Redressing our Injustice to Albus Dumbledore

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

All of us who have blamed Albus for reneging on his promise to Severus to protect Lily in exchange for Severus’s “Anything” must own ourselves to have grossly wronged the man.

He never made any such promise.

Severus begged him, “Hide them all, then….Keep her—them—safe. Please.”

“And what will you give me in return, Severus?”

He never technically agreed to do it, see? Just acknowledged the entreaty and asked for Snape’s best offer.

No, “I will. But what will you give me in return?”

Not even, “If I do, what will you give me in return?”

So he didn’t fail to keep his word.

Any more than he later actually said that he would be protecting The-Boy-Who-Must-Die-At-The-Right-Moment.

“Make sure it [Lily’s death] was not in vain. Help me protect Lily’s son.”

See? Twinkles didn’t actually commit to anything himself. If Snape chose to believe Albus was planning to protect rather than abuse and sacrifice the child, that was Snape’s interpretation.

So all of us who ever criticized Twinkles on the grounds that he’d failed to keep his promises to Severus to protect Lily, and later Harry, can just take it back.

Comments

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, this makes Scummywhore look even worse! He took advantage of a desperate young man who was too distraught to think straight, then he didn't even deliver on what he implicitly promised. Your analysis (and oryx's first comment) reminded me of two things:

1) When Bill Clinton was being grilled about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, he said, "There's nothing going on between us," then explained, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."

As a normal, i.e., non-lawyer person, when I heard that, my immediate reaction was, "What the hell does that mean?" But I very clearly remember reading an article that quoted a prominent lawyer as saying something like, "OMG, that is so brilliant! That shows what a great lawyer Clinton is!" Truly, lawyers do not think like normal people. (Reading Clinton's words over again, I can see the fiendish cleverness of them now.)

2) Stephen Vincent Benet's classic story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster." For those who haven't read or don't remember it, it's about a farmer, Jabez Stone, who has a life similar to Snape's: He's poor, miserable, desperate, and everything he does ends up disastrously. One day, he loses control and yells he wants to sell his soul to the devil. Of course, Satan shows up and guarantees Stone several years of prosperity and success in exchange for his soul. When it's time to pay up, Stone runs to Daniel Webster and begs for help. (Although the story is fictional, Webster was real, one of America's greatest statesmen and orators in the first half of the 19th century.) Also of course, Webster gets Stone off.

But did you notice the difference between Benet's story and Rowling's? In Benet's story, Satan actually gives his victim what he promised! Unlike Scummywhore, who implicitly promises everything but gives nothing, Satan promises everything and delivers it. That's right ladies and gentlemen: Satan, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, the Great Deceiver--is more honorable and trustworthy than that "epitome of goodness," Albus Dumbledore.

That's true, not just in this story, but in any story I've ever read or seen in which people sell their souls to the devil. Unlike Scummywhore, the devil always keeps his end of the bargain. He may trick people in some clever way (e.g., into turning over their souls earlier than they expected), but people never sell their souls, only to get nothing in return. That kind of manipulative dishonesty is the province only of monsters like Moldyshorts and Scummywhore.

Your analysis also made me imagine a fanfic called, "Dumbledore and Daniel Webster." Knowing how sneaky and dishonest Dumbledore is, and having read Benet's story years earlier, Snape brings the ghost of Daniel Webster with him to his meeting. Webster negotiates with Scummywhore to get Snape everything he wants, with the best part being that Snape owes Dumbledore absolutely nothing in return! Ah, fanfic is indeed the best revenge against bad stories!

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Scumblewhore even worse? How can you say so?

(I'm reminded of Marianros's statement that she'd rather expose her children to a serial pedophile than to Albus....)

And if wasne't just Snape's desperation he took advantage of here--it was his own reputation for being "too--well--noblle" to use Tom's methods.

Snape DIDN'T trust Tom's promises, or non-promises, whatever. That's why he went to Twinkles in the first place.

His mistake was believing that Albus was any different.

And he paid for it with his life. And worse (from his standpoint), Li'ly's.

But after all, where do we imagine that ickle Tommy LEARNED to negotiate? Makes me want to re-read those Albus-Tom scenes in CoS and HBP really, REALLY carefully.

The problem with the fanfic is that when Severus approached Albus, he imagined tht he was dealing with an honorable man, and so didn't realize he needed a negotiatot, or at least to examine Albus's every word and pin him down inexcapably.

Very fortunately, Albus cut short Tom's lessons before Tom fully absorbed what an advantage it is to be popularly held to be above suspicion.....

[oryx_leucoryx]

Oh, where would Tom have ended up had he managed to be above suspicion... Most popular Minister ever, re-appointed repeatedly, I suppose. And Albus as headmaster and Chief Warlock would have had to work with him.