Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP - DD's Perspecitve

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 151380

Magpie:
> But yes, Dumbledore is certainly doing what you're saying, ushering 
> Harry's mind the way he needs it to go--and the reader's mind too.  
> I think everyone recognizes that this is, in fact, an exposition 
> scene telling *us* how to make sense of the events of the preceding 
> year.  But I think it's always going to be difficult for some people 
> to ignore what it unfortunately also is, which is somebody dealing 
> with someone who's just lost a family member by imposing his 
> perspective on events when many people are going to instinctually 
> say a grieving person should be given space to feel his own feelings 
> for a while.  Many people would say they don't want perspective in 
> that moment and hate it when people give it to them, especially if 
> they don't agree with that perspective ("He's in a better place," 
> for instance or "Jesus wanted her to be with him now" have upset 
> plenty of grieving people, though the people saying it feel they're 
> giving a comforting perspective.) 


Pippin:
I agree that Dumbledore was trying to give Harry perspective, but not
a comforting one.  One of the things that Harry lost with Sirius was 
someone who would make Harry's happiness his first priority, right 
or wrong. Dumbledore, unfortunately for Harry's peace of mind, 
was trying to fulfill the  commitment he made long ago that when 
the time came, Harry would learn what he needed to know.

Harry did hate it. It points up the poignancy of the situation that
Sirius is not there, as he was in GoF, to ask if this couldn't wait till
a better time. But I think Dumbledore would have answered the same
way he did then, that Harry needed to understand what had happened
and that the pain would only be greater if was postponed.

It is, of course, convenient for JKR's plotline that she does not have
to give the reader the idea that  Dumbledore shared Harry's
idealized view of Sirius and then backtrack to correct it. Snape,  Petunia
and Kreacher are still part of the story, so the reader at the end of
OOP can be left to wonder how Harry and Dumbledore will deal with them
in the future. But Sirius is gone.

Pippin