varying views of characters

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191120


> Alla:
> 
> Yes, "trusted the wrong person" I understand perfectly. That to me does not equal "helped him to betray them". Oh, I see, we are arguing semantics here. Yes, ok, I can agree with "unwillingly helped him to betray them". Surely you will not argue that they wanted to be betrayed?

Pippin:
I am arguing that they wanted Dumbledore and others to believe that Sirius was the secret-keeper, and they took steps to see that this happened. Do we agree? 

The game was not "We won't tell anyone who the secret-keeper is and people will assume it's Sirius." The game was "We'll make Voldemort  and his spies think the secret-keeper is Sirius." We don't know everything they did to further the illusion, but Sirius himself was planning to go into hiding,as he said in PoA,  and would have had to tell Dumbledore that.

 
> Alla:
> 
> Yes, sure they were after all of this happened, how does this contradicts my point that Dumbledore did not help Sirius and did everything he could to harm him?

Pippin:
I still am not sure why you think  Dumbledore should have wanted to protect the person whom he believed had betrayed the Order. Are you saying he should have been like James and refused to believe that anyone he trusted could betray him? Would that have been wise, considering his experience with Grindelwald? 


> Alla:
> 
> Ah, I see. Basically you are saying that Sirius confessed because he did not want to give some information to the Ministry because it can be infiltrated by enemy?

Pippin:
Almost. 
I don't think Sirius confessed, ever.  I think he refused to say anything. Fudge visited him in Azkaban, and Sirius only asked for his newspaper so he could do the crossword, IIRC. 

Alla:
But again what does this has to do with anything I said?  The only information Sirius could have given to the Ministry to try to make his case if he was allowed, was the information about Secret keeper and the switch. How was this information a secret that was worth protecting because of loyalty  to the Order? The idea that spell itself was worth protecting was the only one I could see, but since this was not it, I am at loss here. 

Pippin:
The Order of the Phoenix is a secret organization, and Order business is not supposed to be discussed with others. Not at all. Not even with your own children, let along Ministry representatives who might be Death Eaters. 

It is not Sirius's job to decide what Order business can be safely discussed. Dumbledore can decide to do it, as head of the Order. Sirius does not have that right, not only out of loyalty to Dumbledore but to all the other members of the Order.

> Alla:
> 
> Huh? So whose fault would that have been? Maybe Dumbledore's who demanded such a meeting?

Pippin:
Are you saying James only used the cloak to meet with Dumbledore? It doesn't sound like it.  From Lily's letter : "James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell--also, Dumbledore's still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much." - DHch 10

James and Lily were so off their guard that James left his wand behind when he ran to defend his family -- I hate to think what Mad-eye would have said. And you think James would have thought of the cloak? 

 
> > > Alla:
> > > 
> > > But thats my point. I have to constantly remind myself that this is the magical hand of the author doing the things like Dumbledore letting Sirius rot in prison because Harry needs to grow up alone and unloved, or not letting Dumbledore check on Harry *once* for that very reason, because laws of genre demand so. It is a bit tiresome. It is MUCH easier to see Dumbledore as chessmaster, because then I do not need to think of the author and her pulling strings, if that makes sense.  

> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> But we had been told over and over and over that Harry IS important to his plans, you consider them good, I consider them sinister, but Harry is important to him, this is a fact. If Dumbledore could not afford to let anybody know, maybe he should have been more careful about bringing McGonagall and Hagrid there in the first place. If Dumbledore could not afford to let anybody know, maybe he should not have placed that mockery of the helper who did not do anything to help Harry at all near by?

Pippin:

Dumbledore trusted Hagrid with his life, and McGonagall showed up uninvited,  looking for Dumbledore to see if the rumors about Lily and James were true. But she's not very impressed with the arrangements Dumbledore has made for the baby -- to her it looks highly irresponsible to trust Hagrid, much less a  clueless Muggle family, with a baby. Exactly as Dumbledore wants it to look.

Mrs. Figg is a Squib and the Ministry was completely unaware of her  until the trial in OOP, where she helped Harry quite a bit. 

The trouble with your theory is that it isn't even internally consistent, much less consistent with canon. It gets rid of the long hand of the author, only to replace it with the long hand of Alla. :)

Alla: 
> But regardless, the reason that he could not afford to let anybody know is not enough for me to let Harry be abused. The damn protection is already in place and not going to break if Dumbledore is going to check on him <snip>

Pippin:
You've made it plain there is *no* reason that is enough to let Harry be abused, even if it's a choice between that and death, or rather, you refuse to believe it was a choice between that and death. Trouble is, JKR has set the story in a "cold equations" kind of universe, and so people have to make those kinds of choices. Even Harry does. 

He thinks to himself, as he's preparing for the raid on Gringotts,  that he is proving as reckless a godfather to Teddy as Sirius was to him. But his alternative (to getting himself killed and leaving Teddy to  the indifferent hands of strangers) is to let Teddy grow up in a world where Voldemort is master. And that is unthinkable. 

  I sympathize with not wanting the story to be that way. While I still read the stories with enjoyment, and find myself picking up a book to check something only to find I can't put it down, I don't turn to the books for solace anymore, and I think that's why. 

But as for Dumbledore, I see him as trying not to repeat the mistake he made with Arianna. The thought of her  in an institution, lonely and unloved, was so painful that he refused to see how much danger she was in at home,  much less along with him on his adventures. 

To deprive Harry of his best chance of life itself because it will break Dumbledore's heart to think of him suffering  -- do you not see how self-indulgent that would be? 

Pippin