Villain!Dumbledore (was: re:HatingDH/Dementors/...Draco/.../KeepSlytherin House)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 177702

> Sherry now:
> 
> Actually, this is where I began to despise DD, and nothing he said 
in DH has
> really done anything to change my mind or make me like him again.  
I always
> liked Dumbledore, disliked Snape and Draco.  After HBP, we debated 
often on
> this list, whether or not Snape and Dumbledore knew Draco's task.  
Now, we
> know he did know it.  Ok, I get giving Draco a chance before he'd 
done
> anything.  But how could a responsible headmaster, who supposedly 
cared
> about all his students allow Draco to roam free and remain at 
Hogwarts after
> the first attempt that nearly killed Katie?  It's completely 
inexcusable to
> me.  He should at least have been expelled.  Or at least there 
should have
> been measures taken, confronted him or something.  This is not a 
reflection
> on Draco, but on Dumbledore.  Dumbledore's failure to act after 
the first
> incident is the reason Draco was able to continue, the reason Ron 
was
> poisoned, and the eventual reason the death eaters were able to 
get into
> Hogwarts.  By the end of the series, I pitied Draco.  But 
Dumbledore, I lost
> all respect for him after the revelations in DH.  And not the 
revelations
> about his younger years with Grindelwald.  

Magpie:
This is the thing that continues to amaze me about the Draco story. 
Because I thought the point was that here Dumbledore was 
demonstrating exactly what you mention later, that sometimes it's 
right to put an individual above the many. I thought he was 
basically abandoning his flock to search for the one lost sheep--and 
that of course that story would play out in that way, that Draco was 
brought back into the flock thanks to Dumbledore's handling of him, 
the knowledge he was able to gain about himself given the time and 
space by Dumbledore, even though it put other people at risk.

But in DH, frankly, I got a completely different impression, 
especially based on the conversation with DD and Snape. I didn't 
think, as others did, that the problem was that DD was just saying 
he didn't want Draco to tear his soul on him but didn't care if he 
did it on somebody else, exactly, but I think that reading comes 
from the same feeling that I got in the scene, which was that 
Dumbledore did not actually care about Draco. He seemed to see him 
as basically as much of a hapless pawn as Voldemort did, though this 
led to much better treatment of him on Dumbledore's part of course. 
It made Dumbledore far smaller than I assumed he was in HBP (which 
goes along with my general feeling about DH). Draco not killing him 
fit in with his plan; Snape killing him did. 

I think Adam is right in that Slytherin represents the baser forms 
of humanity--even their supposed house traits imo only exist in 
Slytherin in their negative form (good examples of ambition and 
cunning are found in Gryffindor). But I don't particularly like 
watching them just get cleverly manipulated by good guys or just 
used by the author to good ends.

-m