The Isolated Headmaster: Implications for Snape and Harry

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 163700

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> 
wrote:


> 
> Pippin:
> Then Harry will never learn that some things which make him
> feel angry and hurt are not worth hating, and that will make it
> all the easier for Voldemort to find things for Harry to hate.
> Interestingly, there's something similar in The Little White
> Horse (reissued finally in paperback, Yay!) The heroine is
> told that she should save her hatred for important things.
> 

Well, this brings us back to Manipulative Ends-Justify-the-Means!
Dumbledore, which, I think, would be beneath contempt.  Hogwarts 
certainly is not heaven, as you say.  But that is like saying that 
since Maryland isn't heaven, laws should not be enforced.  As Alla 
says, Dumbledore has moral obligations in this affair, which he 
reprehensibly ignores.


> Alla:
> > What do I think DD should have done? Sit Snape down and let him 
know 
> > some harsh truths about Harry's life, at least trying to appeal 
to 
> > Snape's humanity ( if there is any humanity left in this bastard) 
> > and to make him see that Harry is not James.
> 
> Pippin:
> Let me tell you as someone with management experience, it is
> not so easy. Suppose Dumbledore  ordered everyone to ignore their
> emotional reactions to Harry's celebrity and his resemblance to 
> James, would he be obeyed? Of course not!
> 

Which does not release him from the obligation.  Simply because a 
fight can't be won doesn't make it worth fighting.  That he has not 
fought the battle is reprehensible.  And if the justification we are 
given is something along the lines of "Harry learning involved him 
suffering at Snape's hands," then, as I say, I would find that 
utterly beneath  contempt.


Lupinlore, who, like Alla, feels less and less sympathy for 
Dumbledore the more he is examined