Dumbledore's Love

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 147779

John:
> And wondering about the life of Dumbledore has led me to another 
> question of his character: How does Dumbledore know what love is? 
JK 
> has already told us that he was burdened with always being the one 
> with the answers. He never had an equal. He was forced to sit on 
his 
> mountaintop of knowledge and help others ascend its cliffs. From 
> this, I would argue that Dumbledore never knew true love because 
to 
> have true love he would have had to find his equal. I know there 
are 
> many different types of love, and he could certainly feel the love 
> of a king over his subjects, but could he ever know the love that 
> wills one to bind oneself to another for life? I would opine he 
did 
> not because he never found an equal worth binding oneself to 
unless 
> it was Fawkes (which would just lead to the absurd subject of 
> animal/wizard marriages). And if his idea of love did not include 
> the love a man for a woman could his whole idea of love be 
lacking, 
> thus making his pronouncement hallow? Meaning Harry's greatest 
power 
> would come up wanting in the final confrontation with Voldemort 
> because Dumbledore misunderstood love.
>  
> John (who hopes for a series written about Dumbledore)

a_svirn:
Somehow I don't believe that Dumbledore has spent all his century 
and a half in the Ivory Tower. Strange as it may seem, he used to be 
a child once, he must have had a family at some point, his friends 
numbered such personages as Nicholas Flamel (surely, his equal at 
the very least) etc. It is possible, even probable that, say, a 
century or so ago he did know a true love (although it didn't have 
to be a woman, necessarily). 

As for his bond with Fawkes I don't think we should interpret it 
literally as an animal/wizard marriage, yet I am sure that it has 
something to do with love in general and Dumbledore's notions of 
love in particular. Take the White Tomb and Phoenix Lament – both 
chapters together are a sort of paraphrase of Shakespeare's "the 
Phoenix and the Turtle". The lament itself, the manner of 
Dumbledore's funeral: the manner in which every wizarding races were 
gathered, and the sudden incineration of his body – plus the shadow 
of the phoenix soaring from the flames. All of the above is an 
allusion to the poem ("Love and constancy is dead;//Phoenix and the 
turtle fled//
In a mutual flame from hence"). Also Dumbledore's phrase about 
Voldemort's bond with his snake – "in essence divided" is a reverse 
quote from the poem: "Had the essence but in one;//Two distincts, 
division none".  Which sort of suggests that unlike Voldemorte's 
bond with Nigini, Dumbledore and Fawkes were indeed "Two distincts, 
division none". 

I do not suggest the bond was indeed "married chastity", but I think 
it's a given that it had something to do with "love and constancy". 
Shakespearian dove and phoenix upset the laws of nature because 
their love is so great that they become a single being, achieving 
the ultimate union in death. And Dumbledore told Harry in POA that 
the dead we`ve loved continue to live within us or something to this 
effect. The connection of love and death is clearly very important 
to Dumbledore (I do believe that there was a kind of personal 
tragedy behind all this). Maybe that's what makes Harry's ability to 
love so unusual? That he is able to give his parents a kind of 
immortality – through his love – even though he never actually knew 
them