It would have been really nice if JKR had put this in the book then, because it would mitigate what a lot of people see as one of AD's biggest fuckups.

 

Dumbledore is not just not God, he had very little power to influence things[1]. It doesn't matter how what happened at Godric's Hollow got out (though it is strange), it doesn't even matter that it did get out.

I'm not complaining about Harry's placement at the Dursleys (as if they couldn't have been influenced to treat Harry better) or Dumbledore not interrogating a traitor in his organization to learn how the Order's counter intelligence failed, who recruited Black, how did he covertly communicate with his handler, etc. etc., that would have been Veritaserum'd and Cruicio'd out of any traitor in any real fighting organization.

What I'm complaining about is that Voldemort's fall was preceded by the Ministry losing the war and Dumbledore's organization being massacred. Voldemort's fall was followed by a failure of the judicial system over which Dumbledore apparently presided[2]. Later, Dumbledore completely failed to protect the students of Hogwarts from pretty ridiculous threats (nobody realized Quirrel was possessed? That it was a Basilisk? That a hundred Dementors on school grounds is dangerous? That this is not Dumbledore former second in command in the order, Moody? There were no people in the whole world who would teach DADA at Hogwarts, for money?).

Around 1990, Voldemort was believed to be dead and Dumbledore was the most powerful and influential wizard in Magical Britain, was head of the Wizengamot and the ICW and was offered and had declined the post of Minister for Magic. He should have had all the political capitol and prestige in the world[3].

In early 1995, Voldemort had only two Death Eaters working for him: Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Jr., neither of whom could show their face in public, because both were supposed to be dead.

But in summer of 1995, that nincompoop Fudge completely politically overpowered Dumbledore, and Dumbledore failed to protect Harry from a ministry assassination attempt, and then proceeded to do the stupid thing with guarding the prophecy, not telling Harry what it was and having Snape teach Occlumency. Not evil, but definitely a failure.

From the end of GoF onward, Dumbledore's people in Britain live in a similar environment as the opposition in Russia: opposition leaders get imprisoned, bank accounts get confiscated, all government institutions are instructed to obstruct, all employees of government funded organizations are threatened with dismissal if found cooperating with members of the opposition. How the fuck did the incompetent Ministry have such power, and Dumbledore had so little? Only explanation I have is that the Death Eaters represented what an absolute majority of the powerful people actually wanted, and Dumbledore represented a minority opinion.

At no point did Dumbledore actually engage in vigilantism. That is pure fanon. There is no canon evidence of the Order attacking any Death Eaters. Saving the kids at the ministry was legal for any citizen (defense of others). Vigilantism would have been murdering known Death Eaters (if you claim Dumbledore wasn't good enough at magic to get away with murder, I'll laugh). But Dumbledore didn't do any of that.

There was a war. His people were dying left and right, and he didn't do a single attack (if the Order did even a single attack and JKR failed to mention it, she fucked up). By any measure of military tactics, Dumbledore was playing to lose. His plan was to win by losing: first, surrender the country to Voldemort and sacrifice all the muggleborns. Then, kill Voldemort by divine intervention. Then, don't clean up the mess.

1 - The only other option is that he was not as benevolent as people think, but I would give him the benefit of doubt and attribute failures to ability rather than intent.

2 - A moral person (one who is concerned with what's good for the future generations) of Dumbledore's power, after seeing people he not just suspected but knew were Death Eaters get away with everything, would either have them assassinated or force them to swear an unbreakable vow to never commit a felony. Otherwise, how can the people whose family was murdered by those Death Eaters continue to respect Dumbledore? This is not faceless conscripts gunning down other faceless conscripts in World War I. This is your former schoolmates torturing and murdering whole families of your personal friends. You know exactly who they are, you meet them at the store. Arthur and Lucius having a brawl over schoolyard insults ten years later? Nay. Molly avenging her brothers, same week.

3 - Unless of course this is a false and highly biased view of the political situation in Wizarding Britain, as expressed by the likes of Hagrid and Molly, but not shared with the general population or among the powerful.

 

I would say that Dumbledore simply sucks at being a leader. He is an idealistic academic, who shouldn't have any position anywhere near the executive side of things, but is probably more or less forced to take up the positions outside Hogwarts after his defeat over Grindewald.

Of course the rest of the adult population are idiots for not noticing these flaws on Dumbledore...

It's also possible that Voldemort simply succeeded spectacularly in purging Britain of intelligent leader types. We don't see almost any older generation people alive; the Blacks are all dead, the elder Potters are dead, elder Malfoys are dead, elder Boneses are dead, elder Longbottoms are more or less dead etc. If the life expectancy of wizards is really about 150 years there should be tons of highly experienced statesmen around to take the lead during difficult times.

 

@arkkitehti:

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?p=433688#post433688

I think the mess is too big to have an in-world explanation. That's why I believe it's useless to spend time inventing one. There's no logical explanation to the world of Alice in Wonderland, and there isn't one for HP.

 

@ wolf550e: You just made a pair of posts, separated by one other post and less than five hours. In te first post you bring up a whole bunch of valid gripes about Dumbledore's actions and lack thereof in canon. And yet in your next post you state that the world-building defies any attempts at applying logic, so why try.

They're not the exact same situation, no, but come on. Rowling never set out to build a logical or even consistent world. She had no interest in epic fantasy or thinking thru how having such powerful magic be so easy would by necessity break the economics and politics and every other form of -ics in her little hidden world. I've said it many times but it bears repeating: JKR set out to write a morality tale, a Messiah tale, a tale about self-sacrifice and growing up and friendship and loyalty and most of all about choosing who you want to be. She never knew she'd get picked up for book two so I doubt she had it all planned, and there are always plot holes. One of those is the too-kindly, too-powerful, too-hands-off Dumbledore, whom you'll notice never, ever got any blood on his hands, at least directly. That's just the way it is, and it's one of the biggest reasons (along with the crazy economics) that the franchise is so hard to write realistically.

 

It's been said a billion times, and will probably be said a billion more, but misspelling characters names. Especially main characters. I just skimmed over a story that spelled Hermione, Hermoine. For 30ish chapters. Every goddamn time.

How do you misspell the name of one of the most important characters in the whole series? I mean really... is it so difficult to open one of the books and get the proper spelling?

Apparently it is.

While I am thinking about Hermione, any shortening of her name pisses me the hell off. It should not be done pretty much ever.

 

If that's the case I have to say she failed. A morality tale? We have lots of completely immoral characters who get away with it; even the so called good guys have pretty questionable morals. A Messiah tale? The 'resurrection' of Harry was a result of a series of highly improbable coincidences, not some inherent power in Harry or even 'the power of love'. Choosing who you want to be? How does a prophecy that forces Harry into a confrontation with Voldemort have anything to do with choice? Not to mention Dumbledore dumping the responsibility of getting rid of the horcruxes on Harry's shoulders.

And given the blatant sequel hook at the end of the PS JKR had to have at least some sort of outline for the whole series ready from the beginning, so blaming unpreparedness for plot-holes as big as Dumbledore doesn't really hold water.

 

Wait, what? The only "good guy" who has even remotely questionable morals is Snape, and even then he did have the whole love thing going on. So he wasn't that immoral.

Harry first died to save his friends, then rose from the dead in order to defeat Voldemort for good. How does that make him anything other than a saviour?

Go read the conversation between Harry and Dumbledore at the end of Chamber of Secrets. The whole idea of choices defining who we are is a massive theme throughout the series. I don't know how you can miss that.

 

Dumbledore's machinations? Harry's liberal use of unforgivable curses in DH? The good guys may not be evil, but they are certainly not good examples of morals. Utilitarianism went out of fashion with Fascisms.

Sure he is a savior, but it's not intentional, at least not in Harry's part. It's coincidence. That's the point I was trying to make.

I don't miss that there is an ongoing theme of people talking about choices, but what I'm saying is that Harry never has an opportunity to make those choices. Like the whole talk at the end of the OotP where Dumbledore says he is happy that Harry didn't grow up to be an arrogant asshole, as if Harry ever had a choice in the matter. Dumbledore says it himself that he was railroading Harry to his destiny from day one.

The series contradicts itself a whole lot. The first four books had things going pretty good, but from there on it went downhill until the end with Albus Severus Potter sealed it as a train wreck. I'm looking the series as a whole, but I do understand that any series that tries to also be a collection of individual stories is doomed to be a mess from the start.

 

Time for the obligatory "Not Sure If Trolling Or Just A Fucking Idiot" picture.

 

Time for the obligatory "DLP shows why it's 'the premium HP fan forum'" reply...

Perhaps hoping for argumentative discussion in the Internet is a forlorn hope but I don't like being called a troll or a 'Fucking idiot'.

 

There is time for a argument over valid points and an argument for argument's sake, which you are leaning heavily toward the latter. That is known on the internet as "Trolling" or "being a fucking idiot."

It's a kid's tale. If you're looking for masterworks, I suggest a different forum.

Additionally, we don't really care if you don't like being called names. Everyone on here is called a fucking idiot at one time or another. If you can't take the heat... (and so forth)

 

I can take the heat, bring it on!

I'm just saying that everyone here would have better time if we would use the moderation options built in the forum software instead of idiotically trolling trolls and idiots. There's the red triangle that says "report post" on the lower left corner of the post, and I'm sure the moderators are more than happy to warn or suspend or ban trolls and idiots.

And I know it's a children's story, but the mere existence of a relatively popular Internet forum dedicated to it means there is at least some interest of discussing about it with a more serious tone. Or maybe we are just all idiots...

But this really isn't the place for meta-discussion, so shutting up.

 

I...really don't know whether to call you a blind moron, or just facepalm.

Someone else handle this. :facepalm

---------- Post automerged at 18:28 ---------- Previous post was at 18:26 ----------

*Points to self* Evidence right here for that.

 

What seven books did you read again? Sure as hell wasn't the Harry Potter series.

'Neither can live while the other survives.'

Dumbledore says in no uncertain terms that Harry did NOT have to face Voldemort. He could run away and hide if he so chose. The prophecy IS a prophecy solely because Harry would always CHOOSE to fight, rather than run and let the people he loves suffer.

How was that not clear?

 

Yeah. The prophecy predicts Harry's choice, it doesn't ensure it - at least not in any magical way. Of course the existence of the prophecy changes peoples' behaviour just because they know about it.

 

'The Daily Profit' and 'Private Drive'

:facepalm

 

I hate Weasley haters. As their viewpoint on the series characters are invalid, there is no way I could get into a story attacking any of the Weasleys. I also have issues with most shippers, and fanon Hermione and fanon Ron.

Oh, and Methods Of Rationality fans. The ones that have never read the original series, and proclaim it MOR to be better, which it isn't.

Scratch that: Any sort of 'better then canon' people tend to bother me. Draco Trilogy comes to mind.

 

There are stories that are "better" than canon in most respects. DLP authors have written a few.

 

It may sound arrogant and pretentious, but T3t's right.