Harry's alleged debt to Dumbledore and Snape WAS: Re: Chapter Discussion

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 190844

 
> Alla:
> 
> Yes,and? Even events that lead to that famous gleam occurred with no help of Dumbledore, to say that this unequivocally means that Dumbledore wanted Harry to live, I do not know about that.
> 

Pippin:
Yes, and. :)
The gleam shows that Dumbledore considered it a triumph that Harry would be able to live after he'd "died" at the right moment. Does it mean that unequivocally? Well, AFAIK, you are the only person who's asked, so I'd say, yeah, it does. 

DD's contribution was everything he did to keep Harry alive up till  then, including allowing him to face dangers so that when Harry finally did meet a Voldemort who had recovered his full strength, he was able to defend himself and not freeze like he did when he faced Quirrell. 


> 
> Pippin: 
> >  I can see an interpretation of Dumbledore as evil because the reader has different ideas about evil than JKR.  But saying that the text depicts *Harry* as interpreting Dumbledore's actions as evil would mean Harry is depicted as having different ideas about evil than Dumbledore, and where the heck is the canon for that? 
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I think there is plenty of canon when Harry before Kings Cross disagrees and dislikes Dumbledore's actions, but I most certainly agree with you, Harry after Kings cross as IMO Saintly figure does not think that Dumbledore's actions are evil and forgives him for everything. No argument from me here at all.

Pippin:
::has read Alla's post amending this::
Um, I'm confused. King's Cross DD is an evil person who didn't repent, but got forgiven anyway because Harry was too saintly to see the evil in him, or DD is a saintly person whose evil has been forgiven because he repented of it and sinned no more? 

  
> Alla:
> 
> I certainly hope that there are values that Harry has that are different from Dumbledore, like I doubt it is in Harry to become a God of WW and wanting to decide people's fate the way Dumbledore did, I hope Harry will be content to be left alone and let people exercise their free will and not manipulate them so mercilessly. But again I definitely agree that there are a lot of values they have in common.

Pippin:
So, um, ....if DD intervenes, he's playing god, and if he doesn't intervene, he's letting evil go on when he could have stopped it. Just what is it that you think he should have done and how should he have known that it was okay to do it? It seems to me Harry will intervene when it is an emergency and he thinks he can influence events for good, and that is just what Dumbledore did.


 Harry has grown to be a more honest person than Dumbledore ever was-- for one thing he's discovered that he's not that good a liar. But he still trusts the earthly Dumbledore, or what's left of him, because he asks the portrait if he did the right thing about the Resurrection Stone. It's not that he's still  Dumbledore's man, IMO.  But now he's Dumbledore's friend. 

I agree that it would have been a fine thing if the WW had united behind DD or Harry and fought Voldemort together from the start. But we're shown that they  couldn't. Despite the Hat (or maybe because of it) they didn't have a culture of putting their differences aside for the common interest. They couldn't even agree that they *had* a common interest, so every time they tried  to unite they were betrayed, or else they shut out the very people who could have helped them. 

What's worse, Grindelwald (and DD, alas!)  had poisoned the whole concept with  that hypocritical slogan about the greater good. 

Even within the Trio, it's much easier for Harry and Hermione to see that they have to stick together than it is for Ron, who was brought up in the WW. 

The WW knows how to  unite behind its *leaders* -- it idolizes them as Harry once idolized Dumbledore, and so every leader in the WW, not just Dumbledore, is forced to pretend to be what he is not. 

But, the story suggests, only children are meant to idolize their parents and teachers.  If  adults follow a leader it should be because they share his priorities and have observed him closely enough to know what they are. 

Dumbledore pretended about a lot of things, but he never pretended there should be anything more important to him than saving innocent lives. The things he confesses to Harry as wrongs were all times when he let something else take precedence. 


Pippin