In defense of DD WAS musings on Dumbledore - Even Longer

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 158689

 
> Tonks:
 
> As to all of this DD bashing: I truly do not understand; no matter 
> how much I try, how anyone can blame DD for the situation at the 
> Dursleys, and go on it hate the man for the actions of Vernon.  
That 
> is not the way JKR means to portray DD, by her own words. It is not 
> the way that I see DD. DD is a kind, loving and very capable man to 
> me. He made the only decision that could keep Harry alive. He does 
> not interfere with others moral development and choices. The 
> situation at the Dursleys cannot be compared to RL in the year 2006.

Hickengruendler:

Not stepping in, when somebody is harmed, can be seen as bad 
a "choice", as directly harming someone. Sorry, but I must admit, I 
have a big problem seeing your point. Of course Dumbledore is not to 
blame for Vernon or Petunia's choices. They have made their mistakes 
(to put it mildly) and are fully reponsible for them. But the image I 
have of Dumbledore now is him sitting in the Headmaster's office, 
reading an Owl from Mrs Figg about Harry's situation, and 
murmuring: "How regrettable", while throwing the letter away and 
listening to Chamber Music. 

I do not know, if you have ever seen Agatha Christie's famous 
play "The Mousetrap", because I am somewhat rememinded of it now. 


== Spoilers for the plot of the Mousetrap are following ==

The play takes place a few years after the Second World War. The 
murderer was one of three children, whose father disappeared during 
the war and whose mother died. The children were given to a foster 
family, where they were abused until one of them died. The foster 
parents were imprisoned, and the father died in jail. The two 
surviving children, one male and one female, were adopted by 
different families and lost sight and contact of each other. At the 
beginning of the play (and the short story), the abusive foster 
mother was just released from prison and then murdered. The police 
suspected the boy, now a young man, who was mentally instable because 
of the abuse he suffered and deserted without a trace while doing 
army service, to have come back and took revenge on the woman, 
(though to keep suspicion on every character, Christie also hinted at 
the possibility, that the girl or the vanished father of the children 
commited the revenge crime). Anyway, the second victim was Mrs Boyle, 
who turned out to be the judge, who gave the children to the foster 
parents. In a scene shortly before her death, she put all the blame 
to what happened away from her, saying that the farmers, to which 
they gave the children, seemed like nice people and that it seemed to 
be a nice environment generally. The other characters (and also 
Christie through the authorial voice in the short story on which the 
play was based) were unsympathetic to her, though, because they 
argued that she gave the children to them and that at least at one 
point someone needed to have looked, if they really had it well. Of 
course Mrs Boyle was quite different from Dumbledore, in that she was 
harsh and intollerant and generally did not accept other people's 
flaws and failures, while herself having made such a glaring 
oversight, so this also played a part, why she was disliked by the 
others. On the other hand, and in Mrs Boyle's defense, she was living 
in a wartime and was very busy, Dumbledore only had to look after 
this one child, not after several, who were placed in several foster 
families.

== End of Spoilers ==
 
Hickengruendler