In canon, both Voldemort and Dumbledore are only as competent or retarded as the plot requires them to be. Voldemort managed to subdue Magical Britain in two years, yet he didn't have enough sense to just ask Barty Crouch Jr. to apparate/portkey away Harry from Hogsmeade- instead relying on a half-baked scheme that had much greater chance of failure than success.

Similarly, Dumbledore predicted the events from his death in HBP right till Voldemort's death with an accuracy that would have put the best seers to shame, yet he proved less competent than three second years in solving the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets incident, and his 'protections' in PS were a complete and utter joke.

Did JKR provide any half-baked explanations for these inconsistencies on Pottermore, or is the situation so utterly irredeemable that even the Word Of God is silent on the subject?

EDIT by Minion:
On request of Sesc I moved the first ten posts of this thread out of the 'Questions ...' thread.
Oh, yeah, title by Sesc

 

Eh. Dumbledore's protection of the sorcerer's stone was flawless. Voldemort was never going to get it out of the mirror.

 

He still supervised the teachers' protections of the stone, all of which took a few minutes for a trio of first years to beat. And how the hell was his mirror protection flawless if Voldemort had took all of a few seconds to figure out he needed to use someone else to get the stone out of the mirror for him?

Not to mention other evidence of his incompetence which still stands- not figuring out how Sirius snuck into the castle multiple times, failing to recognize Moody- who was supposedly his friend- had been replaced by a Death Eater imposter, letting Draco Malfoy lead a bunch of DEs into Hogwarts etc. I could probably think of half a dozen more instances if I really put my mind to it.

 

Let's see, since anyone else from the Ministry or Hogwarts didn't notice, and I didnn't see much of a difference from fake!Moody and the real one, and Moody is crazy, Dumbledore barely sees, being a Headmastee and god knows what else, and they weren't BFF, it's understandable.

Three first years with extremely specific knowledge, thanks to plot device, and the fact that people like you seem to forget, Dumbledore didn't anyone to die, specially dumbass students. I doubt, very hard, that anyone could be killed there, except by the dog. And really, suicide by monster is easy regardless of him.

Well, if you want Dumbledore to be omniscient to be competent, just say so. Don't misunderstand readers knowledge with character's knowledge. FF idiots do it enough for everyone.

Malfoy was a controlled "explosion", quth him trying to avoid to his death. This, more than anything shows how much he cares for each individual, quando trusts his allies, be Snape, morally, be the Order, trusting their competence.

Really about Hogsmeade kidnapping? Do tou think annyone would be dumb enough to rely on pure chance, contrievance, and alerting everyone in the world immediatily, while showing to everyone who did ir, and not relying on veryobody being confused and busy.

 

People seem to forget we know next to nothing about the ritual that was used to bring Vold back to life. Other than three ingredients (Bone, Blood, Flesh), we don't know what's in that cauldron. We don't know if there was any spellwork needed to prep the ritual. We don't know if it had to be done on that particular day, or hour, or if it's completely free of time constrants.

Yes, the plan is convoluted and dumb, but for all we know there are a host of issues/constraints that make it the only option available.

 

No, its definitely not understandable. It basically implies anyone with a flask of polyjuice can infiltrate the castle anytime. Huge security lapse to me. Worse, after Harry's name came out of the GOF, DD knew that somebody was infiltrating the castle, yet he does jack-shit about it.

What I'm trying to say is DD *is* omniscient when the plot needs him to be, which is the majority of HBP and DH. There is a difference between not being all-knowing and sheer stupidity. The protections of the stone come under the latter category.

There was nothing "controlled" about the accidents that happened to Ron and Katie. Disregarding the fact that DD chose to protect someone who almost murdered two innocent kids who were supposed to be under his protection, DD well and truly believed Hogwarts to be safe from DEs. Yet Malfoy managed to lead DEs into the castle.

Really?Chance?Really?All Crouch had to do was get Harry alone and toss a fucking portkey at Harry when he was at Hogsmeade, and yet he relied on Harry winning a tournament against the three strongest students of the other schools. And you call the Hogsmeade kidnapping chance?

Also, even if Harry had died in the graveyard, DD would have still known of Voldemort's return through Snape and Karkaroff. So your point is invalid.

Perhaps you're right. But considering that no explanation has been provided either by canon or by WOG, and any explanation would probably be a convoluted mess anyway, it can be safely considered a plothole.

Although, certain fanfic writers have *tried* to find explanations for it. Mira Mirth in On the Way to Greatness says that the ritual works best on the day of the solstice, and Shezza in the Denarian trilogy says that the wizard in question should be young and magically powerful. Still, there are far easier ways to kidnap a person than winning a fucking tournament. Credit to the authors for trying to find a pattern through the mess though.



Ultimately,please let us not make excuses for inconsistent canon characterizations. I am not trying to bash either Dumbledore or Voldemort here, but to prove that they are only as intelligent or as dumb as the plot requires them to be at that particular time. JKR valued dramatics over consistency of her plots/characters.Trying to make excuses for them only makes you look dumb.

 

You misunderstood the protection then. Remember the conversation Dumbledore has with Harry in OotP? Only someone with no interest in what the stone could provide could remove it - how many people do you think are that principled?

 

By which time Dumbledore would have been back?

 

Maybe I'm delirious right now, but calling Albus Dumbledore 'DD' is horrible. I get it: Dumble-dore. But why not use 'AD' instead? My mind keeps jumping to Dudley Dursley, which—forgive me—creates a comical dissonance. Do many people use 'DD'? This is upsetting.

When exactly is Dumbledore shown to be omniscient? His intellect is shown to rival Voldemort's, who Dumbledore himself considers to be one of the brightest students to ever attend Hogwarts. He's a strategist with over a century worth of magical knowledge and plenty of informants. A strategist whose best friend was a budding Dark Lord that was later defeated by his hand. He's familiar with Voldemort's thought process not only because of that, but because he was the suspicious Transfiguration professor that kept an 'annoyingly close watch' on Riddle throughout his Hogwarts career. Dumbledore had a fairly good idea of Voldemort's potential moves; he knew the man's motives. Combine that with a deep understanding of Harry's nature, I don't see why he couldn't have predicted many of the events that transpired.

I'm not exactly arguing that JKR didn't use him as a convenient plot driver, God, whatever—I just want to know your reasoning in a bit more detail. I admit I personally see him as a very smart man that made some regrettable choices, in hindsight.

I don't think the protections for the Stone fall under 'sheer stupidity.' I think the obstacles before the mirror were meant to act as a speed bump. Slow the perpetrator down so he'd be trapped in a room surrounded by fire, the flame-resistent potion worn from his system after staring into the mirror for so goddamn long, trying to figure out its trick. Well, Harry wasn't shivering during the confrontation with Quirrell, so I'm pretty sure it wears off quickly. You could argue that surely Voldemort knew some sort of magic to bypass the fire, but it seemed like special fire. I know 'seemed' doesn't mean much, but it's an easy guess to make that Snape wouldn't embarrass himself with a protection that can be conquered by a spell.

Huh. That makes me wonder: Does the fire only work on the living? Because their clothes should have been toast. It's not like they soaked their robes in the flame-resistent potions.

...But that's probably something JKR just didn't think about. Meh.

 

Eh, I barely ever think of him as Albus. To me, its has always been just Dumbledore- with special emphasis on the two D's. I can see your point though.

Lets see now- he 'predicted' that Ron Weasley walking out of the trio and accordingly gifted him with his deluminator, he 'predicted' Hermione somehow finding about the deathly hallows with only that silly fairy tale to go on with (the only reason the trio found out about the DH in canon was because Xeno Lovegood just happened to be wearing the DH T-shirt). He 'predicted' Harry getting an epiphany on how to open the snitch before his death, He 'predicted' that the snake would be the final horcrux- even though the snake was the only horcrux whose location Harry could have found with some effort and not rely on pure chance.

Don't all of these scenarios just reek of omniscience?

Makes you wonder why Voldemort didn't just bring the potion with him for a second dose when he went into the room.
Anyway, the potion is altogether irrelevant. Canon Voldemort could fly.

Really? Considering that Dumbledore was quite incompetent and stupid for most of the series, turning omniscient soon after his death, I would love to know your reasoning. Admittedly, JKR probably intended to write Dumbledore the way you describe him to be - ' very smart man that made some regrettable choices, in hindsight', and it would probably seem the same way to a casual reader, but closely analyzing the canon events, it seems to the exact opposite to me - an overly manipulative, secretive and incompetent bastard (well, a brilliant dueler and academic, but incompetent at everything else) who somehow managed to gain epic seer powers in the last two books and managed to guide a brave but weak teenager to an impossible victory against one of the greatest wizards of all time (who had his moments of incompetence as well) through loads and loads of deux ex machina.

In conclusion, I would state again what I stated before- both Voldemort and Dumbledore are only as competent as the plot requires them to be. JKR never gave a rat's arse to character/plot consistency.Over-analyzing canon events is ultimately a pointless and fruitless task since the results point to a completely different direction than the author probably meant them to.

 

I always figured that Moody couldn't simply do that because normally, Portkeys don't work in Hogwarts. And that the Cup was supposed to be one in the first place or something.

 

Indeed. Not to mention the fact that passing Harry through the Triwizard would allow Voldemort to pass his death off as an accident. The cup was meant to be a portkey anyway...one that transported the winner to the outside of the maze. So Fake!Moody simply spelled a detour into it so that after Voldemort killed Harry, he could be returned to the corner of the maze looking like he died inside it and no one else the wiser.

Obviously Voldemort would expect Dumbledore to know immediately (courtesy Snape), but he had no way of knowing that the Ministry would bury its head in the sand and ignore his return; and he did want to avoid the attention of the Ministry.

 

Or Voldemort and his Deatheaters were going to ride the Portkey back to Hogwarts with Harry's corpse before killing as many people as they can.

 

Both Portkeys and apparation work at Hogsmeade.

Indeed, but does the Risk vs Reward here seem feasible to you? A single bite by an acromantula could have taken Harry out of the competition and washed away all of Voldemort's plans. On the other hand, a Hogsmeade kidnapping might have alerted the ministry, but at least it was a guaranteed success. And considering that Dumbledore, as the leader of the order and Voldemort's major adversary would have been alerted anyway, the risk seems to be way too high for such a paltry reward.

Well, if nothing else, I guess its good to see that Voldemort has so much faith in Harry's abilities.

 

I'd also like to point out that the defenses were not easy to beat;

Fluffy requires a somewhat specific strategy to beat, admittedly one that mythologically based (which, by the way, requires you to have read MUGGLE MYTHOLOGY)

Devil's Snare was just a bust, i'll admit. Unless struggling made it rip you to shreds as opposed to fall through, it's hard to see how it is supposed to be dangerous. That being said, you have to also have some way to get through all these defenses.

Harry is the best flyer in Hogwarts for at least 7 years. He may be one of the best flyers ever for what we know, he outflew a dragon when he was 14.

Logic baffles most wizards (the potion puzzle and the chess game) and Dumbledore didn't know for sure if Voldemort had returned. Also I would like to point out that Voldemort isn't a terribly logical person.

Mountain trolls are dangerous creatures for most people.

And then of course, the mirror which is the hardest of all.

 

They only fall through the Devil's Snare in the movie, in the books the plant tries to strangle them until Hermione thinks of using a fire spell against it. So unless you have this very specific knowledge of plants Devil's Snare is dangerous and a valid obstacle.

 

Dumbledore didn't purposely make the trials easy, he just didn't care. He asked his proffesors to put up some defenses, mainly because he knew at least one of them would let it leak what he was defending, then he put the one actual defense at the end. The rest of the defenses were just for show, and not much could have stopped Voldemort anyway. The entire thing was obviously a lure, which happened to lure some stupid first years in addition to its real target.

 

The deluminator doesn't make sense if you think he predicted the specific circumstances of Ron running away. The reason why he got it is not told ti us by Dumbledore but deduced by Ron and Harry so it could be that he thought that Ron was the most likely to run away due to his past actions with Harry but that those actions showed he was likely to regret it or it was to be used in case that someone in the trio was captured or they were separated because of reasons or whatever. It is also a useful tool regardless of that traveling spell so he knew they would keep it on them.

Hermione consistently solved puzzles like that one so it was not that far off. He had to put a clue that wouldn't attract that much attention since it was logical that the ministry would be interested in the succession given who those involved were and he couldn't be sure Voldemort wouldn't find out what with him infiltrating the ministry. The point was for Hermione would read the story and tell Harry about it so that Harry would know of the resurrection stone, it wasn't necessarily so that they would look after the Hollows.

Finally, Harry would have figured out what the stone needed because he would have been told that he needed to die and he would wonder what the hell was the snitch for after all. It didn't need him to know what was inside for him to be able to open it. If there was a miscalculation in the plan was that he couldn't know that Voldemort would look for the elder wand so he didn't expect him to try and kill Snape.

Most of the omniscience claims come from expecting Dumbledore to have predicted everything up to who would end with the Hallows when the only part that was absolutely necessary was Harry ending the other horcruxes and learning he had to die. The stone and deluminator were in the hopes that they would ease his journey but he didn't have to plan what their specific use would be.

Is the flying bit to say he knew magic that people had no idea was possible? I don't quite see how flying would be relevant in an underground chamber. Maybe with the keys or with the chess puzzle if you think they are morons that didn't take using the brooms into account but with the potion I am at a loss.

Voldemort wanted it to be Harry to get rid of the specific weakness concerning him. They admitted that anyone would work to bring him back (technically, he can be considered an enemy of everyone who doesn't abide to his ideology so an auror or someone who opposed him on the war or any muggleborn. Heck, any of the champions could be considered one). If Harry died in any of the tests, it didn't make much difference other than ruling out his need for it to be Harry. There is also his sense of theatrics to consider. If Harry died during the tournament, then the thing people thought could beat him would be gone and he would be considered unstoppable. If he didn't die, Voldemort would kill Harry at his moment of greatest glory. The only downside to the plan was if Harry died and people thought he had waited for it to happen before returning. And as pointed out above, we don't know all the requirements for the ritual.

That we see. We could assume that most of his plans for guarding the tournament would be known by a former auror he trusts. There was no indication that it was polyjuice either because even though it is great, it is not ideal for long time infiltrations and the theory was that someone wanted Harry's death to look like an accident, not that they wanted him to win so they had no reason to remain there.

Snape's unbreakable oath. The moment that Draco truly failed, Snape would have had to kill Dumbledore to maintain his cover and not to die. Even the DE infiltrating the castle part, the objective of the mission was to kill Dumbledore so they would have tried to do a quick operation running into the less amount of resistance. The DE had no reason to try to hurt those kids unless the kids decided to hurt the DE (yes, even thought he DE are psychotic bastards. Killing left and right is the place of bad fanfics and you should be ashamed if that is the first thing that came to your mind ;-) )

Figuring what the Slytherin monster was is not obvious unless you had the vital piece of evidence that was Harry hearing it talk. I think that the whole petrifies if looking indirectly was something that Hermione deduced rather than something that is known about basilisks and she got that because she thought the monster was a snake. And before saying "duh, of course it was a snake, it was Slytherin's monster!" there was no evidence to say that it was really a monster and not some spell. The rooster incident can be explained by saying that Dumbledore simply didn't know and saying "of course he did, it happened in the castle and to Hagrid to boot!" is accusing him of the omniscience you say he has in the last two books.
Figuring how Sirius got into the castle is also not obvious since animagi are rare. The fact that Hermione found out about Rita Skitter was probably because she had experience with Sirius.

 

Meh, I think of it as coincidence that Fluffy has that specific weakness. I assume that every Cerberus has a different one.

 

So? What exactly is your point?

Let's say that Harry dies in his duel with Voldemort. Then maybe Voldemort does a little dirty work, and sends the corpses back, and now the BHL is dead, apparently due to the rigors of the tournament, as is another Champion.

The only confirmation Dumbledore has is Snape's mark, and its possible that Snape might not even be summoned. Hell, its possible Snape might outright defect to Voldemort without a reason to honestly give a shit any longer.

So Harry dies as a result of the Tourny apparently, and Dumbledore has only his suspicions in regards to Voldemort. Maybe he knocks a few Horcruxes off, then gets the ring and dies. Maybe he gets the ring, Snape finds him and then...betrays him, letting him die, taking the knowledge of what killed Dumbledore back to Voldemort. Voldemort does some quick checking, and now basically nobody can kill him.

Or the BHL is kidnapped in Hogsmeade, Dumbledore says its Voldemort who did it and uses Snape's darkening mark as proof, and Voldemort is basically fucked.

Wonderful. Not to mention it just might plain and fucking simply not work.