JKR's Dumbledore: Harry or Hermione (was:Re: It really annoys me ...

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 163920

> > >>Pippin:
> > JKR isn't quite ready to drive a stake through manipulative        
> > Dumbledore's heart, because it's part of what makes manipulative    
> > Snape credible.
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Hmm... that's an interesting angle I've not considered before.  The 
> reader needs to have a niggling suspicion that Dumbledore is a bit of 
> a ruthless player in order to think Snape could have played him?  I 
> think I can get that.  Especially if it means there'll be a general 
> air-clearing in DH (even with Dear-Departed!Dumbledore) that will 
> make very clear that Dumbledore never expected Harry to go after the 
> Stone.
<snip>
> At the time of PS/SS I think Harry would have been content with 
> Dumbledore saying he was keeping an eagle eye on the situation with 
> Snape and Quirrell (not a lie! <g>).  But preventing Harry from going 
> through the trap-door isn't my issue.
> 
> My issue is with a Dumbledore who expected, planned on, and tried to 
> prepare Harry to go through a door that would leave him alone with a 
> highly talented Death Eater (best scenario) in the end.  It's insane, 
> full stop 

Pippin:
Yes it was insane, but the insane person wasn't Dumbledore.

"If anything happens to me, don't follow. Go straight to the owlery and
send Hedwig to Dumbledore, right?" -PS/SS 

Think about it, who in his right mind, if he saw a robbery in 
progress, would  go after the robber himself and instruct his friends 
to call the police only if he didn't come back ???? 

That's, well, that's delusional, that is. 

Harry apparently already thinks he is expected to act the hero.
But did Harry  get that idea from anything Dumbledore ever said 
to him?  It's more from the hype he's been hearing from everyone 
else about  the Boy Who Lived plus  a steady diet of Mega Man 
fantasies courtesy of Dudley, all mixed up with Harry's thirst to 
prove himself.

What Dumbledore did, besides creating the opportunity for 
Harry to glimpse the package, was return Harry's invisibility cloak, 
which was Harry's birthright as much as his magic powers, and 
show him the mirror, which he warned Harry not to look for again. 
Harry put everything together like a jigsaw puzzle and some parts of
his solution were radically off, as we know.

I think from what Dumbledore says later that he did arrange for
Harry to confront the mirror,  because it would help him find out
the sort of person Harry was. And he hinted that Harry might
run across the mirror again one day. But he didn't give Harry 
any reason to associate the cloak, the mirror, or the wrapped 
package with Voldemort. He planned,  or rather, anticipated, 
that one day Harry would have to confront Voldemort, and he 
did indeed plan to prepare Harry for that day, but as he says, 
it came much, much sooner than he expected. 

Firenze was the one who revealed  that Voldemort was in the area 
and after the Stone. We don't know whether Dumbledore ever 
even heard about that conversation. 

I don't think we are going to get  a clearer explanation of 
Dumbledore's role in these particular events. What I think we
are going to get is Dumbledore's philosophy of freedom. That's
the missing link, IMO. It isn't Puppetmaster!Dumbledore, who
thinks he's in charge of everyone's lives, and it isn't Callous!
Dumbledore who doesn't care if his charges live or die. It's
FreedomLoving!Dumbledore, who thinks his students have
at least as much right to choose to risk their lives fighting 
evil as they do playing Quidditch.

Pippin