Dumbledore versus General Iroh SPOILERS for Avatar the Last airbender LONG

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 184725

> 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.

Magpie:
I didn't say it was bad people consulted his portrait once or twice. 
DH simply shows Dumbledore's plans and following them and 
Dumbledore's manipulations while Avatar is NOT about Iroh behaving 
the same way. It's a contrast. I prefer Iroh as a character and think 
the kids on Avatar develop better, but that's my reaction to the far 
bigger issue of the whole narrative structure and the way the 
characters are used than just somebody asking Dumbledore's portrait 
something.

Pippin: 
> 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.  

Magpie:
I wasn't particularly thinking of the revenants as pawns to begin 
with. They only show up once to cheer Harry on when he's already 
following the plan which turns out to be right. 

Pippin: 
> 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. 

Magpie:
So Dumbledore manipulates again by "allowing" Harry to think that he 
betrayed him, and Harry decides by himself to follow Dumbledore. It 
has nothing to do with making people believe anything. Dumbledore 
manipulates and witholds information and is also right. 

Pippin: 
> Iroh sounds like more of a wish fulfillment figure than Dumbledore. 

Magpie:
Well, he isn't any more of a wish fulfillment figure than Dumbledore 
however he sounds (not sure how he sounds so much more wish-
fulfilling). He's just a mentor who doesn't operate like Dumbledore 
within the story or as a character. 

Pippin: 
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.

Magpie:
The younger characters don't need to get rid of too much prideful 
reluctance or admit mistakes made. Harry's prideful arrogance didn't 
come into contact with a Peter Pettigrew is the main difference. 
Harry follows Dumbledore's hints which turn out to be right but Harry 
is also inherently better, just the way he was in PS, it still seems 
to me. 

Also "successful experienced older generation passing the torch to 
the gallant but callow younger one" is not describing Iroh and Zuko 
it doesn't really apply. 

-m