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

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 151262

> >>Lupinlore:
> Which, of course, brings up a problem that many of us have with    
> OOTP, which is that THAT (i.e. the way Harry's grief and          
> relationship with DD is handled) just is not in any way            
> believable.  Sorry, but it just  smacks of JKR sweeping all of the 
> issues of OOTP under the rug because they are too messy to deal    
> with properly.  And perhaps that is where the transition issues    
> come in.  For those of us who find the transition jarring, it     
> means, sort of de facto, that we think that either the situation   
> at the end of OOTP doesn't match HBP (Alla's position) or that HBP 
> doesn't match the situation at the end of OOTP (my take).  Whether 
> you look at it from one direction or another, for many of us it   
> just doesn't work and isn't believable (i.e. JKR is trying very   
> hard to sell a certain point of view, and whether at the end of   
> OOTP or the beginning of HBP, we aren't buying).

Betsy Hp:
I understand your opinion.  I just disagree with it.  Harry's rage 
was *very* believable to me.  Dumbledore's exhaustion was just as 
believable.  I've not actually read any polls, so I've no idea how 
the fans break down on this particular issue, but the author didn't 
intrude in this scene for me.

Actually, for the standard, "Dumbledore explains it all (tm)" scene, 
JKR was absent for me in this one in a way she hadn't been before.  
But then, OotP is really the book that I feel best introduces the 
more human Dumbledore to us, so it makes sense that he gets to have 
his most emotional scene, his most human scene, now.

Honestly, I really didn't get any sense of a "certain point of view" 
being foisted on us by JKR.  I didn't get the impression that Harry 
or Dumbledore were stepping in as her voice box, and I didn't get 
the impression that some great moral point was being forced down my 
throat.  Sirius died.  And Dumbledore and Harry are both having to 
deal with that horrible, inescapable fact.  Death generally doesn't 
come with a moral attached.  JKR was good enough, in my opinion, to 
recognize that.

Eh, maybe it's like the difference between Ron and Hermione (can't 
recall the book).  Hermione felt that Harry needed to sit around and 
talk about his grief (or problem, whatever it was); Ron realized 
that a bit of action (flying) was more to Harry's taste.  Harry 
talked it all out with Dumbledore at the end of OotP.  Now he's up 
for a bit of action.  It would have surprised me if he'd been eager 
for more emoting, and it would have surprised me if Dumbledore had 
encouraged it.

> >>Lupinlore:
> <snip>
> It has been suggested that she may have been trying to echo       
> certain cultural tropes having to do with British stereotypes, but 
> if that is the case those echoes certainly fell on deaf ears as    
> far as many of us are concerned -- and I do think that is an      
> example of poor writing, falling in the category of being too     
> clever for your own good.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Well, if you're not familiar with British culture, then yeah, I 
guess it can seem a bit foreign.  But a British writer writing her 
British characters as acting in a British manner doesn't strike me 
as being "too clever for [her] own good".  It strikes me as JKR 
writing what she knows.  Which is what writers are supposed to do.

But this does raise a question for me, especially for those who 
disliked the scene: Did Dumbledore seem out of character here?

Betsy Hp