A Headmaster other than Albus

[oryx_leucoryx]

So here is an idea for an AU scenario. Anyone is free to develop it into a fic, but we can just discuss the what-if:

Sometime between November 2nd 1981 and July 1991 Albus Dumbledore died suddenly. Maybe in some magical mishap, maybe a sudden heart attack, whatever. The important bit is he didn't expect this to happen and had no time to do any ad-hoc cover-ups nor did he have a chance to influence the choice of his replacement or to incorporate his death into some plot. The permanent replacement is chosen by the Board of Governors. If this happens early enough Lucius isn't yet on the board, if later he is on, but probably still trying to earn a reputation as an outstanding member of society who would have never joined forces with Voldemort willingly so I don't think he'd support anyone blatantly against the inclusion of Muggleborns. Anyway, the replacement turns out to be someone not as outwardly impressive as Dumbles - not so showy, with perhaps average or slightly above average magical performance, but a capable administrator with good organizational and interpersonal skills, but most importantly someone who cares about the students' well-being and education. It can be someone from Slughorn's network or even someone who thought well of Albus as long as s/he didn't have a chance to look too closely at how Hogwarts was run, but definitely not an Order member or any other close associate of Dumbles. Maybe an older, more experienced and less idealistic version of Percy.

The members of the Hogwarts staff are as we know them in PS (Care of Magical Creatures is taught by Kettleburn, Hagrid is still a groundskeeper), except for DADA. Depending on timing, Quirrell might be the Muggle Studies teacher. I think the DADA curse should still be active, so the teachers are still being replaced annually (we don't want the new school Head to have it too easy).

So I think this new person shows up and tries to run Hogwarts like a normal school. Some teachers object because that's not the way it was always done, some are relieved to have a professional in charge for a change. The handling of disciplinary matters changes. The inter-House politics change.

And then in the summer of 1991 Quirrell comes back from a sabbatical with a personally transplant. And one Harry Potter oddly doesn't reply to his acceptance letter to Hogwarts. (I doubt the new Head had a reason to look into Harry's situation of hir own initiative earlier, but maybe someone can make a convincing argument for that?) So what now?

Comments

[detritius.livejournal.com]

Honestly, going by JK's general attitude and disinclination to reread her own books, I think a 'pure fan' isn't even supposed to be asking these questions. There is no party line, because what she wants is for her readers to accept that things happened the way she said they happened without any explanation. I honestly don't think she put all that much thought into anyone's motivations or who knew what when, at least after book three, and it seems equally unlikely that she put any kind of thought into how things revealed in DH would affect the earlier books, so we're not meant to be thinking about any of it either. We're just supposed to accept that she had a plan, and that the final product was the triumphant realization of that plan. There's a lot in the series about blind, unquestioning faith, and as far as I can tell, that's nothing less than what JK Rowling expects from her readers.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I really do think you're right. Maybe that's the source of my confusion ... a leftover from the pre-HBP days when I, too, assumed she knew what she was doing.

With the publication of HBP and then DH it was made obvious that she *didn't* ... but I guess I've confined my contempt for Rowling and her lack of storytelling logic to those last two books (which really are an order of magnitude worse than their predecessors). I look back at PS, scratch my head and part of me insists there was something there which I'm forgetting.

But when it comes down to it ... why should an author who showed a complete lack of planning for books 6-7 be any different than the one who wrote books 1-5?

Why, then, did the fandom take off as it did, why were the earlier books accepted as they were? Because of the simple *promise* that there was a plan? That's what you're saying, and I guess you're right. I suppose I'm now asking the same question that pro-Jo defenders throw in my face when I proclaim the series - certainly DH at least - a literary disaster. "A billionaire can't be wrong." With them trying to put the onus back on me to find another reason why the series was so commercially successful, if the actual material was rubbish.

Sigh.

There must be material out there which analyses the (marketing?) phenomenon behind the books just as much as we critique the books themselves. Or are most professionals out there solidly behind the Rowling bandwagon? Like most reviews of DH were positive (critics and writers writing their articles with one eye solidly on the number of books sold before DH even hit the presses)?

Sigh.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Back in the day, when POA came out, Terry Pratchett wrote an article - praising the series (as it stood then) in general but taking digs at Rowling for her claims about how she didn't realize she was writing fantasy as well as those fans who accused him of stealing from Rowling (not realizing that his Unseen University had been around since 1983, and was intended from the start as a parody of universities and professional academics). He explained that all works of fantasy are bound to have shared elements because the authors are all 'fishing in the same pond' - ie using elements from the same folklore. As far as I know, he has been silent about Rowling since.

My point: a) While Rowling knows her folklore she wasn't quite sure how much she wanted to follow the conventions of the fantasy genre and how much she wanted to go against them deliberately ending up in a mess (starting from the very first chapter of PS where she mixes the trope of an orphan abandoned outside the orphanage door and the trope of a mentor figure arranging for a simple, hidden, but safe and decent upbringing for a 'chosen one' - compare to Merlin or Obi-Wan). Hence her pretentious claim about not realizing it was fantasy.
b) I think some people did realize the series wasn't living up to expectations but were being politely silent.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Whereas we are most definitely not 'polite', hey? ;-)

Would a claim that it was one hundred per cent 'fantasy' have absolved Rowling of her sins against literature? Is there lesser pressure on a 'fantasy' author to nail things down and make the rules and events of her series self-consistent? (I'd argue not.)

The HP series stands condemned no matter what label is affixed to it, but it still would have been an interesting - if farcical - defence if Rowling had waved her hands while exclaiming 'FANTASY!!' as well as 'Oh, Maths!' and the rest. Maybe then other fantasy authors would have rushed in to protect their genre's reputation.

She did do a decent job in separating her magical (fantasy) world from modern society, I think, dreaming up the Obliviators, Arthur Weasley's department and so forth, even if she mixed up her tropes.

I do so wish more critics had ignored their editors and written what they thought about DH. Maybe some of them didn't have time to absorb much more than the hand-waving. The rest probably didn't want to lose their jobs. After all, what paper would want to lose readers when it became known as the periodical which "GOT IT WRONG ABOUT HARRY POTTER"? Given as how DH was known to be a SUCCESS before it appeared in the shops?

Sigh.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I don't think you understood me. Fantasy isn't an 'everything goes' genre. There are reasons why some fantasy tropes are common. They often are based on real wishes and desires and on real fears shared by many people. So if an author wants to mess with fantasy tropes the author has to understand the function of the trope in its common form first. Randomly changing things is what creates messes of characterization and values as in HP.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

In replying to Mary J at the end of this post I went a step further ... I think I can lay the blame for much of my confusion at the foot of that literary disaster, "HP and the Deathly Hallows". If you take away the outright statement(s) that Dumbledore KNEW about Quirrell from that tome I do think it's easier for the rest of the series to snap back to what I reckon the 'party line' was - Dumbledore *didn't* know about Quirrell, Crouch, etc, ahead of time. Even though he'd turn omniscient three seconds after Harry was out of danger.

Rowling's trying to invert things and make Dumbledore knowledgeable about Quirrell is just another in a long long list of DH aberrations. Which is certainly proof that she didn't have a 'plan', as you say. DH on its own - the simple lack of a satisfying and consistent conclusion to the series, the horrible writing and jumbling of events, the dei ex machina, so on and so forth - illustrates that. But the sins of that miserable excuse of a novel become multifaceted as it really does seem as its flaws also reach back to the earlier books in the series and wrecks havok on them as well!!

The Grand Unified Field Theory of Harry Potter - all errors lead back to DH? Well, not quite. But DH amplifies them a thousandfold! :-)

[oryx_leucoryx]

I'd say DH closed the door on the hope for sensible resolution. Before that some of us still had hope.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I'm honestly slightly shocked right at the moment. The first couple of years after DH came out I was pretty active in an anti-DH forum and I used to joke that the number of errors in DH were 'infinite', we'd be at it forever. Of course, we weren't; the forum slowed down considerably about 2 years ago and is practically dead now.

But every now and then a 'new' error is announced.

Right now I'm sort of amazed ... I'd always considered the 'trying his strength' line to be complete rubbish, Rowling's one-sentence attempt to wave her hands and fend off those readers who were asking themselves, uhm, why did we spend ten years reading about Harry's adventures when he was destined to be a sacrifice - and nothing more - the whole time? Rowling's answer - because Dumbledore says so.

And we're not supposed to question Dumbledore.

I guess even then I saw that it was a single stroke in DH that devalued the previous six books, but still ... that line about Quirrell that you've reminded me of here, causing me to try and remember what we were supposed to believe was happening in PS ... jeeze. DH says that Dumbledore (and Snape) knew about Quirrell. So all of a sudden EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of those 'anti-Dumbledore, Dumbledore is a conniving puppet master' fanfics that the Rowling intelligentsia of the time would deride and scorn ... they were all SPOT ON, basically.

Either that or Dumbledore was a complete incompetent. Which we're not supposed to believe; Rowling has Harry basically genuflecting at his feet and happily absorbing the latest explanation at the very end of the series, after all. I'm sure she'd instruct any reader who came up with that conclusion to 'go back and re-read the books'. :-) (H/Hr fan speaking here from experience.)

I think I've received today another big emotional take on just why you HP 'reconstructionists' have such fun with the series. Also ... until now I thought it was just a fun intellectual exercise for you. But not any more. DH DEMANDS IT!!! It's no longer your deciding to look at things a different way. Rowling herself has given you a pointer to do so.

She really, really, REALLY wasn't thinking, didn't care, about her series by the end, was she? Sheesh.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

DH says that Dumbledore (and Snape) knew about Quirrell. So all of a sudden EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of those 'anti-Dumbledore, Dumbledore is a conniving puppet master' fanfics that the Rowling intelligentsia of the time would deride and scorn ... they were all SPOT ON, basically.

Which is why I have such complete and utter contempt for the Rowling apologists. When I entered the fandom in 2009, I read a lot of fanfics (still do), some of which portrayed Dumbledore as a manipulative, backstabbing scumbag and Snape as his abused victim who wasn't that bad a guy. (E.g., The Birthday Present, by excessivelyperky) The stories had been completed before DH, but I was reading them long after the book came out. When I read the reviews for that kind of story, they'd be peppered with people sneering, "You are a horrible person to write this. Don't you realize Dumbledore is the wonderful person and Snape is the manipulative scumbag? You should be ashamed of yourself." After DH came out, NOT ONE of those people went back to the authors and said, "Uh, sorry for what I said. You were right all along." NOT ONE.

If JKR told these suckers the sky was orange and the moon made of green cheese, they'd repeat it without question and ridicule anybody who questioned their idol. They're not fans, they're cultists. That's why they don't see the cultic aspects of the Potterverse. When you're in a cult yourself, you never realize you're in one. It's only from the outside that you can see the truth of how you were brainwashed and exploited.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

After DH came out, NOT ONE of those people went back to the authors and said, "Uh, sorry for what I said. You were right all along." NOT ONE.

If there's one thing I've discovered in the HP fandom it's that 99.99% of online HP fans hate saying that they're wrong. Well, actually, they'll never say it.

When you're in a cult yourself, you never realize you're in one. It's only from the outside that you can see the truth of how you were brainwashed and exploited.

YES! I call it the 'Clique theory of Relativity'. You can't tell that you're drifting away from the main line, getting further and further away from common sense and reason, if your only referents, the only people you choose to consort with, are on the same trajectory. Observed relative velocity equals zero.

Hmmm. Maybe your way of explaining it is better. :-)

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

"You are a horrible person to write this. Don't you realize Dumbledore is the wonderful person and Snape is the manipulative scumbag? You should be ashamed of yourself." After DH came out, NOT ONE of those people went back to the authors and said, "Uh, sorry for what I said. You were right all along." NOT ONE

Um, sorry to break it to you, but even after DH, people still think the sun shines out of Dumbledore's ass. I mean, there was a post on fandomrants just today that was ranting about authors who make him out to be this conniving, scheming, unfeeling antagonist who doesn't care about an abused kid. Like. There's no reasoning with them, for serious.

I remember a quote from Criminal Minds that totally applies: those who deny reason cannot be conquered by it. *nodnod*

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Um, sorry to break it to you, but even after DH, people still think the sun shines out of Dumbledore's ass. I mean, there was a post on fandomrants just today that was ranting about authors who make him out to be this conniving, scheming, unfeeling antagonist who doesn't care about an abused kid. Like. There's no reasoning with them, for serious.

I know, thus my remark about their being cultists.

I remember a quote from Criminal Minds that totally applies: those who deny reason cannot be conquered by it. *nodnod*

Hey, I live in the Bible belt. You don't have to tell me that!

[sunnyskywalker]

I think the most positive interpretation you can manage is that Dumbledore wasn't sure, but pretended he knew what was going on (especially after the fact) to make sure people didn't lose confidence in him and start panicking. So, he knows something's not right with Quirrell, and that it probably has something to do with Voldemort, and that the Stone is in danger; he hides the Stone while also giving Harry some clues to see how Harry reacts (ie, is the Harrycrux operating off Voldemort's game plan, or is he still mostly Harry). Which is a dangerous plan in so many ways, but at least it kind of explains why he wanted Harry to be involved, and why he wanted to test Quirrell and find out what his deal was, and why he told Snape to keep an eye on Quirrell - he hoped Snape would figure it out and let him know so they could make a real plan. Then, after it all blew up and yet turned out okay, he hinted that he knew what was going on all along, and that everything happened mostly according to plan (instead of, "Oops, if Harry turned out to be a normalish kid I would have had him retrieve the Stone after Quirrell was sorted maybe, but I guess this works too..."). But most people seem to believe Dumbledore's spin, maybe just because it's the last book and that's where you're supposed to get the answers, so it must be true.

Not that this version makes Dumbledore look awesome, but at least he doesn't have to be completely incompetent and/or evil, and you can cut him a tiny bit of slack for being in a tricky situation where waving the Stone around as bait to see how two people react in a place he can monitor closely kind of makes sense.