varying views of characters

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 190892


Alla:

You know, one can argue that he did handed Harry to Voldemort when it suited his plans ;). Remember triwizard Tournament? Remember how everybody thought that Dumbledore should withdraw Harry and there were those mysterious rules that he supposedly cannot withdraw. Did anybody doubt that Dumbledore could withdraw him if he actually wanted to? So here we go, while even as a joke I will not claim that Dumbledore predicted Cedric's death and went along with him (although I personally would not put it past him), Dumbledore could have avoided Harry's ordeal and did not do so.

June:
I think some people need to re read and understand the books. Dumbledore was not evil, he was one of the good guys. The villain in these books is Voldemort. If you want to create a headmaster who is the villain, you should write your own book. Personally I am getting tired of this crap too.



Sherry:

One of the wondrous things about the Harry Potter books is how differently we can all see the characters.  Sure, Voldemort was the villain, but some of us do not see the other "good guys" as so great, just because they were opposed to Voldemort.

During the series, we spent probably hundreds of hours speculating on Snape for instance.  Was he evil, was he good, or was he somewhere in between?  The opinions expressed on that subject alone were fierce.  Now, the series is over, and we know Snape was trying to protect Harry all along.  Did those of us who didn't like Snape suddenly think of him as a good guy?  Not necessarily.  Personally, I came away thinking he only did it for lily's sake, but that he still did, and that's good.  But I still felt he was a miserable mean person who was abusive to children he was supposed to be teaching.  Is that what JKR wanted me to think, I don't know.

It was the same with Sirius, the Dursleys and several other characters.  We on this list debated constantly over their motives, and still didn't always have the straight of it by the end.

As for Dumbledore, in the beginning of the series, about through book three, I liked him so much.  I thought he was the ultimate good guy of the series, next to Harry, the epitome of goodness, as JKR said.  But as the series progressed, and particularly by the end of Deathly Hallows, I lost a lot of respect for Dumbledore.

Was he a villain?  No, he's not the villain.  But is he the epitome of goodness in my view?  No way.  He did what he had to do for the so-called greatest good, but as someone who loved Harry above all other characters, that didn't make Dumbledore into a hero.  

I got the impression through the series that Dumbledore was what I called, the King of second chances and of believing the best in many characters.  Yet, he stood back and let Sirius go to Azkaban without a trial, without doing anything to discover the truth.  He let Harry live with abusive unloving people all his life.  I didn't really care about the blood protection either way, because I could only think of Harry's miserable unloved childhood.  I probably feel a lot like Molly Weasley might about that.  He didn't tell Harry the truth about the prophecy till it was too late, till it got Sirius killed.  He let Snape be a mean bully to his students.

And yes, he did good things too, and he fought till he died to get rid of Voldemort.  I know it's a hero's journey type of story, so Harry had to be the one, had to be left alone with no adult parental figure of his own, had to be willing to die.  But that doesn't mean I have to approve of all the things that got him there or the people in his life who got him there.

Dumbledore had one purpose throughout the series, to prepare Harry to destroy Voldemort.  He was willing to sacrifice anything and anyone else, and Harry, to achieve that goal.  That makes him probably a very strong leader, but it doesn't mean I have to like him or think of him as a great and noble man either.  He just is what he is.

I think one of the great things about *all* the characters in the story, is that none of them, except for Voldemort, were truly all good or all bad.  Most of the bad guys were not always terrible--look at the Malfoys in the last book--and none of the good guys was always good.  I guess that's why I like them so much and why the books are so special to me.

sherry