The Fundamental Message.../ Heroes...

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 176527

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > That's not true.  Crouch, Sr. was on the front lines, with his 
> > Aurors.  
> > <snip> 
> > And then Scrimgeour was out there *begging* for Harry to work     
> > with him as he did his best to fight Voldemort. 
> > <snip>

> >>Jen: This MOM sounds *great*, not like the one that's a walking   
> human-rights violation when it comes to the justice                
> system...

Betsy Hp:
Why?  All I'm saying is that key members of the MoM were willing to 
fight Voldemort, did their best to do so, and Dumbledore did not work 
with them.  It's what JKR wrote.

> >>Jen:
> ...(Dementor guards?  Throwing prisoners in without trials?        
> Innocents like Morfin Gaunt, Hokey and Stan Shunpike who don't get 
> through investigative trials because of their status?)
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Right.  The WW is brutal and dark.  Of course the MoM is too.  But 
where was Dumbledore?  For quite a while we're told that Fudge was 
wrapped around his little finger (as per PS/SS) and we have nothing 
to show that Dumbledore put much effort into questioning the above 
behaviors.  (Their continued existence either meant Fudge wasn't all 
that well wrapped or that Dumbledore just made little comments from 
time to time.  I suspect the latter.)

[An aside: Are we supposed to see Stan as an innocent? ::sigh::  
Yeah, I suppose we are.  Because *of course* perfect Harry Potter can 
spot the signs of an Imperius Curse, in the middle of a flying battle 
on a dark and cloudy (IIRC?) night, in the face of a man he's met 
once and glimpsed another time over two years previous to the battle.]

> >>Jen:
> And don't forget people like Umbridge passing through legislation   
> undermining rights for 'half-breeds.'  

Betsy Hp:
Or Arthur passing through legislation to help better protect 
Muggles.  (Interesting that Dumbledore wasn't able to give Arthur a 
hand in his work back in the day.  What with Fudge being so dependent 
and all.)

Again, the MoM is brutal and dark, just like the world they serve.  
But we are given glimmers that suggest, to me anyway, that if 
Dumbledore had *channeled* his ambition, rather than fled from it, he 
could have achieved a great deal.  Been more of an Abe Lincoln than a 
John Brown.  (Though of course, Dumbledore was neither of those men 
as he was quite happy with the human pecking order of his world.)

> >>Jen:
> Aren't you saying Dumbledore needed more principles, that his      
> ideals sucked?
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
He certainly suffered from his own bigotry (as does the entire WW, 
unfortunately, with the author's bizarre approval), but no, 
Dumbledore did have some good ideals.  At least, from what he said.  
But he didn't do all that much to promote them.  He's the proverbial 
good man who, doing nothing, allows evil to flourish.  (Literally, 
where Tom Riddle is concerned.)

> >>Jen: 
> Dumbledore had plenty of flaws, his secrecy and tendency to rely on 
> himself the two biggest, and he was incapable of reforming the WW 
> alone.  

Betsy Hp:
I'd have believed it more if Dumbledore had *tried*.  Or if we had 
evidence that he had done so.

> >>Jen:
> If Dumbledore did nothing else in your eyes, at least he got       
> himself out of the way with his secrecy and planning so his vacuum 
> could be filled with many people instead of one, eh? ;)

Betsy Hp:
Heh.  Yes, in these books the best thing you can do for your cause is 
die.  Nice message, JKR.  Though wasn't Dumbledore's vacuum filled 
with the stumbling Harry Potter?  Wasn't that why Harry insisted on 
not getting help from anyone but Ron and Hermione (though he wasn't 
all that forthcoming with them either)?  Because only he, Harry, 
could do anything?  Anyone else would just screw things up?

> >>Jen:
> Three of his ideals came to fruition within the scope of the story 
> in my opinion: Differences of habit and language were put aside     
> when groups coalesced, the Dementors were gone from Azkaban, and    
> Kingsley was appointed to the MOM.  I don't think his efforts were 
> pointless even if his cause wasn't Slytherin house.

Betsy Hp:
There's that big tree again. ;-)  It's impossible for me to overlook 
the exclusion of Slytherin house.  Not after Dumbledore has witnessed 
the evil that either its presence at the school (going with 
the "Slytherins *are* bad" view of the books), or its designation as 
Hogwarts' scapegoat (going by how my personal view still insists on 
subverting the text) caused so much pain in the WW.

It's like trying to see how the trains ran on time, or how starving 
white folks got baskets of food.  I still can't admire the Nazis or 
the Klan.  The tree's just too darn big. 

Betsy Hp