Thestral / Acromantula / Albus / Baby on Doorstep / Albus / Snape / Albus

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184336

Pippin wrote:
> 
> << But wizard-born children won't have seen Fantasia and wouldn't
have our preconceived idea about what a black flying horse ought to
look like. >>

Catlady responded: 
> But many of them will have seen non-invisible flying horses, such as
flying palominos, the Abraxan breed that that pulls the Beauxbatons
carriage, so they will have the preconceived idea that a black flying
horse looks like the other kinds of flying horse, except for its color. 
> 
> (It never before occurred to me to wonder if Abraxas Malfoy and
Abraxan flying horses were named after each other. They could be named
after him if it were he who established the breed. He could be named
after them if his parents were really into them.) <snip>


Carol notes:

I found this online. Don't know how authoritative it is:

"Abraxas (Malfoy) - The supreme Gnostic Deity. Had the body of a man,
the head of a cock, and serpents for feet. This image depicts him
holding a shield and whip. In some stories, he is referred to as a
demon. It is believed "Abra-cadabra" originated from his name."

And from the same site:

"Abraxan (Powerful flying horse, mentioned in Fantastic Beasts) -
Abraxus was the name of a flying horse that pulled Helios, the sun
god's chariot through the sky in Greco-Roman mythology."

It looks as if "Abraxas" and "Abraxan" aren't related.


Carol earlier:
> 
> << not just his (hypocritical) lack of sympathy for Snape, who was
worried about Lily but not about James or their son. Considering that
DD (snip) indifferent to the suffering and deaths of unknown people if
he could only keep Harry safe >>

Catlady responded: 
> DD intended his concern for the suffering and deaths of unknown
future people to be expressed by raising Harry with brainwashing and
manipulation to be a suicide weapon against LV. 
> 
> He expected to feel no guilt or compassion or qualms about this
because because he would feel emotionally attached only to his Plan,
not to the child right there in front of him. 
> 
> I think his willingness to sacrifice the child in front of him as
long as his Plan succeeded, is a better parallel to young Snape not
caring whether James and baby Harry died as long as Lily lived, than
is his willingness to risk the Plan in order to let Harry thrive for a
couple of years of semi-normal childhood.

Carol again:
Regardless of which is the better parallel, all of them are instances
of his (apparent) indifference to the lives of others. And I'm not
sure about any emotional attachment to his plan; I think it's purely
intellectual, just like his plans for world domination at not quite
eighteen. The reason I cited that parallel (which you snipped) is that
it occurred before he expressed disgust at young Snape's indifference
to the fate of two people. Another example could be young DD's
indifference to Ariana's plight--not her life, admittedly, but he
already knew that she was a danger to others and perhaps to himself.
And perhaps he had already started manipulating Order members before
he took Snape to task, not to mention that he immediately took
advantage of Severus's desperation and expressed willingness to do
"anything" to protect Lily by placing him in the gravest danger. He
hadn't yet placed baby Harry with the Dursleys or started planning to
raise him, in Snape's words, as "a pig to the slaughter," so we can
charge him with hypocrisy there except after the fact. I was trying to
find examples of DD's indifference to the lives of others that would
be applicable at the time he spoke to Snape, not afterwards. Actually,
I think Ariana alone would suffice--his plans for world domination
were more important to him than his sister's care and well-being (and
his brother's for that matter), whereas the life of the girl Severus
loved was more important to him than the lives of her husband and
child (which he ended up also begging DD to protect--not to mention
that he spent the rest of his life protecting Harry for Lily's sake
even after she died). He feels and expresses immediate remorse for his
part in Lily's predicament and death such as we don't see from
Dumbledore until the cave scene, nearly one hundred years after his
infatuation with Grindelwald and world domination resulted in Ariana's
death. (It doesn't matter who actually killed her; Albus's neglect
placed her in jeopardy.) What business does he have calling a young,
repentant Death Eater disgusting?

I don't hate Dumbledore, thanks to "King's Cross," but his hypocrisy
in the scene where he calls young Snape disgusting is, well,
disgusting. And I don't care for his tendency to praise his own
intelligence and underplay other people's contributions, either. As i
I told Alla, it's not just this scene that I find disturbing. It's the
side of Dumbledore revealed by Snape's memories of DD in "the Prince's
Tale" and, to a lesser degree, in Aberforth's reminiscences, that
caused me to lose almost all respect and affection for him.

Catlady:
> I question whether DD really felt disgust when he said 'You disgust
me'. Whether he felt it or not, he said it to manipulate young Snape.
This is the DD who sent trusting adults on what they didn't know were
suicide missions all the time without feeling nauseated or
grief-stricken and expected to do the same with little Harry as I
mentioned in my above comment to Carol. Not a whole lot of visceral
compassion and empathy.

Carol responds:
I agree that he was manipulating Severus, but I think he actually did
feel disgust, perhaps not realizing how great his own indifference to
the suffering and death of anonymous people was. the mere fact that
young Snape had joined the Death Eaters contributed to that disgust,
hypocritical though it was. He could also see that young Snape's
suffering and repentance were real and he used that suffering to his
own, or his cause's, advantage. I'm not so sure about his sending
trusting adults on a suicide mission, though. Mad-eye and the others
knew that they were risking their lives. As Sirius Black said,
prophetically, as it turns out, there are some causes worth dying for.
You don't join an organization like the Order and accept the missions
DD sends you on without knowing (as Snape did went he went to LV at
the end of GoF and when he killed DD and no doubt on numerous other
occasions) that you could might not come back from that mission.

I guess I see DD as calculating, manipulative, secretive, egotistical,
and hypocritical but not quite as cold and unfeeling as you make him
sound. In fact, your version of Dumbledore sounds like Milton's Satan:
"Evil, be thou my good."

Carol, who sees DD as seriously flawed but not monstrous