[HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP /some Star Wars.

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 151115

> Alla:
> But I wonder, I am not sure if Cinderella's godmother could be
> analogised with DD at all. I mean she did not put Cinderella there
> in the first place, right?
>
> I mean, I see where Dumbledore wavers from those stories where as
> you said Hero is raised on the farm, etc. These mentors are indeed
> easier to grasp, because they truly hide the hero for his own good,
> but as I said for all  the talk about Cinderella, I realised while
> typing that post that I don't see any a-la Dumbledore "types" in
> there.

Magpie:
You're absolutely right, I think--that's where I think the problem is. 
Because in this world Dumbledore is "waiting" for Harry in the magical place 
when he leaves the house with the evil stepfamily.  As the head of Hogwarts 
he sort of seems like the guy that's making stuff happen--he gives Harry the 
invisibility cloak and Harry identifies him as the wise old protector. 
Only, like you said, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella's story has nothing 
to do with her abuse.  In fact, she's sometimes the spirit of the tree that 
has grown on Cinderella's mother's grave, watered by her tears.  She isn't a 
social worker who placed Cinderella with her stepmother and stepsisters and 
is just taking her out for a visit!

That, I think, is where Puppetmaster!Dumbledore is born, because he seems to 
want to have it both ways.  He engineers the very situation that makes him 
seem like such a great savior when he arrives.  In OotP he seems to identify 
his real mistake as loving Harry too much, which is why he didn't want to 
tell him the prophecy...yet the guy who's flaw is loving Harry too much is 
still, like it or not, the same guy basically overseeing his first 11 years 
at the Dursleys.  The Fairy Godmother doesn't work that way.

Obi-Wan is a good analogy in some ways because there's similarities there 
but they're really very different.  Obi-Wan isn't even the greatest Jedi in 
his world.  He's made mistakes, has people wiser than he is, was tied up 
with Vader when he was even younger.  He really never comes across as 
all-knowing as Dumbledore does and Luke's home is much more like the other 
kind of story.  It's only flaw is that it's too boring, too far away from 
the action--which was always the idea.  Cinderella sort of finds herself in 
her position, she's not placed there by a specific person.  (Maybe you could 
blame her father, but he's dead or gone in some way.)

-m