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Am I the only one a little bothered by Dumbledore? Not only with the fact he could end up in the Guinness Book Of World Records for "Most Incompetent Headmaster of All Time" (though I'm sure there's worse. :P), but also because...he just bugs me. I know JKR was trying to write him as the "flawed Yoda", so to speak (and to be fair, he's nowhere near Yoda. XD), but it's also how...preachy he gets. Towards Fudge, for example. You know, in Goblet of Fire, with, "You place too much importance on purity of blood, yadda yadda et cetera et cetera" -- which considering how he treated Tom Riddle and the Slytherins is...slightly hypocritical isn't it? Probably bad writing on JKR's part, though. :/

Anyways, sorry 'bout the rambling. Thoughts?

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: Oldies. :P

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From:

sunnyskywalker

I would have been fine with him - if he had ended up as, say, a tragic figure who thought brought down by his fatal flaws despite some good intentions here and there, who at last sacrificed himself and handed off the quest to someone more suited. And then did not act as a wise mentor in the Train Station of the Afterlife, just said, "Yep, I screwed up, and I'm very sorry." Or even if he never recognized his failings, but Harry did and moved on to making his own decisions about how the endgame of the Voldemort situation was going to go (and maybe forgave Dumbledore in the train station, because he is supposed to be a hero after all). Or even if he had been a villain - not a Voldemort-allied one, because as Sirius points out, the world isn't divided into good people and DEs - but an entirely mundane, out-for-himself one made all the creepier because he's so ordinary (for a wizard), having normal jobs like "Headmaster" and such, and because he's convinced himself that he's right and doing good. Or even if he'd pegged Harry as a budding dark lord and planned all along for him and Voldemort to wipe each other out for everyone's safety, along with anyone else he saw as a threat to the ww - DEs, would-be teen murderers like Sirius who never regret almost using their friends as weapons, werewolves who endanger hundreds of children because they won't take their medicine, Aurors who've gotten too paranoid, teachers who let dark lords share their heads or mindwipe people and steal their stories, centuries-old alchemists who are doing who-knows-what but maybe it's not good, wannabe dictators like Umbridge... That could be an interesting anti-heroic quest, and seeing how Harry reacted would be fascinating.

Probably any change to that last scene in the train station would be an improvement. You just plain can't go, "Yep, I screwed up and am deeply flawed... but actually, I was right about everything, my mistakes weren't mistakes or weren't that bad after all, and it all turned out just as I planned, go me!" and expect it to sound good.

From:

ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com

"Probably any change to that last scene in the train station would be an improvement. You just plain can't go, "Yep, I screwed up and am deeply flawed... but actually, I was right about everything, my mistakes weren't mistakes or weren't that bad after all, and it all turned out just as I planned, go me!" and expect it to sound good."

I remember in the DEATHLY HALLOWS do-over, Sirius actually appeared to Harry instead of Dumbles -- and TBH, it worked a lot better. ^__^ (Then again, I think a *lot* of elements in the DH Do Over worked a lot better. :)

From:

sunnyskywalker

There's a whole bunch of dead characters who would work better than Dumbledore, if he can't manage to present himself as a decent mentor or anti-hero or villain. Sirius, Lupin, Lily and James, Snape... heck, even Quirrell, or maybe Flamel.

From:

ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com

I think meeting up with Quirrell -- somehow -- probably would have snapped Harry out of his Jerky Idiot phase. *Jots down idea*

From:

sunnyskywalker

It would make a nice bookend, since his first encounter with Voldemort (that he remembers) also included Quirrell. He's probably forgiven Harry for killing him, since Harry was just a scared kid at the time and after the unicorn blood Quirrell probably knew he wouldn't get out of this alive, so maybe it was kind of a mercy killing. Accidentally. It would get Harry thinking, anyway.

And if we're not going with wands that make collect calls to each other scenario, Quirrell might know something useful about Voldemort due to all that time they spent sharing a head.

From:

ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com

You know, that bit about Quirrell is oddly sweet. :)

"And if we're not going with wands that make collect calls to each other scenario, Quirrell might know something useful about Voldemort due to all that time they spent sharing a head."

Why didn't Rowling think of that one, dammit? D:

From:

sunnyskywalker

Because she forgot about Quirrell as soon as she hit the reset button for CoS? She never even thought it relevant to find out whether he joined Voldemort voluntarily or not (in a series with the Imperius Curse, shouldn't it matter whether you've just killed a collaborator or an innocent?), so I don't think she put a lot of thought into him as a character in his own right.