DD death and Harry WAS: Re: Dumbledore as a judge of character ?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 166216

Ceridwen:
> Thanks for the quote.  I've read it, but totally missed that 
> implication.  However, we've seen Harry thinking things over and 
> coming to very emotional conclusions.  He felt guilty over things he 
> absolutely had no reason to feel guilt.  This is an emotional 
> response, not a logical one, and the sort of response Harry has at 
> times.  Maybe the enormity of his upcoming task will keep him busy 
> enough not to think about the events surrounding Dumbledore's death, 
> but maybe not.
> <snip>
> Emotions can cripple as much as injury can, if they're allowed to run 
> free in someone's mind.  Logically, Harry may very well know he 
> didn't do anything in the end but follow Dumbledore's orders, as he 
> should have, being the novice in the situation.  The quote you 
> provided shows that he already knows this.  But in the dark nights, 
> when he's done as much as he could do at that point, the questioning 
> emotions can come creeping, ready to hamstring him.
>

Pippin:
Yes. Harry's emotional need to blame himself for things which are
beyond his control is already crippling him. It is rooted in fear and
anger, emotions he will have to overcome if he is to defeat Voldemort
with the power of love.

I think he will have to do more than realize it wasn't his responsibility
to keep Dumbledore from drinking the goo. I think he needs to 
look at why he needs to feel responsible for it. Why
does he want to feel that he was able to see dangers to which
the much older and wiser Dumbledore was blind?

Speculating...
Ever since he first came Hogwarts, Harry has had a sort of 
superstition that nothing bad could happen to him while 
Dumbledore was looking out for him.

"Harry could have laughed out loud with relief. He was safe.
There was simply no way that Snape would dare to try and
hurt him if Dumbledore was watching." _PS/SS ch13

But in OOP, that  notion became untenable. Dumbledore
admitted that he had watched Harry in dark and difficult times. 
The comforting illusion began to disintegrate, and Harry, IMO, is 
trying  to defend it by positing that Dumbledore never
saw as much as he thought he did.

Losing the illusion was scary, because like any loss, it provokes 
anger, and Harry was afraid to be angry at Dumbledore.

All through HPB, Harry feared that if he provoked Dumbledore,
Dumbledore would leave him behind. The kid's got abandonment
issues, you know.

And  now it has happened.

Dumbledore is gone. Harry is extremely vulnerable to the sort
of magical thinking Molly displayed in GoF, where she seemed
to fear that her anger at the Twins would be punished by their
deaths at the hands of the DE's.  

As long as Harry can manage to blame himself or someone
else for Dumbledore's loss, he doesn't have to feel angry at
Dumbledore for leaving him, or for being weaker than Harry
Imagined him to be. He doesn't have to deal with the thought 
that his anger somehow made Dumbledore die, which in its 
turn is an escape from the truth:  that death is ultimately beyond 
anyone's control. 

Harry needs to learn that anger doesn't make anything happen
all by itself.  IMO, he needs to learn not to fear his anger. _Pace_
Star Wars, It's not good or bad to be angry, it's just a feeling. 
Like the fire that Gryffindor symbolizes,  it's  a useful servant 
but a poor master.

Pippin