(no subject)

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

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?

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

Even trying to catch him on one of the mysterious nasty-but-not-fatal things that happened to people who crossed Tom might have helped. He says something vague about how there wasn't any proof... but did he even try? He really was like an accomplice.

If Dumbledore had told us he actually tried to nail Tom on something - anything, even sabotaging another student's homework - but Tom was too smart, he'd look a whole lot better. Or that Tom charmed everyone else so thoroughly that the teachers dismissed Dumbledore's report of what Mrs. Cole said as exaggerations by a woman who obviously didn't like him, or maybe any children, and anything Tom said about being able to hurt kids who crossed him as childish bravado in the face of the first wizard he'd ever met or something.

He does seem to want to prove everything all at once, but sheesh, Dumbledore, don't you know how investigations work? (Well, probably not...) You start with one thing, and it leads to other things. Sometimes witnesses start coming forward once the ball gets rolling.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

"
If Dumbledore had told us he actually tried to nail Tom on something - anything, even sabotaging another student's homework - but Tom was too smart, he'd look a whole lot better. Or that Tom charmed everyone else so thoroughly that the teachers dismissed Dumbledore's report of what Mrs. Cole said as exaggerations by a woman who obviously didn't like him, or maybe any children, and anything Tom said about being able to hurt kids who crossed him as childish bravado in the face of the first wizard he'd ever met or something.

He does seem to want to prove everything all at once, but sheesh, Dumbledore, don't you know how investigations work? (Well, probably not...) You start with one thing, and it leads to other things. Sometimes witnesses start coming forward once the ball gets rolling."

*This*, just this! :)

[sunnyskywalker]

And she wouldn't even have had to gone into detail about it - just have Dumbledore say the teachers didn't believe him after they'd met Tom and that none of his efforts to pin anything on Tom worked. The end! It's baffling, really.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

I know, right? Seriously, when *we* can think up a better way the plot could have gone -- *you're doing it wrong*.

(Seriously, that should be an icon. "Plotting -- you're doing it wrong")

[sunnyskywalker]

Tom was pretty obviously good at memory modification by about age 15, so why couldn't Dumbledore have specifically noticed that students didn't remember what happened during those mysterious incidents? I doubt the other teachers would condone trying to break a memory charm they weren't even sure existed based on Dumbledore's gut (quite reasonably too), so that would have stopped the investigations right there.

I would love to see the original manuscripts after her editors sent them back with comments. Did they do as much as they could given time constraints and/or their power relative to JKR's (and if so, just imagine the unedited version!), or did they think too much like her to catch more of these things, or what?

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

As would I! :D

And the memory modification thing...actually works pretty well. :)

[oryx_leucoryx]

If Rowling really wanted us to see Dumbles as smart and wise wrt Tom she made a mistake when she chose him to have been the teacher who met him at the orphanage. Have Merrythought (or anyone) bring Tom his letter and remain silent about him, then Albus starting to suspect but not having enough information to go on is believable and doesn't paint him negatively. Then when she realizes that Tom may have been the one behind the attacks on students Merrythought retires and hides in shame and guilt, and only comes forward with what she learned at the orphanage after Tom is back and running a war against the wizarding world. This way Albus can actually be a brilliant sleuth who was missing a key piece of evidence. But the canon way just makes him an accomplice and enabler of Tom.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, *this*! :D

(Seriously, why hasn't someone written an HBP do-over already? :D)