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

[nikkalmati]

No: HPFGUIDX 182711

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> 
wrote:
>
> > Nikkalmati:
> >  
> > What DD has done to several people (Harry, Snape, Dung and 
probably 
> > others) was more like the Bay of Pigs, invasion where the US 
> > Government told the Cuban mercenaries they would have US aircover
> and  then changed their minds after the invasion started, or the 
Gulf
> of  Tonkin supposed attack on US warships by the North Vietnamese
> which,  I guess, never happened the way it was reported. Somebody 
must
> have  thought those decisions were "for the greater good."
> > 
> 
> Pippin:
> The US government is supposed to be representative. The Order of the
> Phoenix is not. Dumbledore governed the Order as a despot -- a 
benign
> and enlightened despot possibly, but someone who believed 
that "humans
> do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst 
for
> them." (PS ch 17) 
> 
> That's not a exactly a trumpet call for informed consent, majority
> rule, or decision-making by consensus.

Nikkalmati
There is so much material in this response that it is difficult to 
respond without cutting out points and going off on a tangent.  I was 
responding to Mike's comment that DD was just acting like a general 
ordering his troops into battle.  I was trying to make the point that 
DD employs more of a "bait and switch" tactic.  Tell someone they are 
doing X while plotting for them to do Y (and leaving them to hang in 
the wind, if needed).  The fact that the OP are all volunteers makes 
it even more reprehensible to take their trust and deceive them.  
Plus, of course, it is bad tactics to rely entirely on one's self and 
act without any counsel or input.  


Nikkalmati
> 
> Someone with Dumbledore's philosophy would expect  letting people
> choose for themselves to be ruinous much of the time. Yes, he 
> believes choices are important -- so important that one ought to be
> very careful about letting just anyone make them.  But AFAWK the
> Order has no expectation that they're going to decide how Voldemort
> will be fought, so it's not like they're being cheated.
> 
> Yes, they're being used, but they agreed to it. Snape said, if 
you'll
> remember, that he'd do anything. Harry made a similar promise.

Nikklalmati
Didn't JKR make allowing people to make their own (informed?) choices 
a theme of the books?  A choice is not valid unless it is informed 
BTW.
Nikkalmati
> 
> Dumbledore didn't force either Snape or Harry  -- unlike Moody he
> never threatened anyone with punishment for disobedience. Nor was
> anyone going to be publicly shamed if they quit. 
> 
>  Appealing to someone's emotions is not the same as manipulation
> -- it's only manipulation if you conceal your purpose. Dumbledore 
did
> not -- his purpose was always to destroy Voldemort with as little 
loss
> of life as might be. But he didn't promise the Order that their 
lives
> were going to be conserved over others. 

Nikkalmati

I cannot agree that appealing to someone's emotions is not 
manipulation.  The fact that he wanted to destroy LV does not excuse 
him from revealing how this was to come down.  He let Harry think he 
would battle LV in a fair fight.  What would Harry have said, if DD 
told him, you are to destroy the Horcruxes and then let LV kill you?  
I admire Harry and believe his courage and self-sacrifice were up to 
the task, but we will never know, will we, because DD concealed his 
purpose.  He also concealed his purpose from Snape, letting him think 
he was doing what Lily would have wanted by protecting Harry, when 
the ultimate role for Harry was to die.  Lily gave every sign of 
wanting Harry to live.  I'm not sure whe would have been willing to 
sacrifice her son even to safeguard the WW.  "Not Harry!"  Find 
another way, she would have said.  
> 
> He told Harry that he thought his life would be safe while 
Dumbledore
> was with him -- and that was true as far as it went. The moment when
> it was no longer true was recognized by Harry and Dumbledore at the
> time.  Harry did not realize that it was always meant that he would
> outlive the status of a protected child, and Dumbledore tried to
> protect him from finding out. That was foolish, but I can't see it 
as
> wicked. 

Nikkalmati
I don't really see DD as wicked. 
Nikkalmati 
> 
> I don't think Dumbledore thought of himself as acting for the 
greater
> good after Ariana died. I think he believed he had to act for the 
good
> of those like Ariana who had no power and no voice. That
> explains, I think, the seeming shifts in his policy, so that, for
> instance, he took heed for young Tom's Muggle victims but left the 
WW
> to its own devices. It also accounts for his championing of
> werewolves, giants, Muggleborns, Dobby and others like them. It 
might
> even explain why he was hands-off with the Dursleys. Who was really
> the weaker party? The magical and possibly deathless child or the
> mean-spirited but merely mortal and Muggle Dursleys? 

Nikkalmati

So you don't think DD was motivated by his view of the greater good?  
That was my original question.  Is that a standard JKR hold up as 
admirable in the books?
Nikkalmati

> 
> But as to the Bay of Pigs example, there's no  disagreement within 
the
> Order on *how* Voldemort should be opposed -- it's not like one
> faction supports containment and the other thinks that Voldemort's
> forces should be confronted whenever and wherever they may be. In 
fact
> it's the absence of such hawkishness that seems to confound (should
> that be confund?) so many readers. The Order seems to be, as many of
> their names imply, unanimously behind Dumbledore's Fabian strategy.
> Why that should be so I think is explained by the history of VWI --
> the Ministry took Voldemort head on and kept losing. They couldn't 
win
> Voldie's kind of war because even Crouch wasn't prepared to be as
> ruthless as he was.

Nikkalmati
I meant the Bay of Pigs reference, not as an example of a dispute 
over tactics, but as an example of the betrayal of the soldier by the 
government.

Nikkalmati 
> 
> IMO, Dumbledore's plan to extract Harry from the Dursleys misfired 
not
> because of  infighting over strategy but because Dumbledore
> overestimated his enemy's intelligence. He didn't expect Voldemort 
to
> attack. He thought, IMO,  that Voldemort would realize that it would
> be vain to confront Harry without a wand far superior to any "poor
> stick" of Lucius Malfoy's. 
> 
> But as Dumbledore himself discovered, the illusions of one's youth 
do
> not always tiptoe quietly offstage when experience enters, or 
content
> themselves with commenting on the action like a Greek chorus. Nope,
> when you least expect it, they mug the hero and try to take over the
> show. Voldemort  should have known that a pure-blood's wand was not
> necessarily something special, just as Dumbledore should have known
> the ring would only do him harm, but did they think of that? Hah!
>  
> So Dumbledore goofed. But  was his plan needlessly risky? Wouldn't
> information about the Order's plans have reached Voldemort even if
> Snape hadn't revealed it? I think that was a real possibility, 
since I
> know of no reason that Voldemort couldn't have forced an Order 
member
> to talk as easily as Snape did.
> 
> If Snape had not produced the information, Voldemort would have 
tried
> to get it elsewhere, and doubtless he would have succeeded. Surely 
he
> wouldn't simply have taken the Ministry's information as a given.

Nikkalmati

The plan went exactly as DD envisioned it.  Any attempt to remove 
Harry was risky. I see no sign DD thought LV would not attack.  The 
Order assumed there was a high liklihood of attack.  LV probably 
cholse Malfoy's want to embarass or shame him and because it was 
probably expensive, of the best quality.  Snape did not extract any 
information - he planted it.  

Nikkalmati 
> 
> Pippin

> IMO the "epitome of goodness"  remark needs to be considered in
> context. JKR was answering a question about whether writing  good
> characters was boring, and her answer applied to the characters she
> created, not good people in general, IMO. Was there a better example
> than  Dumbledore of a good character in the books at that time? 

Nikkalmati

You are probably correct. The remark was never meant to be taken out 
of context.  Yet, do you think JKR sees DD as an an admirable man or 
an object lesson on how a great man with good intentions can go wrong?

Nikkalmati
> 

>