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

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 151310

> Pippin:
It
> could be that he assumed Harry would be angry with Sirius as
> well  when he'd learned what  had happened. He may have thought
> that he needed to let Harry see that this was okay, that he could
> acknowledge this anger without guilt and without meaning that
> Sirius deserved to die....
> He was not making a clumsy attempt to comfort Harry by saying
> all those seemingly insensitive things, he was trying to provoke
> Harry to put his anger out where he and Dumbledore could deal with
> it.  ...Dumbledore must have already
> been aware that Harry could turn out to be Kreacher's next master. If
> so, who would have had the  authority to protect Kreacher if
> Harry had decided to kill him? No one, I guess. Probably no one but
> Dumbledore would even have cared.

Magpie:
I have to say, these explanations for DD's words remind me of nothing more 
than the explanations of how Snape picks on Neville and Harry to make them 
strong for their own good, and he's only really thinking of his duty and 
what's best for them.  I don't buy it.  I prefer Dumbledore just being an 
ass.  (But then, I don't think it's a big change in HBP either--he seems 
like the same guy there to me too.)

I think both Dumbledore, like Snape, is showing his human weakness--but real 
weakness.  Not being a little too tired to avoid a few faux pas as he makes 
all the best decisions for Harry and tries to protect everyone, but 
something a lot less flattering.  Maybe it's the author who's doing that by 
putting these lines in DD's mouth and not thinking they sound the way I do, 
but in the end DD sounds very believable to me as he is--someone out of 
touch with many things about human nature (perhaps a lot more like Merriman 
in the Dark is Rising than Will.  Will lacks experience, being only a boy, 
but he is the one who is "too close" too humans to think like an Old One). 
JKR says Dumbledore doesn't have any confidantes etc., and to me the way he 
comes across in this scene fits perfectly with seeing himself as the 
smartest guy in the universe for so long.  It points out, imo, not just a 
flaw in Dumbledore but the flaw in the classic fantasy "wise man" 
(especially a wise man in a corrupt world) idea.

-m