Dumbledore versus General Iroh SPOILERS for Avatar the Last airbender LONG

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184723

Magpie: 
> So my point is just that unlike with HP where despite some nods to 
> Dumbledore's fallibility everybody listens to him and his plans even
 after he's dead, 

Pippin:


I do not see what is so bad about consulting Dumbledore's portrait
after he's dead. A lot of respected philosophers and sages are dead --
does that mean we ignore their wisdom? But Dumbledore does not run
Harry's show right to the end.

As I mentioned to someone offlist, the revenants conjured by the
Resurrection Stone are not Dumbledore's pawns. Dead or alive he has no
way to control who Harry will summon, or what advice they will give.
They could have told Harry how to escape, like the wand shadows did in
GoF.  

Dumbledore gave up his  emotional hold by allowing Harry to think
that he betrayed him. If Harry was still guiding himself by what
Dumbledore wanted done, it was because of his belief in
Dumbledore's ideals, not Dumbledore himself. And that was Harry's
choice, not Dumbledore's.

He could manipulate belief where it existed, he could take advantage
of someone's need to believe, but I do not see in canon that
Dumbledore could *make* people believe anything, except by enchantment. 


Iroh sounds like more of a wish fulfillment figure than Dumbledore. In
HP it isn't a case of the successful experienced older generation
passing the torch to the gallant but callow younger one. It's an older
generation that failed because of intolerance and mistrust, passing
the torch to a younger generation that succeeds, just barely.  
Harry's generation avoided the worst mistakes of its elders, very
hampered by its elders' prideful reluctance to admit that
any mistakes were made, and its own youthful need to have
uncomplicated heroes (and villains) to believe in.

Pippin