Why down on all the characters?/ Dumbledore

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 179406

> Alla:
> 
> Did Harry accept his philosophy? Or did he forgive Dumbledore? 
> Because I believe that he forgave him an that is why for me there 
is 
> no dissonance. <SNIP>
> 
a_svirn:
Did he? If it only were the case! But at no point during the King's 
Cross chapter does Dumbledore asks Harry's forgiveness and Harry 
gives it to him. Not, of course, because Harry is incapable of 
forgiveness, but because according to him there isn't anything to 
forgive. This is what I find so infuriating about this chapter (apart 
from the Dumbledore's usual affectations, and his incomprehensible 
plan). It is as though the seething resentment Harry has felt 
throughout DH and the sting of betrayal from the previous chapter 
have been obliterated by Voldemort's killing curse. When they meet at 
King's Cross they slip effortlessly into their usual pupil/mentor 
mode. Dumbledore explains Harry listens raptly and asks questions.

But Dumbledore does *not* feel any remorse about his plan. Oh, he is 
very remorseful and penitent, but that is all about the things of his 
very distant past: his fevered friendship with Grindenwald, his 
youthful dreams of world domination, his neglect of his siblings and 
the death of his sister. I suppose, if he met Ariana in limbo, he 
would forget his gaudy magniloquence and ask her forgiveness humbly 
as befits a sinner. But not so with Harry. I did not get the feeling 
that Dumbledore felt any remorse about or admitted to any fault in 
his infamous plan. He did conceded the flaws – poor Severus didn't 
end up with his wand, for instance, but those are flaws in the plan, 
not in Dumbledore. 

As for the Cloak episode you mentioned, I don't agree that Harry was 
*forgiving* anything. Harry rejects the idea that there is anything 
to forgive. (And does Dumbledore, by the way, "true, true" he says 
when Harry assures him that cloak wouldn't have made any difference 
for his parents.) If he acknowledged that Dumbledore robbed his 
parents of their last chance to survive and forgave him nonetheless – 
that would be forgiveness. But he simply dismissed the issue as 
unimportant, and this is closer to betrayal, than to forgiveness. In 
a more charitable light you can say that Harry was in denial. 

In any case, an exchange like "Oh, sorry about that" – "Oh, not at 
all" is not about forgiveness, it's about pleasantries. And this is 
what is going on during their chat. It's like a meeting of 
the "Mutual Appreciation Society". And even after death their roles 
did not change: Dumbledore is still a wise Professor; Harry is still 
a bright student. He left King's  Cross still a Dumbledore's man, he 
duelled Voldemort as Dumbledore's man, and while duelling discussed 
Dumbledore's plan and his infinite wisdom. He called Snape 
Dumbledore's man, and that obviously is the highest accolade he could 
come up with. So no, I don't think it is about Christian forgiveness 
and "the quality of mercy". It is that sticky Greater Good thing all 
over again.