Why down on all the characters?/ Dumbledore

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 179415

> 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.

Pippin:
"Can  you forgive me? " he said. "Can you forgive me for not trusting
you? For not telling you? Harry, I only feared that you would fail as
I had failed. I only dreaded that you would make my mistakes. I
crave your pardon, Harry. I have known, for some time now, that
you are the better man."

Dumbledore begs Harry's pardon with "sudden tears in his eyes."
Harry is not angry any more, he comforts Dumbledore, but there's
no doubt that Dumbledore is remorseful.

A_svirn:
 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.

Pippin:
Not by Voldemort's killing curse but by Harry's enlightenment.
To become utterly willing to die,  to cast the spell of protection 
and to keep the mastery of the Elder Wand from being transferred to 
Voldemort, Harry had to give up any notion of self-interest. 

There is, I'm afraid, just no room for any notion of enlightened 
self-interest  in  the Potterverse. 

Self-interest will do as a reason to seek enlightenment,  but
enlightenment, once found, obliterates self-interest. How,
after all, could you truly believe that every life is worth the same,
unless you recognized that your life, your loves, your interests are
only valuable in their own right and never at all because they are
yours?

Not a comforting message, that.  I'm not surprised it's unpopular. 

How Christian it is I couldn't say, but "He who would save his life 
must lose it." That's far more demanding than  saying we should all 
get along because it's in our best interest to do so, which is, I think 
what a lot of people expected the message to be.

Harry, of course, doesn't keep his enlightened state. He knows
he's heading back to  pain and more fear. But for that brief
time, he was able to transcend them.

Pippin