[HPforGrownups] Re: Cruel, Mean, and Nasty/Follow the Owls: Hedwig/JKR's comments

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 158848

 Ken:
>
> I don't see DD as completely good and no matter what she said I doubt
> that JKR meant that she sees him that way either. I do side with a
> Lincon biographer who said that while it is possible to study Lincoln
> by concentrating on his failings, to do so is to miss the real
> Lincoln. I see the concentration on DD's failings here as doing
> exactly that.

Magpie:
But why?  This thread isn't about judging Dumbledore as a whole, it's people 
looking at a couple of very specific moments in canon and thinking about the 
implications of what happened, and considering the options.  I don't see how 
that is studying Dumbledore just by looking at his failings since it's not a 
study of Dumbledore as a whole.

Ken:
> Like another here said I cannot give much importance to the way he
> treats the Dursleys because they are cardboard cutout cartoon
> characters. They are there primarily for comic relief. They are there
> to lampoon middle class, suburban Britian and by extension the rest of
> us middle class suburbanites. If you insist on seeing the Dursleys as
> more than that you have to come to terms with the fact that these are
> extremely difficult people. They are exaggerated beyond belief,
> really.

Magpie:
I guess we've left off talking about Lincoln because he only dealt with real 
people.:-)  But I agree the Dursleys are often exaggerated.  As I think I 
said before I can completely deal with them that way--the only reason I kept 
arguing in the thread was not that I thought the Dursleys were realistic 
awful people.  It was because the Dursleys were being described as either 
one more positive decision of Dumbledore's or something that didn't count at 
all as part of canon.

I think they do count.  Dahl-esque they may be, but that's they can't just 
be surgically removed from the story.  I can accept them as a bad side 
effect to Dumbledore's Muggleworld/blood protection plan that Harry can deal 
with.  But I see no point in arguing them into a good thing or a 
didn't-happen thing in order to make them reflect better on Dumbledore. The 
author wrote the hero living with these cartoon bad guys that appear in 
every book.  I'm going to try to make it work into a coherent whole somehow.

Ken:
> If you want to judge DD on his interactions with Muggles I think a
> better scene to examine is the one in the orphanage with the
> headmistress. DD does not come off as perfect there either but that is
> at least a normal interaction with a believable, if minor, character.

Magpie:
So don't look at his decision to place Harry with the Dursleys and his 
disinterest afterwards, but judge him on the orphanage lady he mind zaps and 
gets drunk because she's got half a clue. I'm seeing some more possible 
flaws here.  I think we should look at both and let peoples' chips fall 
where they may on how they react to him.

-m