Naughty, Guilty! DD ( was Connecting the dots

[nkafkafi]

> Talisman wrote <snipped>:
> Here is the important implication: the DD we see in CoS is a  bmf 
> wizard, in full stride, who 1) has just kicked, 2) is kicking, or, 
> 3) is about to kick,  serious evil-wizard hiney.  Not someone to be 
> flummoxed by a snotty 16- year-old wannabe.
> 

Neri:
It's a snotty 16- year-old who, by that age, had already located the
chamber that learned wizards failed to find in thousand years. It's
the snotty 16- year-old who recorded his memories in a magic diary
that can take over people and resurrect the original. Terrible, but
great. 

The Grindelwald factor could be equally argued the other way: maybe DD
was too busy defeating the big evil wizard, and thus failed to give
enough attention to the younger but more dangerous evil wizard.

> 
> Neri responded to Kneasy:
> >However, the same "free will" of the wands would make it
> >difficult for Dumbledore to orchestrate the whole thing in the first
> >place. It's certainly not an accident, but canon points at fate (or,
> >in the meta level, JKR) rather than at Dumbledore.
> 
> Talisman: 
> Egads, Neri. Let's see if I can follow this argument.  The wand 
> exercises free will according to the wizard's fate, proving that DD 
> is not in the mix?  If FAITH whispered any of that to you, it's time 
> to trot her over to a rehab program. 
> 

Neri:
You may have noticed that I wrote "free will" in quotes, referring to
Ollivander's words that "the wand chooses the wizard". I don't think I
need to explain further, since your next paragraph shows you got my
meaning.

> Talisman:
> You're right about the truism: everything in HPverse happens at 
> JKR's pleasure.  However, this is a stronger argument for DD's 
> involvement, than not.  The fact that JKR decided that DD's phoenix 
> would provide two, and only two, wand cores, and that these wands 
> would go to two little "orphan" boys whose futures DD has so 
> obviously engineered, is a powerful nexus. The logic points to JKR 
> involving DD, uh--sorry--right to the core of the matter.
> 

Neri:
There is indeed *one* detail here that suggests an involvement of DD:
the fact that the feathers came from *his* phoenix. But generally,
shouting "this can't be a coincidence! Things have obviously been
arranged!" is not a strong argument for DD's involvement. We know that
Herself arranges everything, and she's writing a story in which
prophecies play a crucial role. And even worse than the prophecies are
the themes. I'm sure you've noticed that JKR has a theme about Tom and
Harry being very similar in their abilities, with only their choices
differentiating them. The Sorting Hat is one autonomous magical device
that noticed this similarity. The brother wands seem to be another. DD
engineering the wands would undermine this theme. 

BTW, the Sorting Hat is even better connected with DD than the wands
are - it practically lives in his office. So maybe Dumbledore also
arranged for the Sorting Hat to tell Harry he would do well in
Slytherin? Hmm. With a bit more subversive reading like this we might
be able to dispense with that wretched theme completely. Except that
Faith doesn't recommend betting against big themes when you theorize
about future books. She says that when a main theme and a theory
collide head on, it's usually the theory that goes under.

> Talisman:
> The entirety of your "canon" contra is Olivander's statement about 
> the wand choosing the wizard.  There is zero information regarding 
> the criteria wands use to make this choice.  

Neri:
Exactly. We know next to nothing about how wands work (except for
irrelevant details such as what wood they are made of). How *should*
muggles like us know anything about Potterverse wands? So maybe this
is why JKR arranged for The Expert to debrief us early on regarding
the pertinent facts. It's a thing that authors do, especially in
fantasy books.

Ollivander's words sound to me like Important Information Supplied By
The Author. He first tells us that "it's the wand that chooses the
wizard" *before* Harry starts to try the wands, during his
introductory lecture about general properties of wands, and
immediately adds the easy "of course" of a knowledgeable expert. Then
he repeats the same statement *after* the brother wand chooses Harry,
and adds "remember" to make sure the significance is not lost on us.
As a clue for a conspiracy this seems a bit overdone and pretty dumb
of Ollivander as a fellow conspirator. But as Introduction To Key
Properties Of Potterverse Wands it's exactly right.     

> Talisman: 
>  If you can see where the wands "keep their brains," Neri, let me 
> know. I can't.  

Neri:
Egads, Talisman. The Potterverse is practically crawling with magical
devices that have some limited AI capabilities pertaining to their
function. Some of them can respond to the thoughts of the user, and
many have a tendency to develop some mind of their own. Brooms jump
when you say "up", but apparently not when they feel you are afraid of
them. Rita Skeeter's Quoting Quill embellishes boring details.
Portraits argue with you and insult you. Mirrors tell you to "tuck
your shirt, scruffy!" At least one mirror can show you your heart
desire. Even Ollivander's tape measure shows an interest in Harry's
nostrils, and it doesn't have much room for a brain either. I really
don't expect wands to be different.

> Talisman:
> Let's not quibble.  The relevant point is that DD knew and did 
> nothing about it.

Neri:
Did DD know about Tom opening the chamber? I'd like some canon for
that other than a penetrating stare. Tom was good enough at 16 to
create the diary, which strikes me as very advanced magic. He may also
have been good enough to teach himself Occlumency. Maybe DD was
suspicious because he could not peek into Tom's mind, but he couldn't
prove anything, and apparently there's no law against a bright student
guarding the privacy of his mind from a nosy teacher. Also, IMO the
plot would be rather boring if Gary Stu Dumbledore could always read
the mind of the evil wizard.

BTW, do you suppose that Dumbledore just failed to give James and the
rest of the marauders some penetrating stares? Even after the prank?
Is that why they had managed to keep the animagi thing secret from
him, as he readily admitted? But you'll probably say that Dumbledore
just lied about that too.
 
You know, the thing I have about those Puppetmaster/guilty!DD theories
is that they remind me of an annoying riddle I heard in kindergarten.
I'm sure this riddle has equally annoying parallels in the USA,
Britain and each of the 3000 different cultures of New Guinea, but the
Israeli version goes like this: What's green, hanged and squeaking?
The answer is (don't hold your breath): it's a smoked kipper. It's
green because I painted it and it's hanged because I hanged it. What?
Oh, the squeaking? I just lied about the squeaking part.
 
I surely hope JKR is writing a better mystery than that. Ollivander is
our main authority on Potterverse wands. If he just lies to us, then
JKR can get away with anything. Similarly, DD is our main source of
information regarding the heart-of-it-all mystery. If he just lies to
us, then the solution to the heart-of-it-all mystery can be a smoked
kipper, or anything as arbitrary and annoying. It would be far too
easy for JKR to bring off such a thing, and it's far too easy for the
theorist to weave any story he/she likes.

> Talisman:
> When Dumbledore asks Harry whether he would like to tell DD anything 
> relevant to the attacks, Harry lies (CoS 209)  but we already 
> suspect that DD's "light, bright, sparkling" blue eyes are more than 
> charming facial features. (PS/SS 8)  The way Harry's mind then 
> begins to flit from one relevant thing to another has suggested to 
> many people, way before Book 5,  that DD was going through Harry's 
> mind like filing cabinet.  
> 

Neri:
Snape would have probably sneered and told you that you have no
subtlety. "The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined
at leisure". I suspect it's not a filing cabinet either.

> Talisman:
> Inasmuch as only the heir of Slytherin can open the Chamber, and 
> Slytherin's only heir is Tom, DD has a thunderous bit of evidence to 
> point at Riddle.  

Neri:
Unless he discovered about Tom's heritage only years later.

> Talisman: 
> Yet what does DD convince Dippet, to do?
>  1) Keep Hagrid on the school grounds;
>  2) Let him have/keep the freaking keys to the castle; ( PS/SS 49 )
>  3) Insure his access to the Forbidden Forest, with all it's lethal 
> creatures, including the precious Aragog; and, 
> 4) while your at it, pay him to fool around with whatever magical 
> beasts might be at hand.
> 
> I'd love to hear how DD put this over.  `Course, Dippet was a dip.

Neri:
When Hagrid says: "I – er – got expelled
 but Dumbledore let me stay
on as gamekeeper" this is apparently the shortened version of things.
Actually, Molly remembers Ogg, who was "the gamekeeper before Hagrid"
(GoF, Ch. 31, p. 617 US) although she was at Hogwarts 10 – 20 years
after Hagrid was expelled. It thus seems that Dippet only appointed
Hagrid to be Ogg's apprentice for many years. Quite logical, as Hagrid
was only 13 or 14 years old when he was expelled. It seems Hagrid was
promoted to gamekeeper only after Molly left Hogwarts. My guess would
be that it happened in the beginning of the 70's when DD became
headmaster.

Neri