Dumbledore does Lie-Part II, Snape Turned

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 159768

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sherry Gomes" wrote:
> Sherry:
> 
> In other words, are you saying that you think Dumbledore, Snape 
> and Abe, purposely, coldly and with definite malice aforethought, 
> set up an innocent family, a child?  If this scenario is true, it 
> makes Dumbledore into a monster equal to Voldemort.  The way I'm 
> reading what you're saying is that DD told Snape what to say to 
> Voldemort.  He couldn't possibly have thought this would not cause 
> Voldemort to go after children born as the seventh month dies.  I 
> don't think JKR could conceivably call Dumbledore the epitome
> of goodness and then try to have us swallow this scenario. <snip>
  
Mike:
I'll answer you with Dumbledore's own words:

"What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and 
creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and 
now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I 
would have such a person on my hands. (OotP p.839, US)

Now you might say, OK, Dumbledore might admit that, but only in 
deference to protecting Harry. I respond with the prior page:

"Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the 
trap I had forseen, that I told myself I could avoid, that I must 
avoid."
"I don't --"
"I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more 
for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace 
of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might 
be lost if the plan failed...."
(OotP p.838, US)

What trap was Dumbledore telling himself he could avoid, must 
avoid? !Caring about Harry! His plan did not include caring about 
Harry, that was the trap to avoid. He admits it! He had *planned* to 
be a cold-hearted ba***rd and to follow his *plan*. What more do you 
need? 

And JKR's "epitome of goodness" is a general guideline for how she 
wants Dumbledore to be perceived by her reading public. How many 
times does she have to give us a Harry-POV answer in her interviews  
before we believe that she isn't telling us anything that Harry 
doesn't know? IOW, it's a Harry-centric position that Dumbledore is 
the "epitome of goodness".


> Sherry cont:
> It would be Dumbledore's fault, that the Potters were murdered 
> and Harry orphaned.  No matter how much he may have done it for 
> the supposed greater good--how I hate that concept--it doesn't 
> lessen his culpability in the deaths.  
> It makes everyone involved into mind-boggling terrible people, 
> that they would risk a child's life for some idiotic plan to set 
> up Voldemort. <snip>

Mike again:
Yes, but he's already made his excuse, don't you know. Try this:

"The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so 
diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business 
indeed...Professor Trelawney, bless her, is living proof of that.."
(DD in PoA, p.426, US)

He even manages to get Trelawney mixed in there as a sort of 
foreshadowing that using her predictions to tell the future is just 
impossible to do. Prophesies are very ambiguous monsters, we may be 
expecting too much of Dumbledore to have figured out the exact 
outcome of releasing the prophesy part to Voldemort. Since 
Dumbledore admits to "never having studied the subject myself", he's 
covered, right? <eg>


> Sherry cont:
> I'd have to go looking for Lupinlore's mulching machine and hope 
> that cassettes and CD's would make fine mulch for his garden.

Mike:
I don't have any response, this just made me laugh, so I didn't want 
to cut it.

> Sherry cont:
> I do want to say however, that you really laid out a brilliant 
> theory, even if it is quite sinister!  Very impressive.

Mike: Thanks.