Dumbledore's mistakes?

[ellecain]

No: HPFGUIDX 141995

> > Elyse earlier:
> 
> Oh I have to disagree with you here! I dont think Dumbledore 
> > would let his personal trust or belief in others interfere with 
> the 
> > safety of his students. I think this is more than evident from 
the 
> > scene in HBP:
> > Harry says something along the lines of :"You're leaving the 
> school 
> > tonight and I'll bet you havent even considered that Snape and 
> > Malfoy might decide to-"
> > And *this* is the point where DD becomes angry. Harry feels he 
has 
> > crossed an invisible line. And DD says:
> > "Please do not suggest that I do not take the safety of my 
> students 
> > seriously, Harry"
> > And hey, if he says that to his favourite boy, the Chosen One 
who 
> > he cares so much for, I say thats what he would have said to us 
> too.
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Erm... If I am still not clear enough, I think that what 
Dumbledore 
> said and what Dumbledore does are two different things sometimes, 
as 
> in that situation you quoted. He surely wishes to do the best job 
> he can, but IMO he is so not up to the task sometimes ( safety 
wise)
> Dumbledore THOUGHT he knew what Draco was up to, and he paid no 
> attention whatsoever to Harry's warnings. Result? Draco repairing 
> the cabinet and letting DE into school. Dumbledore WAS surprised 
by 
> Dark Mark, so I hope you are not arguing that he wanted DE to get 
> into Hogwarts, but the fact and the matter - they did.
> 
> This is a great example of major flaw ( sort of) I see in 
> Dumbledore - he is too wise for his own good. H
> 
Elyse: Oh, thanks for explaining. I finally get what you were trying 
to say! 
Well I agree you could argue that, but I think that would tarnish 
Dumbledore even worse than his behaviour towards Harry in OOP.   I 
would be terribly disappointed if Dumbledore wanted to keep his 
students safe but could not do so because of his own blindness when 
it came to people like Tom Riddle, Snape and Malfoy.  But I 
understand what you mean, and  I think it would be another instance 
of how Dumbledore is also capable of making mistakes. Maybe that is 
what JKR intended after all.

> 
> 
> Elyse: 
> > But how many people would have really accepted 
> > DD's claims that this nice quiet sweet intelligent boy was 
really 
> a 
> > psychopath? 
> > They would have said the same stuff the Snape haters have done 
for 
> > all this time, and simply thrown his hands into the air and 
> > gone "You know what, the old man is Wrong! He's getting old, and 
> in 
> > the matter of his prejudice towars that lovely boy, well his 
> > judgement is just a little biased thats all."
> > Thats is after all what Snape haters keep harping on. I'm sure 
it 
> > would have been the same if he declared to the teachers that 
> Riddle 
> > was evil.
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I do not follow you, sorry. What are you basing your assumption on 
> that if Dumbledore told the teachers that Tommie Riddle is a child 
> who needs to be watched after, a psychopath in making, they would 
> not listened to him.
> 
> As I said above - all teachers tolerated Snape ONLY because 
> Dumbledore said so, IMO and the only reason they thought that 
> Dumbledore was wrong, well, because Snape killed him.
> > I think it is a huge show of trust that they accepted Snape as 
> colleague based on Dumbledore's word only. Do you have canon 
showing 
> that teachers mistrusted Dumbledore for any reason? 
> Also, I am not sure what do you mean by "this is what Snape haters 
> keep harping on" > 
 
Elyse:  Well, youre right, I was basing the potential disregard 
for "Tom Riddle is a psychpath" warnings from Dumbledore on the 
treatment given to Snape all these years.  I do not believe that 
anybody really trusted him at all, and I think this was evident from 
their reactions after his death. 

Mcgonagall did say stuff like "We all wondered..." and someone said 
naturally people were going to wonder given Snape's history 
(fascination for Dark Arts etc) and then Lupin starts attacking 
Snape. This is quite understandable seeing as they were shocked by 
DD's death. But Lupin was the one who said at Christmastime that he 
trusted Snape because he trusted Dumbledore's judgement. But in the 
hospital wing, his reaction to the fact that Dumbledore was wrong 
about Snape didnt reinforce his earlier words. (BTW it poked a giant 
hole in his "I neither like nor dislike Severus" statement, which I 
never believed anyway)

The point is even if they accepted working with Snape and accepted 
Dumbledore's second hand trust, they still retained their original 
mistrust and suspicions.  I think this would have been the case with 
Tom Riddle.As Mrs Cole put it "It is hard to catch him at (being a 
bully)" . I think that even if they had kept an eye on Tom Riddle on 
Dumbledore's words, they would have thought he was prejudiced, and 
in any situation, would have tried to exonerate Tom Riddle of any 
wrongdoing because they would have fallen for Tom Riddle's ESG 
façade sooner or later. Of course, all this is pure speculation on 
my part, and I might be wrong. And as you speculate, maybe they 
would have thwarted Tom Riddle's ascension to evil, maybe they would 
have stopped him becoming the fearsome figure Lord Voldemort is 
today.  I personally don't buy the scenario quite so easily but we 
can put that down to difference of opinion.

 What I meant about the Snape haters was that although Dumbledore 
kept saying that he trusted Snape, everyone refused to believe that 
Snape had changed sides.  Harrys POV might be prejudiced , maybe 
Moody's  was as well. But both of them mistrusted Snape and did not 
believe that he had really changed sides. Harry repeatedly questions 
Dumbledore's trust in Snape and Moody looks skeptical in the 
pensieve when Dumbledore says that Snape is "now no more a Death 
Eater than I am". Ron is of coure ever ready to suspect Snape and 
his motives. And Sirius obviously never really trusted Snape. It 
seems that only Hermione, Mcgonagall, and Lupin were ready to accept 
the trust that Dumbledore had placed in him. Yet their reactions 
after DD's death sre not those of disbelief like Hagrid's. 
Mcgonagall tells us that they all "wondered" about Snape's so called 
shift of allegiance, and Lupin very readily gives us facts to base 
these suspicions on. From this I gather that there must have been 
heavy suspicion, speculation etc about Snape's motives among Order 
members like them , although this is me speculating again.

So my speculation tells me that nobody really bought into the  DDM!
Snape  theory. And those ESE Snapists  who still don't buy it, keep 
saying that Snape pulled the wool over DD's eyes because he liked to 
believe the best of people (which I am not disputing)  but Snape 
didn't fool  other people such as Harry and Moody because they were 
right about suspecting his motives. So what I am linking all this to 
is Dumbledore telling the teachers that Tom Riddle is a psychopath 
(or at least has dangerous tendencies). By looking at the Snape 
situation, and from those areas that my speculation led me to, I 
think that  they would not have bought Dumbledore *mistrust* of Tom 
Riddle, just as they didn't buy the trust the Dumbledore had in 
Snape completely.  And as Snape gave Moody and Harry enough reason 
for them to believe that he might be evil, I think Tom Riddle would 
have been able to make the teachers who had already been warned 
about him to disagree with Dumbledore's assessment of him. I think 
he would have been able to  deceive them completely so that as 
people questioned Dumbledore's trust in Snape, they might have 
questioned his mistrust of Tom Riddle. And if Tom Riddle was "hard 
to catch at (being a bully)" then lack of  concrete proof may have 
allowed him to gain the teachers' trust.
Once again this is almost all speculation, so I could be wrong. As 
you always  say this is
Just my opinion
Elyse