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

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Oh, I could rant for hours about Dumbles. Not only is he utterly empathy-deprived and hasn't learned a thing, as you point out, he is also a manipulator, and as prejudiced in his own way as any of the people on the other side. And though he apologizes, he never actually repents.

An lj-cut can be made in the text by putting the following html code right before the part you want hidden:



and the code



at the end. You can replace the "Read more" inside the quotes with anything you want to show up as the link text. Hope this helps.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Ack! Sorry, the code vanished. Here it is - TAKE OUT THE * symbols. I put them in to make it show up.

<*lj-cut text="Read more"*>

<*/lj-cut*>

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

YOU WROTE: I know I shouldn't get so worked up about fictional characters, but when I read a book, I get sucked into their world.

As one should, with good literature! LOL


YOU WROTE: Usually, death is described as something peaceful. The person has their eyes closed and a peaceful expression upon their face.

No offense, but that description is usually only found in fiction.

Someone who dies suddenly usually still has their eyes open. Someone who dies painfully, whether by natural causes (such as a heart attack), by accident (such as falling down a flight of stairs), or by violence (murder or suicide), will not have a peaceful expression on their face.


YOU WROTE: No one can tell me that he didn't know Moody wasn't Moody.

If he didn't, then it definitely puts in question the claim regarding him being such a great wizard! LOL


YOU WROTE: 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.

As someone who had a family member succumb to an act of violence, I thank you for your effort in this area.

[darth-eldritch.livejournal.com]

I've heard it said that Dumbledore was worst than Voldemort.

And I agree.

[darth-eldritch.livejournal.com]

I was disgusted by how Cedric was treated, also.

[sunnyskywalker]

I think I would be fine with Dumbledore turning out to be almost totally lacking in empathy and in general a total failure as a mentor and not really that nice a person - if Rowling hadn't then brought him back on stage for one last "Dumbledore explains it all" session in which he's still painted as a pretty good guy who sometimes made mistakes like getting obsessed with the Hallows but ultimately still helped a lot and made Harry's success possible. It would have been quite interesting and in keeping with all the previous books for Dumbledore to have turned out to be not what he appeared at all. It would have made an interesting contrast to Snape, too. I think Rowling got her ideas muddled up at some point. She wanted Dumbledore to be the "epitome of goodness," as she once called him, but also sometimes she had plot ideas which wouldn't work if Dumbledore just did something sensible, like giving Harry Destroying Horcruxes for Dummies right at the beginning of year 6 instead of dragging the whole thing out and never telling him how to do it. Instead of finding legitimate reasons for Dumbledore not to tell certain things (like not actually knowing the answer), or for things to go wrong even after Dumbledore tells everything he knows, she just forged ahead, leaving those contradictions between what she said and what actually happened, which makes Dumbledore look awful.

As for Moody, I think Red Hen's idea that Dumbledore knew the real Moody was a hostage somewhere fits. (Link: Hostage to Misfortune) But as she points out, that means he did a terrible job trying to rescue him! He and Snape are Legilimenses and they have Veritaserum; couldn't they do better than that?

[oryx_leucoryx]

I agree with you that The Great Twinkly One is disgusting. The wold of fiction has many better mentor figures.

If all goes according to plan, I hope to start a sporkage of GOF in January. I intend to include an attempt to analyze who knew what when as I go along. Possibly with alternative assumptions in mind.

So you subscribe to the idea that Albus expected that getting Harry involved in Voldemort's resurrection would give him extra protection?

[quorothorn.livejournal.com]

"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."

But the context of that quotation* is Dumbledore explaining his mistakes to Harry--he's criticizing himself with that sentence, that he cared too much about Harry to throw the burden of the prophecy on him when he had barely even hit puberty, to use him the way his plan demanded. He doesn't actually not care about what happened to Cedric--he cares a lot.

"No one can tell me that he didn't know Moody wasn't Moody."

But he didn't. There's no evidence that Dumbledore lied when he said he didn't realize that fake!Moody was fake until fake!Moody took Harry to his office after the Third Task.

"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."

I like this idea: props.

* To provide the exact section: "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act. Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have--and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined--not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy?"

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

"Someone who dies suddenly usually still has their eyes open. Someone who dies painfully, whether by natural causes (such as a heart attack), by accident (such as falling down a flight of stairs), or by violence (murder or suicide), will not have a peaceful expression on their face."

And here we go again with Rowling's twisting reality to sort her means in the books. Sort of like the assertion that only cowardly women die in childbirth, right? Or that you can be born good, and then no matter what you do, it will be good?

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

As far as the lj-cut, you can use the HTML code, but first you have to make sure your text editor is set to HTML code, and not rich text. In the rich text editor, you can insert an lj-cut by highlighting the section you want under the cut, and clicking the lj-cut button (which you can find by mousing over it).

[detritius.livejournal.com]

I take issue with the way death is portrayed in the books, too. Not only is it glorified to hell and back half the time (at least when a good guy does it) but every death after Cedric's came across as... I don't know, really fake to me. It's not the AK itself that's the problem, I guess, but it's part of it. In Cedric's case, when we've never seen it before, the suddenness of the curse is a dramatic advantage, but after that it comes across as kind of cheap to me, like flipping a switch. Maybe it's because I'm the kind of person who likes forensics dramas, but the AK just struck me as very unrealistic and easy. 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.

[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.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

But he didn't. There's no evidence that Dumbledore lied when he said he didn't realize that fake!Moody was fake until fake!Moody took Harry to his office after the Third Task.

Moody was an old friend. Either Dumbledore knew, or Crouch was an amazingly good actor for someone who'd spent almost thirteen years under Imperius locked away at home, or Dumbledore was criminally unobservant (especially since he knew Voldemort was trying something that year). Or Moody was simply so two-dimensional that anyone could have imitated him with no one telling the difference, but that's too easy.

To provide the exact section: "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act. Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have--and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined--not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy?"

And that makes him a crap leader and a terrible headmaster. Seriously, he's saying "I'm partly responsible for your beloved godfather's death, but it's okay because I love you after having secretly watched you all your life without so much as lifting a finger to do anything about how the Dursleys raised you, and I put making you happy above actually defeating Voldemort."

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

Dumbledore's speech to the school about Cedric had me going WTF? Here a kid just died, and Dumbledore used his death as an excuse for a recruiting speech against Voldemort and yet another chance to rub up against Harry Potter. His speech was ineffective, too. It certainly fell upon skeptical ears at the Slytherin table, as Rowling was at pains to tell us. I don't think he had a lot of credibility with a large segment of the student population, and it wasn't just fear of Voldemort that caused this. It was probably because they knew he could care less about them.

As for caring for the well-being of followers or embracing love, I think there was little difference between Voldemort and Dumbledore. All Dumbledore cared about was his plan and assuring the personal loyalty of his chess pieces, assuring that they would follow his orders without question. He was willing to sacrifice others to achieve his goals, without giving others the truth about the reasons for their sacrifices, even when they asked, even when they proved themselves trustworthy. He preferred to keep his secrets and sense of superiority unchallenged.

For me, I always remember that Dumbledore and Granger served as mouthpieces for the author.

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[quorothorn.livejournal.com]

Erm, he doesn't really say "but it's okay" or any variant thereof. Again, the whole pre-infodump speech in OotP was Dumbledore explaining his mistake to Harry in not telling him of the prophecy sooner. Explanations are not the same thing as excuses, you know.

And yeah, apparently Crouch was just that good an actor (given his duties as a professor, I presume he also simply didn't interact with Dumbledore on a day-to-day basis, which would help). He certainly put on a good performance during his trial, so there's precedent.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Dumbledore's speech to the school about Cedric had me going WTF? Here a kid just died, and Dumbledore used his death as an excuse for a recruiting speech against Voldemort and yet another chance to rub up against Harry Potter. His speech was ineffective, too. It certainly fell upon skeptical ears at the Slytherin table, as Rowling was at pains to tell us. I don't think he had a lot of credibility with a large segment of the student population, and it wasn't just fear of Voldemort that caused this. It was probably because they knew he could care less about them.

The speech was made an entire week after Cedric died. This may have contributed to the suspicions.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

This would be all true, if Dumbledore was a character, and not just a plot device who does whatever plot demands.

[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.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

if Rowling hadn't then brought him back on stage for one last "Dumbledore explains it all" session in which he's still painted as a pretty good guy who sometimes made mistakes like getting obsessed with the Hallows but ultimately still helped a lot and made Harry's success possible.,

Yes, yes and yes.

JKR still pushes us the reader into Dumbledore waiting arms and to believe he is all good and she seems to react to the fans of Severus like...Snape-who? Who cares about Snape, he wasn't good or anything like Dumbledore.

Dumbledore told Severus you disgust me. Well fine DD, but how are you really any different, Double-D?

And we the reader are supposed to follow JKR the narrator in agreeing that even though DD did some screwed up kinda evil crap, we're still supposed to believe HE, Double-D is the good one compaired to Snape.

What pisses me off more is so many readers accept that it was okay Dumbledore never seemed to really have any concern for Snape. Snape seems to have become one of those nameless who could be dumped into the situation and setup for murder - not unlike Cedric

Especially after he has allowed Snape to follow the same tragic path that he himself did; being obsessed with something. DD's was the Hallows and Severus was Lily, but even with DD having suffered loss in Love he seems very incapable of showing any form of compassion or understanding.

It isn't just Harry he lead to the slaughterhouse, he kept Severus boxed up for years in the idea that Voldemort would return and Snape would be needed; at the moment of greatest regret and greef DD basicly put a rope around Snape and kept him. I really don't see Dumbledore as any different than Voldemort; Dumbledore would say Voldie knows how to use people but so does Double-D, don't kid yourself Double-D

...Oh, wait, Dumbledore and JKR, maybe they'll say I'm incorrect and certain fans will say the same thing.

Well, lets drag DD's famous line about caring for Harry out. But Instead of Dumbledore saying this to Harry. Lets imagine someone else saying it about another character, and lets even put her name in it...Yea, Lets give these words to Severus and see if they don't fit perfectly.

What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now Lily was alive, and well, and happy?"

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I'd have much more understanding for Dumbledore if we were ever shown that he actually *learned* something morally from his mistakes, or shown an ounce of genuine repentance that made him actually change his ways. Choosing another version of the same abstract 'greater good' idea and continuing to ignore the effects of his decisions upon actual individuals doesn't count; it's the same thing under another name. At least Voldie had something of an excuse, in that clinical psychopaths are simply *incapable* of empathy.

It isn't just Harry he lead to the slaughterhouse, he kept Severus boxed up for years in the idea that Voldemort would return and Snape would be needed; at the moment of greatest regret and greef DD basicly put a rope around Snape and kept him.

Have you ever seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Severus seems like another poor Cesare to Dumbledore's Caligari.

Oh crap. Crossover fic calls.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Severus seems like another poor Cesare to Dumbledore's Caligari.

No, have never heard of it but I went a googled it. There was a recent more modern movie called Shutter Island. I never saw Shutter Island but a friend saw it and sort of spilled the ending to me, but it sounds a bit similar - at least what I read on google.

I just don't really get Dumbledore and that he never learns or never even really shows any real concern for Severus. The only time I remember or noticed Dumbledore ever really thanking Severus was when Severus helped him with the ring curse and Severus offered to kill him.

There doesn't seem to be any desire to help him except to further the idea that Slytherins don't deserve respect or admiration for their achievements.

He speaks of wanting harry to grow up well, but he never seems to worry about someone like Severus who he should have cared about just as much as he did Harry. After all Severus was a student at his school and was a young boy who was not much different than Harry - yet apparently he wasn't as special as the chosen one and was pretty much given the 'leaf in the wind' approach that Dumbledore gave to everyone that wasn't Harry.

Excellent!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

You're quite right. Dumbledore is horrifying to me - and sometimes I wonder if he isn't meant to be. There seems, sometimes, to be a split in these books between what Rowling consciously meant to say and what she unconsciously conveyed. So that I see her portrait of Dumbledore as an indictment of an uncaring God who allows death and suffering in the world. Except, of course, that Dumbledore isn't God the Father. He's just some guy, and a fairly shallow guy, at that. Up until HBP (when I finally began to like him, since I thought a lot of his more outrageous statements were jokes - I was disabused of that notion by DH), Dumbledore had no personality to me at all. He was a distant and rather cliched figure; the wise and flamboyant old headmaster. Then in HBP (retrospectively) and DH, we found out what he was really like, and he's just awful. Arrogant, manipulative, cruel, and lacking in empathy. He has no business juding Snape, or anybody.

But you're more observant than I am - and so is my Mom. She disliked Dumbledore from SS/PS, because he endangered children he should have been protecting. She's a retired teacher, btw.

[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...

[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.