Do you see him as a sweet, kind and gentle, slightly senile old man or as a crafty, highly Intelligent and conniving man who manipulated people completely to do his bidding?

 

Both.

/10char

 

Did you know that we have a thread where you can ask all these burning questions to your heart's content without needing to create a new thread each time? I only ask because you seem to have asked several questions that didn't really spawn much conversation and don't really need a whole new thread to ask.

That said, I agree with Knight and will say both. He's an old man, he does what he wants and he enjoys candy.

 

Dumbledore's a crafty old man who enjoys sweets. That said, he's proven he's able to throw the manipulation card out a few times, one being where he throws the "Harry has Lily's eyes" out to Snape, although that mightve been to help Snape just as much as it was to help Harry. And he obviously dosent care what people think about him shown by how he acts/dresses.

 

I don't want to alarm anybody, but I think he might be gay.

 

I tend to view Dumbledore as a person lying in bed reading the Harry Potter books. Much better than the movies. Preferably I would be able to view him as someone reading the books for the first time, but unfortunately I can't delete my memories and read and reread the HP books over and over.


(That is to say the question to want to ask is "What do you view Dumbledore as?" or just "How do you view Dumbledore?").

 

Dumbledore is a goodly, well-intentioned, gifted wizard with great resolve.

He withholds information, manipulates peoples feelings and emotions, and risks people's lives, but never maliciously or callously.

He wants Harry to have a childhood, to live as full of a life as he can until the day he must die for everyone. Dumbledore believes this to be necessary, but wants Harry's life to be as enjoyable as it can be.

Dumbledore is willing to die and willing to send people to their deaths if it will protect society as a whole. This is most apparent with Harry, who he knows must die, but still tries to arrange things so Harry has the best chance. He could have killed Harry the moment it became clear he had part of Voldemort's soul inside him. Even after Voldemort used Harry's blood to return to life (and hence anchored Harry to the world) Dumbledore planned for Harry to destroy every horcrux before being killed as that would give him the best chance of survival.

So, sure, he was crafty and manipulated people, but ultimately for what was their own good.

Dumbledore's biggest flaws were JKR's plot holes.

 

I see Dumbledore as someone trying to do his best with what he's got. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Given his liking of the phrase "for the greater good" and its 'misuse' by Grindelwald, I think he was wise, wise enough to know what was wrong with his actions - he must have seen the dark side of his decisions. He made difficult decisions that weren't in the best interest of Harry and others like him, but he made those decisions under some nebulous idea of a qualitative "better". I think you can like him for his resolve, but his philosophy isn't all that admirable. It takes a bit of a god complex to think that you can decide what is a "greater" good (how is it "greater" to ask one stranger to sacrifice for another?). In many ways, Dumbledore is Grindelwald's foil, but he's more similar to him than he might want to admit. In short? I like him as a character, but I don't like him as a person, so I think I can sympathize with authors that try to paint him as some evil mastermind.

 

I disagree. Dumbledore's most defining moment is his confrontation of Grindelwald in 1945 (or w/e). Here he finds the sad evidence of how his Greater Good philosophy really played out in the world. Horrified by it -- but still loyal to a fault to his friend Gellert -- he struggles to make the right (not easy) choice and does, which has a lasting effect on him.

That is the same effect that prevents him from turning Harry into a weapon against Voldemort. His greatest clashes with Harry and with himself happened when the Greater Good conflicted with his loyalty to Harry. He knew Harry needed to face Voldemort and die, there's even a prophecy that forces Voldemort's hand, and thus his. But he fights it with everything he has. He shelters Harry from it as long as he can, up until the day he dies.

But he shelters him too much. Harry suffers from it and Dumbledore sees this. Still he is convinced that he must shelter Harry (Dursley's is one example. "Famous everywhere! Famous before he can talk. Famous for something he can't even remember.") He remembers being Harry's age, how easily he was swayed by the promise of so much power within easy reach. He wants to keep Harry away from what broke him all those years ago.

And in the end he is proven wrong. To Dumbledore's utter delight, Harry turns out to be the better man, the man he could never be, through sheer will mastering every temptation and obstacle, even his own death.

So I don't see him as manipulative. I see him as a loving, worried, scared old man, who cares more about Harry than himself or the rest of the world. The Greater Good only enters into his dealings with Harry's life in that he strives to do the opposite he would've done in his twenties, which leads him to new mistakes as he tries to avoid the old ones.

 

Dumbledore's a BAMF grandpa that everyone wants but no one can get. (Where's Constans to come bite me?) But everything I'd say puiwaihin already said. Sorry for this nonsensical reply - I'm a bit of a Dumbledore fanboy.

 

You'd never know

 

I do not have exact quote but hadn´t he said something about ten difficult and hard years at Dursleys ? Does it sound enjoyable ?

So the reason that Harry had choice for survival was that Dumbledore manipulated Voldemort into taking Harry´s blood ? And do you really see Dumbledore murdering Harry in his 5th year (after smoke snakes) ? He was not willing to seriously harm Voldemort in MoM, he would not stain himself with Harry´s death.

And Dumbledore is even willing to force Harry to watch his orchestrated death before Harry´s own eyes, to make him a martyr and to put him on pedestal in Harry´s mind after he is slowly dying because of his own stupidity. In this light, his willingness to lay down his life does not look that heroic, does it ?