Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.)

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 151176

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > I think there a couple of different reasons why this speech     
> > didn't bother me.  One is that of *course* Dumbledore was a bit 
> > crazy in this scene.
> > <snip>
> > He's exhausted and grieving and trying very hard to give Harry   
> > as much comfort as he can while at the same time keep Harry from 
> > descending into toxic rage. (Hence his admittedly bizarre segue 
> > into House elf rights when Kreacher is brought up.)

> >>Magpie:
> I think to me he sounds all too in control--he manages to come out 
> sympathetic and smelling like a rose while other peoples' problems 
> are flaws or not that important.

Betsy Hp:
Ah, but see it's the control -- the iron control, the multi-times 
mentioned calm -- that tells me Dumbledore is operating on fumes 
here.  Especially with the little moments JKR throws in.  The stiff 
denial of Sirius's death by Phineas; the sunlight cutting into 
Dumbledore's skin, making him look old; his pedantic way of speaking 
(even for him); the moment where he drops his head into his hands; 
and finally the tear.

It's incredibly British.  Possibly old-fashioned, but very, very, 
typical of the type of man Dumbledore is supposed to be.  I'm 
reading "The Charioteer" by Mary Renault, which takes place in 
England during WWII.   There's a scene where the protagonist, 
Laurie, recalls lying on the beach at Dunkirk, his leg shattered.  
Next to him was a man, Reg, whose arm was also shattered, and whose 
eyes were swelled shut by the blast that got his arm.  Reg, afraid 
of being blind, completely looses it and starts screaming for 
someone to shoot him.  Laurie forced his eyes open, and Reg calmed 
down.  A good year or so later, despite all the enforced time 
they've spent together in the hospital, they're both incredibly 
embarrassed about the whole thing.  It's something they purposefully 
avoid talking about, because of how emotional Reg was at the time.

My family is Canadian and they tend to "out British the British" (as 
good colonialists do <g>).  My grandmother wept once when my 
grandfather died.  And her tears shocked me.  That sort of expressed 
emotion just wasn't done.

I suppose it's a bit of a cop-out to claim cultural differences and 
move on.  I guess a case could be made that by rooting Dumbledore so 
firmly into a certain aspect of the British culture JKR failed as a 
writer.  But it's one reason I do see Dumbledore as fully admitting 
his failures, not shunting blame or setting himself up as less 
flawed than anyone else.

> >>Magpie:
> <major snip>
> But I'd say obviously we're supposed to take Harry's line of       
> reasoning here and get that Dumbledore knew what was going on and 
> let Harry have his chance, and this is a good thing, not a        
> terrible thing as Hermione thinks. 
> And it works because in PS, imo, Dumbledore is still in wise man   
> mode.  He *isn't* risking a child's life recklessly because Harry 
> is the hero of a young adventure story and we can trust           
> Dumbledore's watching over the whole thing. That's why Harry's    
> thoughtful while Hermione is exploding and cut off.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I do agree with what you're saying.  It's just, I refuse to do it.  
Because if Harry *is* right, if Dumbledore *did* let him enter a 
gauntlet where Ron is struck so hard *on the head* he's knocked 
unconscious, and that leaves Harry in a coma for three days... Well, 
we've got a madman on our hands don't we?

Since Dumbledore claims in this OotP speech that he tried to *keep* 
Harry from facing Voldemort, I feel like I can keep on thinking that 
the end of PS/SS was very nearly a massive disaster that scared the 
crap out of Dumbledore at the time.

I very well could be willfully ignoring the author's intentions 
(trained myself to do that with the X-Files <g>) but until JKR makes 
it an impossibility, I'll continue to interpert Dumbledore in a 
manner that makes him palatable to me.

Though...  I do suspect that JKR set up the fairytale motif 
specifically to shoot it down.  The Dursleys are a good example, I 
think.  At first they do seem rather Dahl-esque, and yet...  They 
were never quite cruel enough to me.  James (from the Giant Peach) 
would have thought them quite warm and fuzzy compared to his aunts.  
In a similar manner, the all-powerful wiseman turns out to be not 
all that powerful, and quite capable of making mistakes.

In PS/SS Harry thinks of himself as being in a fairytale.  With 
unicorns and magical mirrors and invisibility cloaks, who can blame 
him?  But unlike a fairytale, evil isn't vanquished.  Not even by 
the great wiseman.  And neither is the evil surrogate family.  The 
hero will have to deal with them again and again and again, until he 
finally grows beyond them.

> >>Magpie:
> <snip>
> PS/SS was a different style.  It also might have been the only     
> book in the series.  If it had been I think it would generally be 
> seen as Cinderella/wise man-ish.  It's Harry's words that, imo,    
> would be taken as a clue to us readers what Dumbledore was about.

Betsy Hp:
I agree.  But since it's not the only book, and since the WW is not 
a fairytale place I think it is possible to look at PS/SS in a non-
fairytale way.  It's like, I never accepted that Slytherin meant 
evil.  Even though it seemed to be the clear message, and in a 
fairytale or Roald Dahl book those children *would* have been evil.

I read PS/SS through GoF over the course of about a week for my very 
first introduction to the Potterverse.  So I started out knowing 
PS/SS was just the beginning and quickly entered into the changing 
tone.  I think that helped shape my thinking on PS/SS.  For better 
or for worse I just didn't have time for the fairytale motif to get 
fixed in my mind. 

Betsy Hp, up past her bedtime and hoping this make a bit of sense <g>