(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]

Well, "mercy" was the wrong word. More like he likes groveling, being an evil overlord, so he might hold off on killing them for a few minutes if there's a good groveling show. And that would buy some time to... something. (I like the contract theory, but it's also possible she hadn't thought that far ahead yet.) Whereas if she started firing off spells, there's no way he'd give her a few minutes to plan something.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Maybe Lily's pride got in the way? *Wonders if *that* was what Voldemort meant by "bravery"* :/

[sunnyskywalker]

Who knows what Voldemort means...

You know what though, it occurs to me that if she noticed Voldemort was uncharacteristically offering her a chance to live, using that to buy time could have been exactly what she was trying to do.

If you were in hiding, and were part of a secret order, you'd probably set some sort of magical burglar alarm to alert the others if an unauthorized person was in your safe house, right? (Maybe it's connected to one of Dumbledore's silver instruments.) In fact, since Hagrid gets there before the Muggle emergency crews show up, it's a safe bet that there's some sort of monitoring going on. They don't let out the identity of the secret-keeper because they think there's a spy - but that doesn't mean they couldn't have let some of the other Order members in on the secret, either via note like in OotP or by Polyjuicing Peter into Sirius. They couldn't betray the secret even if they wanted to, and then James and Lily would have backup.

So maybe Lily was expecting the cavalry to come any moment to distract Voldemort and give her enough time to escape with Harry, and she just had to hold out till then - and since Voldemort was being so weirdly non-homicidal toward her, that seemed like a good direction to take.

But no one made it in time :(

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

I know.

It really is sad. :/

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Oh, god. Expecting the cavalry and getting Hagrid... and, too late to boot.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

It definitely adds a different layer of tragedy to the proceedings. :(

Do you think Dumbledore arranged something like that? To...bind Snape to him? *Curious*

[sunnyskywalker]

Dunno. He can't seriously have expected Voldemort to just walk up, give Harry some non-harmful mark, and leave - he knows the guy! - and predicting that whatever Voldemort does will not kill the kid and will in fact destroy Voldemort's body is... way too unlikely to count on, given the vagueness of the prophecy. That could have been the end of "either must die at the hand of the other" right there with Baby Harry dead at Voldemort's hand, and the end of Dumbledore's chances to have a Child of Prophecy to defeat Voldemort (or anything else he might want a pet Chosen One for). And it seems like Voldemort's practice was to flee the scene after he killed people, Dumbledore wouldn't even get a chance to go toe-to-toe with him as Plan B.

So I guess I'd have to say that while he was willing to sacrifice James and Lily if he thought it was for the greater good, in this specific case, he probably didn't plan it quite this way. But once he found out about Harry's scar, he must have gone, "Whew! Got off lucky!" And then took advantage of the Snape situation, because it was there.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

...and the end of Dumbledore's chances to have a Child of Prophecy to defeat Voldemort...

There's always Neville, also born as the 7th month dies (only a day earlier while it still had a little life left.) Given Dumbledore's apparent omniscience in the series, I wouldn't have put it past him to palm off a fertility potion or spell to both the Potters and the Longbottoms to ensure that he'd get a) a male as per the prophecy and b) a Chosen One whose loyalties would be to the Order.

[sunnyskywalker]

True, he had a backup baby. But it seems foolish to risk getting one outright killed if there's a 50/50 chance that he's the One and the prophecy's been fulfilled now that he's dead, so I guess a lot depends on what Dumbledore thought this marking would involve.

A covert fertility potion would make for a creepy scheme!

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Fertility potion? Somehow I don't want to know what Dumbledore's using it for...

What the heck; I'll find out anyway. XD What would he need a fertility potion for? /Completely Missing The Point.

[sunnyskywalker]

Like seductivedark said, making sure the fertile young Order couples get pregnant. Although now I can't remember whether the prophecy was made before they got pregnant, in which case he could have planned it, or after, in which case he had something else in mind at first (unless he has a time-turner and was able to hop back several months to tell himself the plan).