
> people identify with that struggle a lot more than with letter 
> prefect flawlessly moral characters. 

> Dumbledore made a hard and terrible choice, but a choice that none 
> the less HAD to be made.

Bruce Alan Wilson:
IMHO, the correct one.  DD made mistakes, of course--as wise
and powerful as he is, he is still human.  He made the best choices he could given the circumstances and the knowledge he had at the time.  That some of them turned out to have been the WRONG choices doesn't make him wicked or stupid--just human.

Bruce Alan Wilson