CHAPDISC: DH32, The Elder Wand

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 184791

> Montavilla47:

> Now, we don't know that Dumbledore *didn't* do any of those 
> things, so I'm not trying to bash Dumbledore.  He put his priorities
> where he thought they belonged.  
> 
> My point is not that Dumbledore acted wrongly.  My point is that
> the giants were set up to be important to the story.  Not just at 
> the end of GoF, but throughout OotP.  That they were referred to
> at the beginning of HBP, and that Grawp reappeared at the end, 
> only seemed to underscore their importance, since we were 
> being encourage to remember them.

Magpie:
It makes sense to me, what you're saying. The whole "we don't know 
that he didn't do these things" is not really relevent. It's, as 
Sidney said once, like talking about the series as if it's a 
documentary and JKR just didn't have the footage to put things in. 
But that's not how it works. The problem isn't that Dumbledore as a 
man within his own world was bad for not doing these things--that's a 
valid discussion to have, it's just a different one. That's where we 
jump into the universe and imagine what we might have done 
differently.

But I think what you're pointing to here gets into the problem of the 
war in general. JKR is writing a story about Harry. It all comes down 
to him. The war is won the same way the Philosopher's Stone is won--
by Harry following clues and testing himself personally, and making 
the right choice. Unfortunately there's also all these stuff that 
hints at an actual war story: Dumbledore talking about needing 
alliances with giants, or other countries. Lupin spying on 
werewolves. Snape and his mysterious intelligence from the DEs. The 
Order's mysterious doings before DH. It's all people doing war 
business (like a stage business in a play), but there's no war 
written. Characters stay home until Harry needs them and are then 
called in time to provide a background melee in a single building at 
the end. Wherever Harry goes war stuff springs up around him and then 
fades back into unimportance when he leaves.

But that does imo mean there's a lot of things that just go nowhere, 
especially the end of GoF. Even when these groups do come up again, 
like the reference to giants doing stuff in HBP, it's just a 
general "bad things happening for atmosphere" thing. If you think 
logically about world building in this way it gets like a Pensieve 
where you wonder how far Harry could walk away from Snape while in 
Snape's memory before the world ceased to exist, if that makes sense. 
The war only exists so far as it directly affects Harry or Harry will 
directly affect it. It doesn't create tons more complications as 
individual people are touched and react.

-m