*Spoiler* So did you wind up thinking Dumbledore

[XemaSab]

was sort of a jerk? :shrug:

[fizzgig]

1. don't know about jerk

but definitely arrogant in some ways

[GirlinContempt]

2. no

[XemaSab]

3. Why not?

:shrug:

[GirlinContempt]

5. Cause, I knew he was human already

and I knew he wouldn't end up bad.

[realisticphish]

4. flawed

but in the end, he really meant well, and his plan pretty much worked

[LearnedHand]

6. Yeah, a little

Maybe "jerk" is a little strong, but I ended up wishing he had not hidden so many of his flaws from Harry, especially RE: Dumbledore's sister. To have told Harry some of that wouldn't have caused Dumbledore's plan RE: Voldemort to fail.

[XemaSab]

7. I thought Snape had a point

when he accused Dumbledore of raising Harry like a pig for slaughter. :P

[LearnedHand]

8. I thought so, too, a little

Again, it's too harsh, when put that way, but I childishly felt my admiration for him collapse a bit. I think his character was so much liker Merlin's that We, the reader, weren't altogether prepared for him to be just a flawed (but powerfully magical) human.

[Kutjara]

9. I think fleshing out his backstory and giving him some large...

...flaws made him more human. Prior to that, he came across as a sort of bumbling Gandalf, full of secret wisdom and foreknowledge, wrapped in a cuddly coating. Now, though, he's someone who made mistakes in his youth, thought he'd grown out of the character traits that caused the problems, only to realize he hadn't. His tragic flaw remained with him, just waiting for the opportunity to bite him again. Feels very familiar to me.

I like Dumbledore much better as flawed creation.

[XemaSab]

10. I won't say I don't like him better

but I will say that he came off as a jerk.

[Lisa]

20. even Gandalf slipped up sometimes ...

Tolkien must have been tempted to write about a perfect character (after all, Gandalf isn't strictly human), but he realized that it makes the story a lot less interesting. (Eddison's heroes tend to be so much larger than life that it's hard to identify with them, and they don't seem to have been transformed at all by the end of the book.)

Personally, I like the 20th-century fantasies that give even the heroic characters some recognizable flaws. It gives them somewhere to go, in terms of story and character development -- for example, Taran in Lloyd Alexander's books. Evidently, Dumbledore learned and changed during his life -- this happens to all of us, in both good and bad ways.

One of my favorite books is Carol Kendall's "The Whisper of Glocken" -- she deliberately starts with an assortment of hard-to-like people, who are surprised and dismayed when they find out that the much-idolized heroes they've admired from afar are incompetent and annoying as they are themselves! And yet both groups somehow manage to accomplish brave feats.

[Danger Mouse]

11. Yeah.

Just like Sirius :D

[mzteris]

12. No.

Jerk is pretty harsh.

We all screw up.

We all make mistakes.

ESPECIALLY in our youth.

And yeah - in our old age, too. Especially when it comes to trying to PROTECT our YOUTH. (You want to protect them from the same bs you went through, but that ain't gonna happen any time soon, now is it? Though still we try. :sigh: )



James and Sirius came off as jerks in their youth, though. Yeah. Snapes? He's probably easiest of all to understand.

[graywarrior]

13. Fuck no....it's cool he had flaws and imperfections.

[XemaSab]

14. Like not telling Harry he had to die?

:shrug:

[graywarrior]

19. Yeah. Like that.

Shit, the nuns told me sex was bad. That's way worse than what Albus told Harry.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. not at all. i think he is a wonderful man. he has flaws but so do all humans.

[kay1864]

16. Well, I definitely had a change of heart

Ditto Snapes' "pig led to slaughter" comment above. Dumbledore became a bit tarnished after I read Snapes' memories.

Both died before their time. One as a result of greed, and the other as a result of unswerving loyalty.

[I Have A Dream]

17. No. n/t

[MorningGlow]

18. No, just feet of clay

Seeing Dumbledore as the benevolent, all-knowing, lovable, protective, and sometimes silly headmaster for all these years, it was a bit tough to take all those other details we learn in DH (just like it was for Harry), but it all came right in the end. But first we had to go from seeing him as a two-dimensional character to three-dimensional. Most authors would have left someone like Dumbledore as a "perfect being". As a writer myself, I thought JKR did it very well.

[Lisa]

21. I thought it was interesting that Dumbledore fell into the "end justifies the means" trap

He was so idealistic that he supported someone who was quite ruthless and cruel -- and even afterwards, he still retained some remnants of this (concealing things from Harry and Severus, etc.). I know that this concept has been explored before by many writers (George Orwell, Joseph Conrad, etc.) but given human history, it needs to be retold as often as possible.

[XemaSab]

22. Interesting interpretation...

There are many ways to look at the meta-narrative, and that is certainly a valid way to interpret the actions of everyone involved. :D

[Lisa]

23. I want to re-read the part where Hermione seems to be endorsing "the end justifies the means"

I have lent my book to someone else, but I seem to remember that she does say words to that effect (though she qualifies it a bit). Given her past background (founding SPEW, etc.) I figured there had to be something fairly significant going on there, or JKR wouldn't have put it in there.

[ashling]

24. no

I think that JKR rounded things out very well. Dumbledore had flaws, like do most humans, muggle or wizard.

[deadparrot]

25. Of course he had flaws,

and I'm glad they didn't paint him as a saint, but I did have some trouble getting over the fact that he essentially treated Harry, as Snape said, "like a pig for slaughter." I don't mind the stuff about his past, but keeping that information to himself, especially after Dumbledore knew that he (Dumbledore) was going to die and wouldn't get the chance otherwise, seemed extremely dishonest.

[noshenanigans]

26. no no no!

He was human! (er, spoilers?)

Ok, in my mind he had the same kind of urges anyone else would- but some people would want the ressurection stone, others the cloak, but he wanted power. Not surprising, gien his upbringing. He even mastered the Elder wand, but it couldnt' bring Adriana back and so he realized that wasn't what he "really" wanted. According to the Mirror of Erised, he just wanted his family to be together, and happy. He was really young and given a lot of responsibility by having to be the "head of household", of course Aberforth was bitter. It was good that Harry fought the urge to get all the Hallows just to have them.. that's what makes him special, I guess.

I love these books, so much. I cried, just because it ended. Well, ok, I cried for the last 100 pages, but boy it was good.