[HPforGrownups] Re: In defense of DD WAS musings on Dumbledore - Even Longer

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 158700

> Julie:
> I don't quite understand why Dumbledore can't be "the epitome of
> goodness" *and* a man who makes mistakes.

Magpie:
He can--depending on the mistake.  Some mistakes can be incompatible with 
epitome of goodness.  What he can't be is a man who makes mistakes and a man 
whose every mistake isn't really a mistake.  Honestly, the reason I keep 
getting sucked into the argument isn't because I have a problem with 
Dumbledore making a mistake.  It's because his mistakes are being described 
as either really good things, or else they're not his mistakes because he 
had no responsibility for them.  It's like it's okay to say "he makes 
mistakes!" in a way that's complimentary and sympathetic and makes him 
"human," but they can't be spoken about as serious mistakes with 
consequences.  Or he can make mistakes, but only ones that reflect well on 
him and support his rep as EoO, like the mistake of giving people second 
chances or expecting the best of them.  For instance, you say that maybe 
sometimes he can be capable of arrogance but every suggestion that he's 
being arrogant has been countered somewhere with the claim he wasn't being 
arrogant, he was just doing what he had to do.

Dumbledore seems to let himself off pretty easily, which may be a reason 
people are more willing to pick up the slack.  I don't think people--at 
least I don't--consider Dumbledore to be the person who put Sirius in jail 
any more than he's the one abusing Harry rather than Vernon.  But I think 
it's valid to look at this kind of inaction as a part of his character. 
Sirius was a member of Dumbledore's Order, Harry's godfather, an important 
part of the family in the Prophecy, yet when he's in trouble he becomes, by
your own description, nobody.  Just some random student he doesn't know or 
have any responsibility to--so again, it's not really his mistake.

It's very important to the plot that Dumbledore have no interest in Sirius 
because the slightest effort on his part to find out what happened would 
have cleared everything up. JKR created a believable situation to make this 
possible with Barty Crouch and Dumbledore's honest testimony about the 
Secret Keeper.  But given the DD that we've seen, the guy happy to explain 
everyone's actions to us, it still requires him to suddenly become amazingly
uninterested in what went down in a situation very important to him.  It's 
like if it were Ron going to jail under the same circumstances after Harry's
death.  It's not enough that Dumbledore can't get Sirius out of jail.  He 
has to be ready to convict him on circumstantial evidence like everyone 
else.

-m