You Disgust Me, Dumbledore!

[chocedric.livejournal.com]

Hello again.

In advance, I want to apologize for not putting this entry under the cut, but honestly, I don't know how to do so. I am a totally blind user and am venturing into the world of Livejournal by myself. Is there a way of doing it just by using key strokes? If there is, please let me know and I will gladly edit the post.

Anyway, on to my rant for today.

Albus Dumbledore absolutely disgusts me. I know I shouldn't get so worked up about fictional characters, but when I read a book, I get sucked into their world. Somehow, though, I don't think you guys will mind, for I've seen many rants from you over characters you hate, and I think that's all fine!

Anyway, one line Dumbledore said in Order of the Phoenix made me absolutely despise him on a second reading, because I finally got the full implications of what he was saying.

Here I am going to paraphrase because I don't remember the exact quote.

What did I care if many nameless, faceless people died as long as you were happy? he says to Harry.

and it's then that Cedric Diggory's fearful, vulnerable, and shocked face springs into my miond and will not leave.

In other words, Dumbledore doesn't seem to care about anyone as long as his brilliant plan works. It makes me sick! He never got past his "greater good" philosophy he shared with his ex-boyfriend. And a student under his care had died the year before, and he's implying he didn't care as long as Harry was safe!

I know I seem to care about Cedric's death more than any other in the books, and now, I'm going to tell you why.

Every other character, Lily, James, Fred, Dobby, Moody, Sirius, Remus, Tonks, even Colin, for God's sake, knew they might die in the fight against Voldemort. They all marched into battle knowing the stakes were high. Cedric, on the other hand, even to the last moment, had absolutely no freaking idea what was going on. No wonder he looked so afraid! And also, why did JKR have to rub it in with the description of how Cedric looked when he was lying dead? Usually, death is described as something peaceful. The person has their eyes closed and a peaceful expression upon their face. Not Cedric, however. Even though I'm totally blind, that image of Cedric with his eyes wide, wide open and that terrified expression upon his handsome face has given me nightmares for years. And what makes it worse was that all his family, friends, and girlfriend had to see him looking like that! No wonder Cho was on and on at Harry, asking him what he'd been through in his final moments!

And Dumbledore caused all that to happen! No one can tell me that he didn't know Moody wasn't Moody. If they were good friends for as long as the book implies they were, it's complete bullshit that Dumbles didn't see through Crouch Junior. You can't tell me he was that good of an actor. And because of this, a seventeen-year-old boy was brutally and viciously snatched away from all his loved ones. I hope Mr. Diggory yelled and screamed at the old, pathetic man for tearing apart his family.

Cedric's death shook me up so much that I have actually started something that will hopefully make a difference to victims of violence in reality. Walk for Lost Dreams has been going on for two years now. It takes place in May and is a two-mile walk to raise money for the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts located in Philadelphia, PA. Portraits are painted and given to families of loved ones who have been lost because of cowardly acts of violence. The money is raised so that more portraits can be made.

But anyway, that's the impact that Cedric's death had on me, and I still can't get the image of his blank, lifeless eyes out of my mind. And it's people like Dumbledore that shouldn't be allowed to make important decisions. They should be doing tiny, menial jobs like taking out the trash (no offense to people who really do that, I'm just saying it would be a better job for him to have rather than a job with full power).

To end this entry, oh mighty Dumbledore, I'm going to throw one of your famous lines right back in your face!

You disgust me, Dumbledore! You do not care, then, about the death of Cedric Diggory? He can die, as long as you have what you want?

Comments

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Combine that with the way the deaths in the later books are either glossed over (Lupins, Tonks) or overblown (Dobby) but without any real closure either way, plus the occasional piece of insulting ridiculousness like Snape's death, and you get a big, confused mess. It's like she knew she wanted to say something about death, but she had no idea what.

Another problem with how she portrays death is the fact that death is, well, messy...

Granted, she was writing a children's series, but by the time of Deathly Hallows she was aspiring to "adult themes"...

And characters' deaths are just too neat and clean. In real life, the body's muscles all relax at the moment of death, resulting in urination and release of the bowels...like I said, I can understand Rowling not wanting to go into graphic detail, but instead she has all the fallen laying nicely with their eyes closed like they're sleeping. I think it would have had more dramatic impact if she'd been a little more graphic about the messiness of death.

[detritius.livejournal.com]

I think she wanted to portray death either as either completely noble or completely tragic and couldn't decide between them. Between the two of those fighting for the spotlight, I guess there wasn't really room for death to be messy or senseless or any of the other complicated thing it ends up being in real life. And I do agree that I would have appreciated a little more detail and realism instead of the cliched could have been sleeping/sightless eyes staring at the stars thing. I think it would have made it a little bit more personal somehow, maybe just because the same sorts of descriptors got used so many times by the end. A lot of the time fiction ignores stuff like the voiding of the bowels, and I could see why she wouldn't want to go there, but it really wouldn't kill her to have some detail and variation, not to mention some common sense about the whole thing. One of the dumbest death moments I remember is when she describes Dumbledore's body lying at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower as peaceful. Yeah, because something that just fell several stories is going to be totally peaceful looking and not full of compound fractures. But I guess it's just another thing where whatever she wanted at the moment is what ended up happening, regardless of the sense of it. She wanted to have his body fall from the tower because it was dramatic, and she wanted to have Harry wish that he was only asleep because it's tragic. The fact that the two events contradict each other apparently never crossed her mind. (And, you know, maybe it's the kind of thing that wouldn't occur to a lot of people, I don't know. I love murder mysteries, so I'm used to details like that being important.)

Sorry if I'm rambling. This is just one of those little things that bugs me to no end about the HP series.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

The AK is supposed to make its victims look no more than startled. Anything else, with Cedric or anyone, is going against already-established canon. If Tonks and Lupin died via AK I could, within this universe, buy a peaceful expression once the muscles have relaxed from complete perplexity. It might have helped to have Harry musing over the oddly peaceful look on Bellatrix's face, how different it seemed than her living personality.

I can't imagine all of the DEs using AKs on their victims. Some are insinuated to be sadistic so there would have been some bodies Harry would have to turn away from. Even if that isn't described other than the possible curse that may have used it - Sectum Sempra, for instance - it would have been more realistic than having all the DEs in lock-step with LV's signature spell.

I don't expect, in fact, I don't want, voiding any more than I want to read about teeth brushing, showering or using the bathroom. I would like Dumbledore's death to be a little more than twisted limbs, though, since the series had supposedly grown beyond children's books by this time. The bodies don't even need to be described if the clean-up is mentioned. Blood stains. Filch or someone would need to spend some time at getting those stains off the stairs or floor. Just mentioning that there would be a lot to clean up afterward, a half-caught discussion between McGonagall and some left-over Order member could have done that as Harry was on his way to his sandwich reward.

Or, just writing things a lot differently than she did in DHs. I probably wouldn't mind the unrealistic portrayals so much if the story was in any way entertaining and if it cleaned up the threads she left rippling in the breeze. It seems that, once a major plot hole is uncovered, more pop up like... well, like magic. Pretty soon we see that every picturesque depression in the landscape is actually something that should have been filled in.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

If Tonks and Lupin died via AK I could, within this universe, buy a peaceful expression once the muscles have relaxed from complete perplexity.

Take it from someone who knows -- cadavers retain the expression they had at the moment of death, unless someone comes and deliberately manually alters their expression. That's why hospitals won't let family members see a loved one immediately after the loved one dies...not only does the staff have to clean things up, but they force the eyes closed and force the mouth closed and into that "peaceful expression" everyone expects from books and TV...


The bodies don't even need to be described if the clean-up is mentioned. Blood stains. Filch or someone would need to spend some time at getting those stains off the stairs or floor. Just mentioning that there would be a lot to clean up afterward, a half-caught discussion between McGonagall and some left-over Order member could have done that as Harry was on his way to his sandwich reward.

I agree that there was no need for graphic descriptions of voiding bowels, but there should have been something like you describe above to indicate that battle, and the subsequent deaths, aren't as sanitary and poetically romantic as Rowling described.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Between the two of those fighting for the spotlight, I guess there wasn't really room for death to be messy or senseless or any of the other complicated thing it ends up being in real life.

Actually, the way she writes most of the deaths of her characters, it ends up being senseless anyways.

No, what I'm talking about is not whether a death is noble, whether it is tragic (altho one could argue that every death is tragic) -- the issue I'm raising is how much she sanitizes the act/process of death.


Yeah, because something that just fell several stories is going to be totally peaceful looking and not full of compound fractures.

Not to mention pretty bloody...

[lachlanm.livejournal.com]

Would it be that bloody, though? He died from the curse at the top of the tower, not the impact at the bottom. His heart had already stopped, so his blood pressure would have been low. In murder mysteries it seems like that's how they always know the victim didn't kill themselves by jumping off the building, because there's not much blood on the ground---so they must been dead already.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Would it be that bloody, though? He died from the curse at the top of the tower, not the impact at the bottom. His heart had already stopped, so his blood pressure would have been low. In murder mysteries it seems like that's how they always know the victim didn't kill themselves by jumping off the building, because there's not much blood on the ground---so they must been dead already.

Yeah...nice for fiction. Bullshit for real life.

Doesn't matter if the heart's stopped beating -- the body is still basically a meat sack full of blood. It hits the ground from a substantial height, all those bones break and pierce the surrounding tissue, including blood vessels. The cranium also breaks, cutting into the blood vessels surrounding the brain (not to mention brain-matter that will also ooze out of the ears).

Even if bones didn't break the outer skin -- which is almost impossible -- the body would still ooze substantial blood from every single orifice. But the reality would be that there would be substantial trauma to the skeletal system, with at least a few bones piercing the outer skin, which results in a bloody mess.

You toss a dead body from a 20+-story building, you end up with crushed bone and ground meat below. If a person jumps from that same building, there may be more blood if they didn't die instantly...but a dead body still has blood, and if the skin's broken it will flow out.

Sorry to be so graphic, but like I said before, death -- especially violent death -- is very messy.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming that the astronomy tower is rather tall.

If JKR wanted to portray it more realistic and considering Dumbledore was already dead when he hit the ground and therefor his magic should have gone with him and wouldn't have protected him.

I would assum that he would have splattered to some extent so there would and should have been blood. You get way more than just a few unseek broken bones when you jump from a high building.

It is not pretty. The highter the building the faster you fall, and I'm not knowlegable enough on the science of it but I would almost guess a body would actually pick up speed as it falls.

Dumbledore's body should have had more than odd angled limbs.