Suspension of disbelief -Idiots of War

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 182423

Pippin:
<SNIP>
But what I was really thinking of was Neville, looking so beat up when
McGonagall hadn't a scratch on her. And I thought Alla's point,
though I can't speak for her, was that it seems so weird and wrong for
Dumbledore to ask these young people to fight for him. As if that was
some weird quirk of Dumbledore's, when really that's the way it's
always been.
<SNIP>

Alla:

Actually, no, not quite my point. I completely agree that Dumbledore 
always asked people to fight for him, always manipulated them. Well, 
no scratch that, I cannot take away from Dumbledore that he was 
willing to fight for the cause and die himself. So that is not my 
point at all. I find Dumbledore's actions to be absolutely, 
perfectly, completely in character.

It is the action of the society as a whole I find weird and wrong. 
Appropriate for hero's journey, do not get me wrong, but weird if I 
think of it realistically. I still keep coming back to Magpie's 
lovely comparison about that imaginary meeting of anti Voldemort 
resistance, where NOTHING is good enough to try for the **whole** 
society, while teenager with the prophecy that his teacher made about 
him, will just do. 

Pippin:
<SNIP>
Well, I guess real life is lame. Because *entire nations* do get
subjugated, and years do pass without effective resistance, or even
any recognition that persecution is taking place. Fail to recognize
that, and you're blaming the victims,IMO -- gee, those guys must have
been pretty lame or they'd have defended themselves.

Alla:

Hmmm, I am sure you have examples of entire nations being paralyzed, 
and could it please not be Stalinist Russia  or Franko Spain? Because 
to me there is a huge difference of peace times where millions had 
been put in prisons and dead, but at the same time there are a lot of 
people who are pretty happy with the regime  and war time. Of the top 
of my head I do not remember the example of entire nation being 
paralyzed when war, especially OFFENSIVE war had been lunched upon 
them. Nations get concurred, oh sure they do, but not as a result of 
EVERYBODY doing nothing IMO.

>From wars that I studied there are always had been people who had 
been doing something, anything, trying, failing, maybe, but trying. I 
just do not see it here in WW.

Again, I understand why, especially after hearing from JKR's mouth 
that Christian themes are so strong in the story. But this whole 
conversation started with speculation about whether Harry's life 
could have been happier if Snape did not tell the prophecy and 
whether WW would have been able to do something without Harry.

And my answer is absolutely, positively, most definitely YES. I do 
not blame the story for it, or anything. I just refuse to say that 
without Snape's abominable deed (IMO) Harry's life could not have 
turned out much better than it was.  Because I see plenty of AU 
scenarios where, for example, there are more people in WW exercising 
their brains as Regulus did and figuring what Voldemort did  without 
ever needing Harry. If one teenager could figure out that secret of 
Voldemort, what nobody else but Dumbledore could? And since Godric 
Hollow does not have to happen there is not even need in my scenario 
for Harry to die to get rid of last  horcrux.




Pippin:
<SNIP>
Huh? Harry does have a personal belief in Dumbledore at the beginning
of the book, but he's no longer personally loyal to Dumbledore when
he goes to his "death" -- he's certain Dumbledore betrayed him.

Alla:

Right with this I of course agree, could never get "the Harry goes 
and sacrifice himself because he believes in Dumbledore so much 
still" argument, if Dumbledore is not among the loved ones whom Harry 
calls to support him in what he believes to be his last moments.


Pippin:
But he
agrees with Dumbledore's philosophy of saving as many lives as
possible, and he goes along with the plan despite its cost to himself
because he can see how it will accomplish that. And he believes that
philosophy not because Dumbledore told him too but because it's what
he's always believed. He does take Dumbledore's word about the
mechanics of the plan, but trusting in an expert's knowledge is hardly
a cult of personality.


Alla:

Yes, I know. I will tell you this though, I always wanted Harry to 
say it out loud as in contrast to what he said in HBP. I am my own 
man. BUT I think that she wrote it subtly enough without spelling it 
out by not having Dumbledore appear among those whom Harry wants with 
him in the last minute. I thought it was, well, brilliant.

I wish Harry would not have forgiven Dumbledore like ever, but  since 
I do not believe that JKR subverted the genre all that much any more, 
I know that it would have gone against laws of the genre.


JMO,
Alla