Depth? Things to take on their face value (Was: Sirius' loyalty)

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 139813

Jen: 
 
> But it would negate Dumbledore's life work, in a sense. He trusted 
> someone he shouldn't have, allowed him into Hogwarts & the Order, 
> and it led to death and destruction of many of the things he holds 
> dear. 

houyhnhnm:

I don't have to wait two years for book 7.  I already know what the
Daily Prophet is going to say.

Dumbledore was a great wizard once, but he was in his dotage (an
"obsolete dingbat" if Rita Skeeter writes the article).  He always did
have eccentric ideas.  He let werewolves attend Hogwarts.  He even
hired them as teachers, along with half-giants and ex-Death Eaters,
and look where it got him.  Maybe it's time to return to traditional
values.

I take Dumbledore's confession of his "mistakes" as just another
expression of his whimsical, self-deprecating style, a facade behind
which exists a supremely powerful and self-confident wizard.

Like maddmorgan in another thread(Message 139779), I question whether
Dumbledore really has made mistakes.  He has had some hard choices to
make and things haven't always turned out as he would have wished, but
is that the same thing as making mistakes?

Yes, Harry had a miserable 9 3/4 years with the Dursleys, but has it
damaged him beyond repair?  Dumbledore doesn't seem to think so. 
Would Harry really have been better off as the pampered little prince
in a wizarding foster family?  Or in danger from the Lestranges or
other DEs after his parents were killed or from Voldemort himself
every summer after his regeneration?

If Sirius had been allowed his freedom, might he not have died all the
sooner, and in a way that compromised the Order?

The reason that it is courageous to make choices rather than to wait
passively to be overtaken by fate is that one doesn't have control
over the outcome.  Dumbledore frequently had to choose between two
problematic options and, it seems to me, for the most he chose wisely.