Dumbledore as shameless manipulator redux LONG

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 188993



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:
>
> Pippin:
> <SNIP>
> 
> "I've got to go back, haven't I?"
> "That is up to you."
> "I've got a choice?"
> "Oh yes"
> 
> 
> It is Harry's choice to ask Dumbledore whether he wants Harry to go back. 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> But of course it is Harry's choice, it is just same as Harry's choosing to go into Forest, I think relying on Dumbledore is what Harry was trained to do.

Carol notes:

But Harry doesn't ask, "Do you want me to go back, sir?" He asks whether he *has* to go back, to which Dumbledore (in true Wizard style) says neither yes nor no. He says that it's up to Harry, who makes sure that he understands that he has a choice, to which DD emphatically responds "yes."

Does he have to go back? No, he doesn't. It's his choice. And that choice is either to stay where it's calm and light and wait for the next great adventure, taking himself out of the action, letting others die and suffer the loss of loved ones (and risking really dying this time, which he now knows wouldn't be all that terrible), or going back and doing something to help others. And we know that Harry always chooses action.

He could stay behind with Dumbledore if he wanted to, but he's not really tempted. He'd rather do what his instinct tells him to do and what, I agree, Dumbledore has trained him to do.

On a side note, imagine what Harry's life would have been like if DD had not allowed him to *choose* to go after the Sorcerer's Stone or *choose* to enter the Chamber of Secrets or *choose* to save Sirius (and Buckbeak) or enter the TWT (admittedly, not a choice though DD could probably have pulled strings to withdraw Harry) or *choose* to go with him to obtain the supposed Horcrux in the cave (in which case DD would have died horribly like poor Regulus Black). All of those experiences, risky and dangerous as they were, prepared Harry for what he had to do, teaching him certain kinds of magic and sometimes giving him glimpses of Voldemort's psychology and power but mostly letting him test his courage and ingenuity to prepare for the final confrontation.

Imagine Harry, who knows that Voldemort has been trying to kill him since he was a baby, not hearing about the Prophecy, not going with DD into the Pensieve, not doing all the things that I mentioned in the previous paragraph, just getting the same education as, say, Justin Finch-Fletchley or even James Potter twenty years before.

Dumbledore has done everything he can to prove to Harry that Harry is brave and resourceful, and in the process, Harry has twice survived direct encounters with Voldemort, one of them unplanned by DD, the other at a point when LV is almost helpless and DD, I am sure, did not really intend to leave him on his own. (Yes, let him solve the riddles with the hope of his friends, but don't leave him on his own to confront Quirrelmort. DD, not being omniscient, didn't anticipate a false message that sent him away from the castle--which, BTW, foreshadows Harry's falling for a similar trick in OoP and mitigates Harry's gullibility a bit since the great DD was also fooled.

At any rate, I think it would have been entirely wrong for DD to leave Harry alone. First, he sets up the blood protection (better life with unloving Muggles than death at the hands of Voldemort's followers since Harry's whereabouts would certainly not have been hidden by those who were proudly rearing him (life on the run with Sirius, another alternative, would have been difficult and probably brief--imagine word spreading through the WW that a dog Animagus was taking care of a little boy with a scar).

Second, he *allows* Harry to *choose* to obtain the skills he needs and, more important, to test his courage and find out that fighting Dark magic is not a matter of skills and wisdom so much as instinctively choosing to fight with the right resources. (Of course, luck plays a part, too--neither DD nor Harry could have anticipated the actions of Harry's wand in GoF or the escape from Privet Drive in HBP).

Carol, who does not hate Dumbledore but does regard him as arrogant and egotistical