[the_old_crowd] Re: Dumbledore

[Catherine Coleman]

In message <bd9oie+pv24 at ...>, naamagatus <naama_gat at ...> 
writes
>--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Aberforth's Goat" <mike at a...>
>wrote:
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><snip>
>> The Reconciliation: Harry meets D with a broken heart and a head
>full of
>> steam. D meets him not with an explanation but with a confession of
>guilt
>> and heartbreak of his own. H realizes that D can make mistakes too -
>but
>> also gets a feeling for how much D cares about him. There is
>forgiveness and
>> reconciliation and shared tears and sunshine in the rain. Tableau.
>>
>
>I have loads I want to say, but don't have the time at the moment. So
>this is just a short complaint on the thing that most bothered me
>most in the book: Dumbledore's trickling tear. I don't mind
>Dumbledore crying, I really don't, but somehow it came out really
>lame. His whole confession was so whiney, somehow. Where was the
>twinkly eyed, confidence inspiring Dumbledore? Surely he could have
>said all he had to say without sounding so  - I don't know - self
>pitying? It left a very bad taste in my mouth, in any case. Am I the
>only one who feels this way?
>
>Naama (who didn't say before, but is very chaffed at being invited to
>join the group - thanks a lot! :-) )

Ditto on the no time - but before I write an essay length post on this - 
yes, Dumbledore *did* annoy me.  In fact, I'm quite furious with him 
over the events in OoP.   If he has been keeping such a close eye on 
Harry over the past four years, then why doesn't he seem to understand 
Harry's character better?    He should understand how difficult Harry 
finds taking anything on trust - even from him.  He should understand 
that Harry has a problem going to the adults for help - and in this 
case, that Harry would find it difficult going to Snape, given his and 
Sirius' relationship with the same. He should have understood that Harry 
would want justification for making him take the occlumency lessons,  He 
should know - and I hope he's learnt from this - that feeding 
information to Harry on a "need to know" basis is a recipe for disaster 
- particularly when he is totally wrong about what Harry needs to know. 
Yes, Harry is stubborn, and *we* know that Harry should trust Dumbledore 
(or do we, now?), but Harry doesn't know that, and Dumbledore should 
have realised that by now.  There are reasons why we should be angry 
with Harry over the death of Sirius, which is for another post, but at 
the moment, most of my anger is directed at Dumbledore.

Catherine