Individual characters too stubborn for Dumbledore to manipulate or not? WAS:

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185093

Alla wrote:
> <snip>

> Oh there were James and Lily who refused to let Dumbledore be their 
> secret keeper and ended up dead.
> 
> Nope, I do not think that JKR sees characters as too stubborn for 
> Dumbledore, it seems to me that she is saying that Dumbledore's way 
> is the best way to go, almost always. <snip>

Carol responds:
 But aren't James and Lily exactly what you're looking for, people who
refused to do what Dumbledore wanted? For that matter, I'm pretty sure
that Dumbledore didn't want Peter Pettigrew to do what he did, either.
Nor, of course, did Voldemort, who knew perfectly well what Dumbledore
believed and wanted and acted in contradiction to Dumbledore's ideas
on love and the greater good.

Granted, a lot of people who did what Dumbledore wanted them to do
ended up dead (HRH being the great exceptions), but so did the people
who stubbornly refused to go along with his plans (or, like, Snape,
occasionally acted against orders by, say, attempting to hit a DE with
Sectumsempra). 

We can't blame Dumbledore for the deaths of most of the characters on
his team. Almost always, the person who dies is in some way
responsible for his own death or has made some choice that contributes
to it. And always, someone other than Dumbledore does the actual
killing. (I almost said "pulls the trigger.")

I see no evidence whatever for Lizzyben's theory that Dumbledore
killed Sirius Black, any more than I see evidence for Pippin's old
theory that Lupin did it. Harry, who witnessed it, and Bellatrix, who
was fighting Sirius, both believe that she did it, and we never get
any other story.

Absolutely, Dumbledore is seriously flawed. IMO, he's an egotistical
hypocrite. He is undoubtedly a manipulator and secretive to a fault.
But I think it's simplistic to blame everything bad that happens to
the characters he deals with on him. The Order members chose to be in
the Order. They knew that they were risking their lives. They could
have chosen not to serve, to drop out, or (except for Peter), they
didn't. Most of them paid with their lives, but only because they
chose to do so. Snape chose not to tell Voldemort that Draco was the
true master of the Elder Wand; Lupin and Tonks chose to fight in the
Battle of Hogwarts; Sirius Black chose to go to the MoM and fight
Bellatrix on the dais of the Veil.

Carol, who will probably find herself defending McGonagall or Sirius
Black (characters she dislikes as much as she dislikes Dumbledore) next!