What would Dumbledore do? (Re: Twist JKR?)

[ellecain]

No: HPFGUIDX 141836

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "hickengruendler" 
<hickengruendler at y...> wrote:
>
>  
> > 
> > Elyse:
> > 
> > P.S. I know this is totally unrelated to the topic, but someone
> > (Betsy?) asked before, how people can say Snape would not do 
such-and-
> > such a thing because it would be OOC, and wondered how people 
could 
> > possibly *know* Snape so well. 
> > I want to know how come people keep saying Dumbledore /would/ do 
> > certain things, because it would/would not be in character. I 
know 
> > that we have more info on  DD than Snape but we still dont know 
all 
> > that much abot his character
> >
> 
> Hickengruendler:
> 
> I'm not 100% sure what exactly you mean. I assume you mean the 
> opinions, that Dumbledore would never beg for his life or would 
never 
> ask someone else to kill him. These are the two points I'm 
answering, 
> I'm not sure if you mean some other scenes as well.
> 

Elyse: Actually I was directing that towards thwe question of 
whether Dumbledore would deliberately put Hogwarts students in 
danger if he trusted an ex Death Eater, but I was also talking about 
people saying that he would *never* ask someone to rip their soul if 
thats what the cost of killing really is.
I do agree one hundred percent that Dumbledore begging for his life 
or being afraid or unwilling to die would totally destroy the 
character JKR has set up. 
But this is because we have direct canon that justifies this belief, 
whether it ids DD taunting Voldemort about fearing death or the more 
concrete description of death as the "next great adventure" in PS/SS.

Hickengruendler:
>  In a 
> scene, by the way, in which he told Harry, that he destroyed the 
> Philosopher's Stone, therefore basically sacrificing his old 
friend 
> Nicholas Flamel (of course with Flamel's agreement) to make sure 
that 
> the stone will never get into Voldemort's hand. This does IMO seem 
to 
> imply, that Dumbledore is not totally against sacrificing a human 
life, 
> if it helps the greater good. 

Elyse: I snipped a lot of your post because I agreed with it 
completely. But I kept this part because I think it supports the 
argument that Dumbledore thinks a human life expendable if it is 
really really important for the wizarding or muggle worlds,or as you 
put it - the Greater Good.
But some fans dont agree with this, and the claim that Dumbledore 
*would never* ask himself or herself to rip their soul if it was the 
one thing that would keep the Chosen One alive and/or help the 
future of the wizarding and Muggle world.
This assumption is what I was challenging, because it requires a 
much deeper insight into how Dumbledore would view the situation.
An insight that we are not given; and any attempt to fill that blank 
will remain presumption and speculation. We should be wary of 
imposing traits on a character to justify them.

Hickengruendler:

> On the other hand, many who think Snape is ESE or OFH, think it 
would 
> be more OOC for him to ask someone else to kill him. Considering 
that 
> we learnt, that a murder splits the soul, it is understandable 
that 
> some readers think Dumbledore would never ask for this, since 
his "next 
> great adventure" speech implies that he believes in the afterlife, 
and 
> that people with a destroyed soul might not make that step to a 
better 
> place 

Elyse: We do not know for sure that every murder splits the soul and 
until this is proven beyond a doubt, I would not call this canon.
And if every murder does not split the soul, I dont see why 
Dumbledore would not ask this of Snape if it meant saving the life 
the Chosen One destined to defeat Voldemort.

Elyse, who was only trying to explain her intentions to begin with 
in this post and somehow ended up making an argument for 
Dumbledore's sacrifice on the tower.