Draco and Dumbledore LONGish

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 160167

 
> Renee:
> Why do you think
> > that describing a choice between two evils (or maybe I should say, 
> two
> > bad things) is the same as suggesting the dichotomy good-evil does 
> not
> > exist? The fact that the choice is between evils, automatically 
> means
> > there *is* such a thing as evil, I'd say. <SNIP> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Just what I said previously - I think it is easy enough to loose 
> sight that the choice is between two evils that is all. Sorry, 
> struggling to explain it.
> But most importantly, it would be quite cool if that was indeed 
> true, Dumbledore knowing that he is choosing between two evils, but 
> I am **not** sure at all that JKR means to show Dumbledore as 
> choosing between two evils.

Renee:
Well. Let's see. 

On the one hand we have a large body of students, some of whom may
fall foul of another student's next amateurish attempt to murder his
headmaster, and who deserve to be protected. Measures taken to this
effect, culminating in a direct confrontation between the student and
his Head of House, may not be enough to do so (though it has been
argued that said confrontation had precisely this effect and it is
very well possible that Dumbledore honestly believes this to be the
case).  

On the other hand, we have 
1) a lack of hard evidence that will make legal action very unlikely,
which means that DD will have to resort to dubious means to restrain
the adspirant murderer. (Does the end hallow the means? Would making
DD acting out of character result in a better story?) 
2) a student whose soul is in peril but who certainly will not see the
light if he is forcefully restrained - any chance DD ever had to keep
him from the wrong path, will be lost.   
3) a possible new assassin may step in. Do you think Lucius Malfoy is
the only deat-eating father of a student who failed Voldemort at the
MoM? Identifying him/her will be a lot more difficult, assuming it's
not Crabbe or Goyle...         
4) if Draco is restrained, a very effective teacher and spy whom DD
believes to play an important role in the war against Voldemort will
either die, or feel forced to do Draco's job for him. He may even
succeed, as DD is weakened by his destruction of the Ring Horcrux.
Result: DD is dead, the students are in greater danger than they ever
were from Draco, Draco himself may be found and killed anyway, Harry
will not learn everything he needs to learn about the Horcruxes,
Voldemort may not be vanquished at all and countless people will suffer.

I can hardly blame Dumbledore for choosing the way he did, though I do
believe he never stopped blaming himself (obvious guilt-feelings in
the Cave). 

Alla:  
> I have a suspicion that JKR absolutely means to see Dumbledore's 
> choices in HBP as not choice between two evils, but choosing what is 
> right, you know?
> 
> And by showing that Draco will go to the right side and Snape will 
> do something heroic ( no, I am not giving up "bad" Snape, hehe, I am 
> just pretty convinced that even if he is OFH or Evil, he will do 
> something selfless for once at the end), JKR will try to convince us 
> that everything that Dumbledore did in HBP was right, danger to 
> students does not really matter, if it makes sense?
> 
> And that just does not sit with me well. :(

Renee:
It does not have to sit well. That's exactly the problem with choosing
between two evils. No choice is truly satisfactory. DD's problem is
that it is so damned difficult to know what is the right thing to
chose (= the lesser evil) in this case, not that he does know what's
right but prefers the easy way out. Of course the students matter
(isn't there a scene where he gets very angry when someone suggests
they don't - someone help me out, please?); he just decides that the
other concerns matter more. I don't see how this would make him a
moral failure.

  
> > Renee:
> > But can't you envisage a situation in which the only choice is 
> between
> > two evils (or undesirable things, or whatever you want to call it) 
> Of
> > course, if there is a third, better option, I'd expect the leader 
> to
> > choose that. But this isn't always the case. 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Sure, **sometimes** I can, but I also think that very ** often** 
> this reasoning is used to justify the abandoning the third option, 
> because third **right** option is indeed much harder to go with, you 
> know?
> 
> I have a feeling for example that executives of Elron had plenty of 
> justifications in their minds for doing what they did. Like maybe 
> they reasoned that their only choice would be to protect their 
> shareholders or to lose all their income or something like that?
> 
> Does not mean that third option did not exist IMO.

Renee:
If you believe there was a third option in HBP, I'm curious to know
what it was. And I really hope you're not comparing DD to the
executives of Enron, for that would mean JKR has failed spectacularly
to convey DD's moral stature and fundamentally benign intentions to you.

Not that I think she's done a perfect job here, but as far as I'm
concerned, she more or less succeeded to get her intentions across.  

Renee