The Fundamental Message of the HP books?

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 175746

JudySerenity:
> I'm not sure if the story got away from JKR, or if it just was 
> never the story that I thought it was.  Dumbledore in particular 
> bothered me in DH, as I noted by contrasting his speech in GoF with
> his actual behavior when a Death Eater wanted to return. Dumbledore 
> always seemed to me to be the moral center of the book, and if he 
> wasn't what I expected, that the whole series wasn't what I 
> expected, either. 
> 
> I guess it's ironic that I feel like we didn't "know" Dumbledore 
> until after he was dead!  If JKR had never told us anything more 
> about the character after his death, I think many people would view 
> the end of the series very differently.


Jen:  This was exactly my experience, Judy, at least my first read-
through.  I felt like the moral rules system I'd created in my head 
for Potterverse depended on Dumbledore at the center and if he wasn't 
who he appeared to be, then everything collapsed.  

After a second reading and cutting Dumbledore back down to human size 
from the almost Aslan-like creation I'd made of him in my head - the 
noble heir of Gryffindor, the tireless fighter of evil, the word of 
Truth, sacrificing himself for the WW - once again his words seem 
congruent with the ideals he holds, even after the discovery he 
struggles with temptation and hubris.  

Maybe his words hold even *more* weight because of those struggles, 
because he's not just giving lip service to the idea of choosing 
right over easy, he's actually had the experience of choosing easy 
and seeing the destruction such a choice wrought; he's every parent 
who urges a child to reconsider a choice to take some action because 
the parent still holds his/her own memory of pain and suffering when 
making the same choice once upon a time.  Re: Snape, he's not playing 
the role of the kind, forgiving parent who keeps offering second-
chances and boosting with praise but the critical, demanding parent 
whose seen the fall and demands right action to earn trust and 
forgiveness.  

In an almost Aristotelian way, Dumbledore believes a person is the 
sum of his/her choices and he urges Harry and the WW to consider the 
choices they make when faced with moments that can set a person down 
one path or another.  Even when succumbing to the temptation of the 
ring, Dumbledore was able to turn his moment of temptation into a 
right action by offering Draco the hope of a second-chance (which 
helped cement Draco's return as one without true loyalty, thus 
helping Harry on at least two occasions), and Dumbledore ensuring 
there were those he left behind with enough information needed to 
carry on the fight.  (I found it interesting Harry, like DD, didn't 
exaplain 'everything' to Neville when telling him about the snake.  I 
understood better why on some occasions DD made that same choice.)

What DD said in book 1 is one message the series delivers as 
far as I can tell: "...it will merely take someone else who is 
prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time - and if he is 
delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power."*  
People who fight against evil and desctruction might not live to see 
the fruits of their labor but whatever choices they've made live on 
in others who take up the cause.

Jen

* SS, chap. 17, p. 298, Am. ed.