Dumbledore's Plan/Deaths in DH/Catharsis

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 177523

> lizzyben:
> In fact, that's the only way it works. Because if DD is just a 
> manipulative, ruthless old man, it is sheer lunacy for Harry to 
> obediently trot off to death on his say-so. 

zgirnius:
Whether Dumbledore is a wise, well-intentioned, but flawed old man, a 
sinister puppetmaster weaving his evil designs to ensnare his 
trusting followers, or God Almighty is irrelevant, as I see it. His 
plan for Harry, as revealed to Harry by the memories Snape gave him, 
will achieve its goal if Harry carries it out. If Harry is killed by 
Voldemort and Nagini dies, then Voldemort will once again be mortal.

Harry does not carry out the plan because it is Dumbledore's, he 
carries it out because it is his wish to make Voldemort mortal once 
again, so that those he leaves behind will have a chance to finally 
defeat him. We know Harry believes this of the plan, and we know he 
wants it to happen, because the book is written from his point of 
view, and the book tells us he thinks these things. So no, he is not 
drinking Kool-Aid. At worst, he is accepting the advice of an evil 
man on the way to achieve this (good) end.

Further, I always thought it was telling that Harry did not call 
Dumbledore back with the Resurrection Stone. In my opinion, he called 
back the dead that loved him, to receive their support.And this is 
why I believe Dumbledore was not there - Harry did not believe he was 
loved by Dumbledore. The later revelations in King's Cross, that 
Dumbledore in fact designed the plan in the way he thought maximized 
Harry's chance of surviving that confrontation, are the reason Harry 
still wants to see the portrait at the end. He realizes that 
Dumbledore's intention was to act in his bets interest, and 
Dumbledore did love him, as I read the bok anyway.

Nor was Snape drinking Kool-Aid in DH. Arguably Dumbledore deceived 
him and lied to him for fifteen years, but Dumbledore laid bare his 
own deception to Snape after their argument in the Forest in HBP. 
While we don't have canon of Snape's thought process, my own opinion 
is that it is the same as Harry's - that he went along with the plan 
despite his anger at the way he had been deceived, and his horror at 
the cost. Because, again, Snape decided that he was in agreement with 
the goals of the plan, and saw that the plan would achieve it. 
Possibly also because he realized that nothing Dumbledore had 'made' 
(used in quites, because we see quite clearly Snape was not bound to 
do anything) him do was something he now regretted. 
 
> lizzyben:
> I'm not confusing the properties of the cloak. JKR creates a fable 
> in which the third brother makes the "right" choice, a cloak that 
> allows him to hide from death. At the end, Harry again makes 
> the "right" choice, giving up power & choosing invisibility.

zgirnius:
Harry's choice of 'invisibility' (that is, to live a normal life) is 
not a choice to avoid death. The more directly analogous action of 
Harry to that of the youngest brother, in my view, is his walk to the 
Forest wearing the Cloak, and his removal of it before he faces 
Voldemort. This death, he believes, is his destiny owing to 
Voldemort's actions sixteen years before, which left Harry wioth that 
soul bit. So like the brother, he is meeting death at his proper time.
 
> lizzyben:
> And can anyone tell me what being the "master of death" actually 
> means? What's the title get you? 

zgirnius:
Absolutely nothing, wouldn't stop a pile of bricks from squashing you 
flat the next time you walk down a sidewalk. It denotes a person who 
is proven to have the character to avoid the temptations of the 
Hallows, I think. Harry had the wand but does not lust for its power, 
he had the Stone but does not force his assorted beloved deceased to 
follow him around for the rest of his life, and has the Cloak, but 
was willing to accept his own death to save his friends.

Dumbledore and Grindelwald as young men thought it would make them 
some sort of uber-wizards with super-powers, I presume. I don't 
believe that the text is saying they were right.

> lizzyben:
> Yes, the "Power the Dark Lord knows not" came down to a super-
> powerful Wand. Harry gained the allegiance of an amoral power, and 
> that power, gained by force, allowed him to take out LV. The 
> whole "love" speculation was just silliness. Harry never entered 
the 
> locked room. He never had to learn how to love someone to beat LV. 

zgirnius:
Without his love for his friends and his dear departed ones, Harry 
would not have had the courage for the *first* confrontation. So 
yeas, he did need to love for that. It was not something he needed to 
learn in DH, however, since Harry already loved bunches of people and 
creatures, living and dead, before the book ever started.

Love played a role not as the power Harry has, but the power 
Voldemort neither has nor understands, in the second confrontation. 
He believed Narcissa when she said Harry was dead, because he 
underestimated what she would do to getto Draco. He was convinced he 
was the wand's master, because he had killed Snape. (Which would have 
been incorrect even iof Draco had not interfered, because Voldemort 
was also totally clueless about Snape's love and loyalties). To me, 
love was all over the final chapters, including the final 
confrontation.

>lizzyben:
> The Elder Wand was the only Hallow 
> that really mattered - while the "good" Hallows were
> useless. So the "bad" Hallow, the one he shouldn't use, was the one 
> that helped Harry to achieve victory. Mixed messages much.

zgirnius:
Mixed messages?! Who used the "bad" Hallow and what happened to that 
person?

Harry used Draco's old wand and Expelliarmus. After carefully 
elucidating for Voldemort exactly what he was failing to understand.