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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 151201

> Pippin:
> <SNIP>
 Harry has  indeed  suffered  from lack of love, but it has never mattered to 
him that [Petunia] didn't love him.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> How do we know that? Harry IS distressed when he says it, so whether 
> it is a diversion or not, which again I am not sure how you made 
> such conclusion, I would say it was Dumbledore's obligation ( if he 
> indeed loves Harry as much as he claims) to listen to him. IMO of 
> course.

Pippin:
Who'd want Petunia in love with them? <g> Honestly, the one thing
canon is utterly candid about is Harry's feelings. Dumbledore saw him
look into the Mirror of Erised and see the family he's never known, 
not Petunia having a change of heart. When Fudge says the Dursleys
love him deep down (PoA) Harry only thinks that there isn't time to 
correct him, not that he wishes it were true. I really think it's part 
of the saving grace of the situation at the Dursleys that Harry never 
breaks his heart over them. And if he did, we'd know it. Really, we 
would.

Dumbledore has told Harry that there are things that he must say,
Harry doesn't want to hear them, and is throwing up a smoke screen.


> 
> 
> Pippin:
> > As for DD's apparent digression into Elf rights,  IMO, it's vital 
> that Harry  understand that Voldemort's non-human allies see 
him as the lesser evil, though Iike much else he was told in that 
interview, Harry does not yet fully understand this.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Oh, don't get me started. Please, please, Pippin it is by no means 
> directed at you, you know I really like you and respect you, but 
> every time I remember Dumbledore's "let's blame the dead man" act 
> (IMO of course), I just get so angry. So, it is directed at 
> Dumbledore. :)
>  I know, it is emotional reaction again, which I never make a secret 
> of ( yep, yep am emotionally attached to many characters in 
> Potterverse, guilty as charged :)), but I found DD conduct in this 
> part of his speech to be not just self serving, but so very 
> despicable.
> 

Pippin:
See, this is where I don't get you. Intellectually we seem to be on the
same page. We want Dumbledore not to be a puppetmaster, we want
him to treat Harry as an adult, and we agree that he was wrong to
keep back vital information in order to spare Harry's feelings. Right?

But your emotional reaction to the speech seems to be coming from
a different place altogether. Pardon me if I misrepresent your thoughts,
it seems like you want Dumbledore to say  that Sirius is dead because 
Puppetmaster!DD got his strings tangled, you want him to let Harry 
childishly idealize his godfather  instead of helping him understand  
that other adults are just as  fallible as Harry is, and you want him 
to whitewash Sirius's treatment of Kreacher in order to spare Harry's 
feelings.

Honestly, you know I respect you too, Alla, and I find it hard to 
understand how anyone can be so sympathetic to Harry's situation
at the Dursleys and not see that Kreacher was made to suffer
in just the same ways. Think about it: cupboard bed, scabby clothes,
expected to do all the chores, has to hear his dead loved ones
insulted and villified, expected to do as he's told and otherwise
to pretend he's not there, not allowed any possession that might
bring him the slightest comfort or pleasure -- really the Dursleys 
could not treat Harry more like a House Elf if they tried. 

Sirius was a great man in many ways, but I just can't sit here and
type that he did nothing to provoke Kreacher's hatred of him, and
I would be horrified if Dumbledore refused to recognize it. 

It doesn't matter to me that Kreacher was old and ugly and
politically incorrect -- because that is the fate that awaits every one
of us if we live long enough. Every reactionary idea was pc
when it was young. 

Meanwhile, as long as Harry thinks that Sirius was blameless, he
is setting an impossible standard for his own behavior and placing
an incredible burden of guilt on himself for not being able to live up
to it. He has to be able to see that Sirius played some part in the
events that led to his death in order to be able to accept that he, 
Harry, did also. 

Dumbledore wants Harry to see that Kreacher's degree of responsibility 
is less than Harry is making it, both because he was provoked and 
because he was a slave -- he would have had to obey Narcissa whether
he wanted to or not. Having enough  impartiality to look beyond his
anger at Kreacher and think about what made him make
the choices he did is part of becoming the leader that Harry wants to be.

I think Dumbledore took responsibility as humbly as he could by not
taking it all, not claiming to be a puppetmaster who should have been
able to make  people do whatever he wanted them to do, and I think 
the tear was symbolic of many others he must have shed over wrongs 
he could not right.

But old school Brits won't  sit there and blub, and it's not  everyone's
culture to apologize for things that aren't your responsibility just to show 
that you care either.

Alla:
> I truly think that Magpie nailed it. JKR was just trying to put in 
> DD speech as much information as possible - how we supposed to look 
> at Kreacher's conduct, Sirius attitudes to Kreacher, etc, so to 
> speak exposition at the end, but in my book there could not have 
> been a worse place to put it in.

Pippin:
I agree that JKR needed to put the information there, but she did
give Dumbledore a reason to do it. He had just survived Voldemort's
attempt to kill him. Repeat after me, "No one ever lived after he
decided ter kill 'em " -- what part of that do you think Dumbledore
doesn't understand? He's got a year to live at most, if the past is
any guide, and he knows it just as surely as if he could peek into
JKR's hard drive.  He's got to tell Harry everything he knows, as 
much as he knows, as soon as he can. The time is now. Period. 

Pippin