ChapDisc: DH 18, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182668

Nikkalmati wrote:
> 
> >The problem I am struggling with here is that Albus appears to be
willing to sacrifice other people for the good of the many.  This is
part of Aberforth's problem with his brother.  He is asking Harry if
he really knows what he is getting into.  Of course, he doesn't -
Albus never told him.  Albus knew Harry would be willling to go
forward at any cost, but was that fair?  Albus' MO is to trap you into
a committment and then shame you into going on when you finally see
the handwriting on the wall.  Not my idea of the highest moral standard.  

Carol responds:

For some reason, your post looks like quoted material. Not sure why it
shows up that way.

With regard to Albus Dumbledore, it's true that he conceals
information from Harry, but it's unclear whether he really intends to
sacrifice him. Harry has to *think* that he's going to his death and
willingly sacrifice himself as his mother sacrificed herself for him
(but with a little more dignity and forethought), but Dumbledore knows
that Harry has a good chance of surviving. (He can't know that, or the
intent to sacrifice himself won't work.) In HBP, DD tells Harry that
he doesn't have to act on the Prophecy. It doesn't have to fulfill
itself unless he and Voldemort choose to face each other. And they
make that choice, LV because he wants to end the threat of the Chosen
One and Harry because, even if it means his own death, he wants
Voldemort permanently destroyed to pervent him from ruining any more
lives.

The other people that DD puts at risk know that they're risking their
lives and do so willingly. Snape could leave at any time and go back
to Voldemort or just refuse to do what DD asks of him, whether it's
returning to Voldemort in the first place or killing him on the tower
or giving Harry the Sword of Gryffindor. Other Order members--Mr.
Weasley, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Mad-eye Moody--willingly put their
lives on the line because, as Black says in OoP, some things are worth
dying for. In all cases, it's like a soldier volunteering to fight in
a war against another country that threatens his own. The soldier puts
the good of his country against his own personal good. (A country that
resorts to the draft also puts the good of the country above that of
the individual soldier, but the soldier in that instance, unlike the
Order members, has no choice but to obey or risk imprisonment.)

Dumbledore himself chooses to die for the greater good. He could have
called Fawkes and escaped; he could have stayed at Madam Rosmerta's
and had Harry bring Snape to rescue him rather than flying to the
Astronomy Tower when he saw the Dark Mark. But he wants to strip the
Elder Wand of its power, which requires his death at Snape's hands.
IOW, he expects no more of Snape or Harry or the Order than he expects
of himself. All of them could opt out but none do because most of them
(Mundungus is an obvious exception) put the good of the WW above their
own individual good (as does Neville when he valiantly steps forward
to oppose Voldemort and somehow "kill the snake" even after he thinks
that Harry is dead).

Aberforth, though he's an Order member, too, doesn't understand this
philosophy. He thinks that Harry should save himself at the expense of
everyone else. When Harry tell him that he and his friends have to get
into Hogwarts, he responds, "What you've got to do is to get as far
from here as you can" (DH Am ed. 561). And after Harry argues that
Aberforth's brother gave him a job, Aberforth argues that the job,
whatever it is, is too big for "an unqualified wizard kid" and tells
him, "Let it go, boy, before you follow him! Save yourself!" Aberforth
gives his view of Albus ("secrecy and lies") and tells him that many
people Albus cared about ended up worse off than if he'd left them
alone. His words eat into Harry's desire to trust Albus Dumbledore and
keep to his purpose (562-63). Aberforth tells the Grindelwald/Ariana
story, saying at one point, "Grand plans for the benefit of
Wizardkind, and if one young girl got neglected, what did that matter,
when Albus was working for *the greater good*"? (566). Harry tells him
about Dumbledore in the cave, tortured by the terrible memory of
Grindelwald hurting Aberforth and Ariana. Aberforth says, "How can you
be sure, Potter, that my brother wasn't more interested in the greater
good than in you? How can you be sure that you aren't dispensable,
like my little sister?" He asks why Albus didn't just tell Harry how
to take care of himself and survive. Harry answers, "Because sometimes
you've *got* to think about more than your own safety! Sometimes
You've *got* to think about the greater good! This is war!" (568).
Harry informs Aberforth, who thinks that Voldemort has won and they
might as well accept it, athat Albus has told him how to defeat
Voldemort and that he's determined to do it. "I'm going to keep going
until I succeed--or die" 569).

Of course, Harry's faith in Dumbledore crumbles--he thinks that DD has
"betrayed" him--after he enters Snape's memories and learns that he
has to sacrifice himself, but he remains determined to "finish the
job" because only by dying himself can he ensure that Voldemort won't
survive (691). And after Harry returns, he explains to Voldemort that
he was "ready to die to stop you from hurting these people" (738). And
Harry faces him one last time, alone, unafraid of death, for the
greater good. And he gives up the Elder Wand for the same reason,
determined to end its power for good.

I don't think that the greater good as Harry sees it bears much
resemblance to the delusions of power and control that Albus
Dumbledore had at seventeen. Nor do I think that DD retained those
delusions. He passed up the post of Minister of Magic three times, and
he fought Voldemort mostly behind the scenes, by gathering memories,
training Harry (who would have had to face LV regardless), and
teaching Harry about the Horcruxes, risking his own life in the cave
rather than risk Harry's.

Yes, he was secretive. Yes, he was manipulative and controlling and
had a greater faith in his intellect and his plans than was perhaps
justified. But, IMO, he, not Aberforth, was right that sometimes the
individual must risk or even sacrifice his own life for the benefit of
others, whether it's a mother dying to save her child or a
seventeen-year-old boy facing an enemy only he can destroy. 

Carol, who thinks that the greater good motif is crucial to our
understanding of DH but suspects that it's one of those topics on
which our opinions wil remain divided