Sirius and Snape parallels again - Sirius' death (LONG)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 185100


> lizzyben:
> 
> I'm not sure if Sirius would take Harry to Barbados, but there would
> be A Scene. In general, I agree that Sirius would think nothing of
> risking *his own* life for a friend, but that is very different from
> being willing to stand back in safety & watching someone he loves die.

Pippin:

You mean like Harry and Hermione were willing to watch while Ron got
clobbered in the chess game? It would have been  loyal and brave of
them to be taken also, but it would have left nobody to deal with
"Snape". 

If there were a way to transfer the soul bit from Harry's body to
Sirius's so that Sirius could die instead,  I'm sure Sirius would have
volunteered in a heartbeat. But since the only known way to dislodge a
soul bit from its container is to put the container beyond magical
repair, that wouldn't have helped. 

As for standing back in safety, there  are still going to be many
evils in the world after Voldemort is gone,  so  it might be  a good
thing if as many good  people as possible were left alive to deal with
them. I'm sure Sirius would see the truth in that. He'd rage at the
unfairness of it all, perhaps. But he'd just be like Dudley throwing a
fit because he got two presents less than last year.

Dumbledore has Scenes with lots of people: Snape, Harry, the Dursleys,
Fudge and so on. Why would he be afraid of a scene with Sirius? As he
says, he gets complaints every day about how he runs the school, why
should he be afraid of getting complaints about how he runs the Order? 

Harry and Hermione made a scene when Ron wanted to sacrifice himself
and Ron shut them up: "Do you want to stop Snape or not?" We don't get
the scene with someone trying to stop Harry because we've already had
something similar about a million times.

 
> Pippin:
> <SNIP>
> I think JKR sees individuals as a lot less malleable than you do,
and therefore she sees Dumbledore's machinations, whatever they were,
as more foolish than dangerous. 
> 
> 
> Lizzyben:
> But the machinations actually *work*.

Pippin:
The question is not whether the machinations work, but whether the
truth wouldn't have worked just as well, with a lot less fuss.
Slughorn *does* tell DD to go to hell, figuratively. DD can't get the
memory out of him. Harry does, by telling him the truth, which is even
truer than Harry knows -- he's the Chosen One and he needs that memory. 

Once Snape and Harry learn the truth, they're still willing to do what
Dumbledore asked of them -- doesn't that argue that he could have told
them the truth in the first place, provided  they trusted him enough
to believe it?

We have a problem trusting Dumbledore because we can see the full
extent of his failures and his blind spots. But no one in the books
has such a god's eye view, and most  of his allies have the same blind
spots as he does. 

You'd have to be a bit of a monarchist to trust DD, I suppose, and
IMO, JKR isn't easy with that. I think she makes us see that DD's
followers were just lucky that he really was as dedicated to
overthrowing LV as they thought he was. 

Lizzyben:
  We never see someone in canon  actually stand up to DD.

Pippin:
Lily and James. Fudge. Scrimgeour. Percy. Rita Skeeter. 

Sirius won't give up his grudge against Snape, Snape won't give up his
grudge against James, Harry won't give up his grudge against Draco. 
None of it is in Dumbledore's interest, it drives him up the wall, you
can see, and he can't make it stop.

The Order was outnumbered 20 to one in the first war. Why? If so many
people trusted Dumbledore and hated Voldemort, and Dumbledore is so
good at molding people, why couldn't Dumbledore mold as many as he needed?

As for Dumbledore being a malignant narcissist, they are by definition
incapable of worrying that they'll care about someone too much.

Pippin