Philosophy of Dumbledore (was:Moody's death...)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 179672


> > Pippin: 

> > 
> > "Nobody has to be perfect."
> 
> a_svirn:
> Is that how you understand tolerance? Funny, I always thought it is 
> something else altogether. I thought it is about showing patience and 
> understanding towards different (!) customs, cultures, religions and 
> opinions. In short, something opposite to bigotry.

Pippin:
I don't disagree. 
But you're talking about the what, I'm talking about the why.

"What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed
of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - 
that is the first law of nature."--Voltaire 

A_svirn
And there is nothing in either DH per se, or in the epilogue that suggests 
that  this is the moral of the series. 

Pippin:
DH is the book in which we must either abandon Harry's and more
especially Dumbledore's characterization as a "good guy" or  else  
alter our perception of what it means to be good in ways that most 
of us would find unacceptable. I think most of us agree that torturing 
a criminal is not good, neither is slavery or treating people as 
puppets or your allies with disdain.  In a perfect world those 
things would not happen, and in a classic fantasy tale,  if the 
good guys engaged in them it would be to their everlasting regret. 

Most authors use the fantasy genre to make comments on the real
world. JKR uses it to make comments on the fantasy genre itself, IMO.
Dividing the world into good guys and bad guys is shown to  make 
good entertainment and bad politics. The way we think about bad
guys is exactly the way we think when we succumb to prejudice
in the real world: They can't ever be as good as Us. 

But right from the beginning, the longing for the perfect is shown to 
be the enemy of the good. "Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, 
Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, 
thank you very much."

 Of course we soon find out things are not perfect at Privet Drive.
The house is an abode of misery even before Harry arrives, because 
in the Dursleys' minds there cannot be a finer boy than Dudley, though 
even a casual observer can tell that Dudley isn't a fine boy at all. 

The Dursleys don't tolerate Dudley's imperfections because as far as
they're concerned he hasn't got any. And, not being able to tolerate
Dudley, of course they can't tolerate a child as different and difficult
as Harry either.  

A_svirn, 
Young Al doesn't have to be perfect, 
but if he makes a right choice (as he surely will) he won't be put 
into Slytherin with the cull lumber, but will be sorted together with 
other good guys to Gryffindor. 

Pippin:

Harry who told the Hat it was wrong to think he would have done well in
Slytherin, tells Albus that Slytherin would make him an excellent wizard.
That's a change. 

How exactly are the Slytherins being culled? They go to the same
school, work for the same bosses, marry into the same gene pool
and wind up in the same afterlife. It's not like no one will play
Quidditch with them. And as they've won the Quidditch cup
seven times in a row, it's not because they're such patsies either.
 

A_svirn:
 Elves are still slaves and that's exactly how 
 everyone likes it.  Goblins are really as bad as they are painted. 

Pippin:

We have no information at all on the status of House Elves in the epilogue.
Goblins deserve their reputation for cruel deeds and double-dealing.
So do wizards. C'est la vie. 

A_svirn:
> Tolerance, huh? And speaking of names, why is one of the more morally 
> dubious characters actually called Xenophilius?  

Pippin:
Xenophilia and tolerance aren't the same thing. The xenophile
can tolerate xenophobia in people of a different culture and be 
completely intolerant of it in his own.

> 
> 
> > Pippin:
> <snip> But there's a bigger point -- you can't negotiate with a 
> > fanatic. 
> 
> a_svirn:
> And what is to be done with a fanatic, though? You can't negotiate, 
> you can hardly afford being tolerant
 As per canon there is only one 
> way – to have your own way come hell and high water. Practical? Yes. 
> Tolerant? Not particularly. 

Pippin:
I agree Harry did not display tolerance. 

But Harry is not the moral arbiter of the Potterverse and by DH we
are no longer supposed to think he is, IMO. Of course he has his
uncritical admirers, just as Dumbledore did. But  He is not a saint
by his author's own admission and his way is not necessarily the 
right one. Harry did not get his own way in any event -- his
plan to keep the sword did not work. That's significant. 

Harry was showing a very Dumbledore-ian insistence on keeping
to his plan though he knew it was ethically dubious and there
were other choices, such as using the basilisk fangs.

I don't think by the end of the story we're supposed to see that
as a good thing. 


> > Pippin:
> > Neville saved goblin as well as wizarding lives by killing Nagini: 
> > should the world be deprived of a beautiful and useful thing 
> > because in the minds of a few fanatics it never should have been 
> > made? 
> 
> a_svirn:
> You know, this view on ownership may be just as unorthodox as that of 
> the Goblins'. I would have thought that from purely human perspective 
> it doesn't matter who saved whom. This is a rather straightforward 
> busyness: if the sword is mine it's mine. Nobody can deprive me of it 
> simply because they used it to perform a heroic dead. Unless, of 
> course, I agree to sell it or to bestow it as a gift. 

Pippin:
Since when is it  unorthodox that  property can be commandeered in
an emergency?  But I agree that the sword determines who can use it. 

Arthur's comment is a sort of shorthand, I think --the issue is not 
where the brains are kept but that if you can't see where the brains
are kept you probably don't know where they came from either. 
I suppose that the brains in the sword came from Gryffindor, and
unless you are alleging that *they* belong to Goblins, I don't see
how we can call the sword entirely goblin-made.

Pippin