Caring about people

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 184547

Alla before:
<SNIP>
I do not know, maybe it is multiple hats Dumbledore wears that to
me means that he is something different from the general.

Pippin:
<SNIP>
If Dumbledore is the best person available to lead Hogwarts and the
best person available to lead the Order, isn't that simply another
tough choice that has to be made? Would Hogwarts or the Order have
been better off with another leader just to make things simpler?

Alla now:
<SNIP>
I definitely was not thinking about simplicity, I was thinking about 
Dumbledore not performing both of his duties well – Headmaster and 
Leader of the Order in my opinion and sometimes those duties being in 
direct conflict also IMO.

But that was an aside anyway, I was trying to figure out why I do not 
see Dumbledore as direct analogy to military general, nothing more. 
Probably him wearing multiple hats is not even the main reason for 
me, I mean I do think he screwed both his kids and Order members more 
than once, but I am not sure if this is the main reason for me not 
seeing the analogy to general.

Pippin:
If Snape thought that Dumbledore was taking unnecessary risks with
Harry's life, he could have said so. He had done so in the past, for
instance when he warned Dumbledore against hiring Lupin.

Alla:

I thought experience taught him that Dumbledore would not listen to 
him anyways ;). He seemed to be very vocal to me about raising Harry 
as pig for slaughter. Did Dumbledore pay that any attention?

I think he realized that if he could not convince alive Dumbledore, 
he certainly could not convince portrait one. 

Alla before:
I think that Dumbledore's telling Snape to leak this information was
**unnecessary** and **stupid**, that's my main beef with this.

Pippin:
I thought we were discussing whether Dumbledore cared about people,
not whether he was smart. But I agree with Carol: if Moody thought
the element of surprise would be enough to keep the watching DE's from
summoning reinforcements in time to overwhelm the Order and destroy
Harry, then he was the stupid one.

Not that Moody is dumb, but even the smartest generals can be behind
the times. I think Moody assumed, based on past experience, that
Voldemort would hesitate before risking open battle in a Muggle area.
But that was wrong.

Alla:
<SNIP>
So your argument is that Moody who thought that they should transport 
Harry without actually **telling DE** when they are going to be doing 
it is wrong? Okay, so here is my question then.

What purpose did the Dumbledore's order to Snape serve? Seriously, I 
consider myself to be an intelligent woman and after more than a year 
of the book being published I still do not understand what legitimate 
purpose it would serve.

By legitimate purpose I mean how exactly telling DE about their plan 
would protect Harry more than, **not telling** DE about the day of 
the operation.

Because you see, I am just not seeing how Dumbledore's plan was 
better. It just seems to me to be a plain common sense that when one 
does covert operation, it is better NOT to tell the enemy what you 
are doing.

Because we do agree that protecting Harry *is* the purpose here, 
right? I mean I also believe that Dumbledore should have been 
concerned with protecting Order members from *avoidable* deaths, but 
I am willing to abandon it for the sake of this argument.
And no, I do not think that Snape getting into more of Voldemort's 
good graces was a legit purpose at all. I thought he was already in 
as good as it gets, and to me is not a good justification at all for 
betraying plan to Voldemort.

BUT I am very interested in hearing how Dumbledore's plan of 
signaling Voldemort what is happening would protect Harry better.

As to being smart, I do believe that stupid plans are also less 
caring plans more often than not.

JMO,

Alla