I like manipulative Dumbledore when it's written well. Unfortunately though, 95% of people writing it insist on Dumbledore having an evil internal monologue, Dumbledore being outwitted and out manoeuvred by Harry depite being this manipulative genius who is pulling everyone's strings, or have him doing if simply 'for the evuls' or the 'Potter fortune'.

Even worse is when Dumbledore suddenly goes "I planned for every possible outcome except Harry going into Slytherin! Oh no, my evil plan is ruined! I could never have predicted an abused child might be cunning or resourceful to avoid being abused!" - awful, awful, awful.

Actually, manipulative Dumbledore is canon - he outright admits it in book six. The difference between canon and most fanon is Dumbledore in canon is doing it because he see no other option because of the prophecy while in fanon he's doing it for personal gain or something equally dumb.

Regardless though, manipulative Dumbledore can be good, but most people are too stupid to pull it off and fall into standard fanfiction clichés

 

Alexandra Potter

The French Affair on FFN and the WbA thread can be found here.

And here's a link for Control.

 

My opinions on manipulative Dumbledore are similar to yours , but I can't seem to remember even a single fic where Dumbledore is evil/manipulative but competent and well written. Dumbledore in control is manipulative and antagonistic to the main character , but that's more Harry being a bastard rather Dumbledore being a bastard. Jbern tried manipulative Dumbledore in Bungle/TML , but any Dumbledore feeding Harry love potions is an auto-fail to me.

Personally I prefer Dumbledore to be slightly antagonistic towards Harry rather than the warm grandfatherly relationship they shared in canon - things are much more fun when Harry isn't an extension of Dumbledore's will and "Dumbledore's man through and through". The best DD-Harry relationship was in Shezza's Denarian trilogy , they were allies with a healthy dose of fear/wariness on both sides. For a positive relationship , Taure does a vey good job in Alexandra Potter as well .

Speaking of Alexandra Potter , any idea as to if/when the sequel will be released? There have been very few good HP fanfics in the last couple of years , and Taure's was one of the best.

 

Yea, I have a significat amout of disbelief when I read sincerely loving and caring old grandfather Dumbledore.

 

Why do you find it hard to see a sincerely kind and caring Dumbledore?

 

Well I think he either had to be negligent and incompetent, or uncaring and I think it's more likely to be uncaring given he's supposed to be a genius.

Dumbledore made a lot of mistakes and while some of them could have been because of genuine errors there were simply too many of them for that to likely be the case. In my mind Dumbledore simply did the maths and decided (rightly in a vary cold way) that Harry's life was a worth less that many innocent lives. It's shitty but it's true.

As Stan said, I prefer Harry to be cautious of Dumbledore. Harry should know that Dumbledore practically sat back and let all these bad things happen to him during his time at Hogwarts and hate him for it but ultimately can't fault him - he was simply preparing Harry to fight a war and be able to suppress any fear he had so he could do what the prophecy said he had to do.

The alternative is that Dumbledore was a moron setting up pathetic traps for the Philosophers Stone, that only a secondyear bookworm could figure out what Slytherin's Monster was, etc. I prefer Dumbledore to be not a moron.

Fuck, I mean, he deliberately gave Harry the Resurrection Stone just so he would see his parents and Sirius and be willing to embrace death. That is some cold hearted shit there using someone's dead family as a means to convince someone to basically commit suicide.

On that note, I absolutely hate reading fics where Dumbledore is scheming with Molly, Ron and Ginny to dose him with love potion and take all his money. It retardedly makes Dumbledore go from someone who uses somewhat distasteful means to save everyone behind the scenes to someone pettily after some gold.

 

A magical genius, and a really smart person. Not error proof. It seems that all the mistakes that he made were thrown, and since he is a very capable and old person, they were a lot and had major consequences. He is no an Obi-Wan figure where we only see his wisdom and such, we see his humanity.

This proves you understand nothing about who Dumbledore is. You seemed like the person that would write Dumbledore saying "For the Greater Good." Or seem to think that all the claer affection that Dumbledore had for him was fake.

Dumbledore always gave Harry choices, never pushed him too far and tried to shield him from the worse, even if it came back to bite him. He respected and loved Harry enough to know he would do the right thing because he is a really good person.

No, he gave him something to draw strength from to do the right thing, and as far as everyone knows, the only right thing. Harry choose to the hard and right thing, Dumbledore trusted and had the faith he would do it, and something that he thought it would help Harry.

 

I didn't say he was flawless, rather he made loads of mistakes. One or two mistakes I can understand as being human, loads though and he's either incompetent (which he's certainly not) or he actually intended those things to happen.

Well I wouldn't have him chime that over and over as a mantra knowing the Grindlewald publicly used it, but if you want to sum up "the ends justify the means" in three words then yes.

Choice where the alternative was the death of either himself or another innocent person. Those aren't free choices.

No, he played with Harry's emotions to make sure he offed himself. It was insurance in a massive Batman Gambit

Either way, he's practically been conditioned to be a hero. Harry's first though when something is wrong and he's way over his head is to fix the problem himself anyway.

The alternative is that Dumbledore is consistently incompetent. A error here and there could be passed off as being human but instead he consistently makes 'mistakes'.

Anyway, I'm not sure this falls under Pet Peeves anymore and I think we can pass this off as differing interpretations.

 

I have no problem with A manipulative Dumbledore, I doubt many people do. Of course he's going to try and make people do what he thinks is right, I'd say 99% of people do. How good he is at it is what makes him deserving of the title.

The problem is when he's being manipulative for bad reasons. Manipulating Harry (if you believe he did that) into embracing death for the good of everyone is not a bad reason. There's nothing wrong with that, if Dumbledore saw no other options and truly thought it was the best thing for everyone I don't see a problem. Those are just the cold decisions a leader has to make sometimes. He manipulates a lot of people, and all good leaders should. You need people to do what you want them to do if you want to have a chance at winning a war.

I enjoy the same type of manipulative!Harry, where he gets people to help him by making them believe it's the right thing to do. He's not necessarily tricking them, it may truly be the best thing for them. Unfortunately the writing can be pretty poor for it sometimes and it just breaks down to the other character sounding like an idiot and a sheep.

 

The fic "Sage amongst wizard" was just so, so bad...

 

You can get several interpretations of Dumbledore's character from canon. As such, I would state certain undisputed facts:

1) Dumbledore knew that by sending Harry to the Dursley's, he was basically condemning him to ten years of hell. He outright states this in OOTP. He had a squib installed on the same street to keep an eye on Harry. Which basically means that he was aware of the abuse suffered by Harry ; I doubt Figg would have missed the tell-tale signs of negligence - his broken glasses, his too-skinny frame, his overlarge clothes or the "freak" rumors the Dursleys spread about Harry.

The major reasons in canon for putting Harry with the Dursleys were two - the blood protections (whatever that means), and the fact that he did not want Harry growing up knowing that he was famous (he states this to Minerva at the beginning of PS) - after all, arrogance is not a quality befitting a savior. If it was just the first case, no doubt a few well chosen words for the Dursleys or a few galleons from Harry's vault would have ensured that Harry was atleast well taken care of, if still unloved. Yet, Dumbledore does no such thing and disregards the situation entirely letting the mistreatment of his savior continue.

2) Dumbledore knew that Harry was a horcrux - either straight from the beginning or atleast, since Harry's second year. He knew that for Voldemort to die, Harry had to die. It was only at the end of the fourth book that Dumbledore thought that Harry might just survive - his survival in DH was by no means certain.

It is irrelevant whether Dumbledore truly cared about Harry or not, the fact remains that he wanted Voldemort to die more than Harry to live. He manipulated events such that Harry would have the best chance of accepting his death instead of running away.


Perhaps in the end, it can be said that Dumbledore did what he had to do. After all, it would have been selfish of him to put Harry's survival over the rest of the wizarding world (or atleast, those persecuted by Voldemort). However my point isn't whether Dumbledore is a manipulative bastard or not- yes he is definitely manipulative and no, he is probably not a cold-hearted bastard that most bad manipulative Dumbledore fics make him out to be. But this is not what this post is about - this is about Harry's relationship with Dumbledore.

Harry knows the first fact I stated very well - that Dumbledore would rather have Harry abused and heroic rather than healthy and arrogant. Yet Harry insists on looking up to Dumbledore, and proclaims himself "Dumbledore's man through and through". By the end of the seventh book, Harry knows both facts 1 and 2, yet he still looks up to Dumbledore, going as far to name his son after him. I don't care who you are - if someone is responsible for your abusive childhood, if that someone insists on locking you up in your personal hell every year for your "safety", if you learn that your death has been planned by said person from day 1, then you can't not hate him. You might understand the reasons from a strictly academic view, yet it would do little to diminish your hatred.

Nonetheless, it is definitely my personal preference that Harry and Dumbledore do not get along well. It is definitely the more realistic situation. Canon had Harry following Dumbledore's instructions to the letter , and I prefer my protagonist to be thinking for himself and be his own master, not a puppet dancing to anyone's will. In fact, I don't want my protagonist to willingly defer to anyone, period. Allies are well and good , but then it should be the type of allies like in the Denarian trilogy; or the kind in On the Way to Greatness, where it is an open secret that Harry dislikes Dumbledore, but acknowledges Voldemort as the bigger danger and is willing to work with Dumbledore.

Also, Catharsis by Nuhuh and Only Enemies by leave this world have a badass antagonistic Dumbledore and feature some magnificent duels, although neither story has a very good plot. Hogwarts Battle School by Kwan Li is showing signs of manipulative Dumbledore. Personally, my favourite manipulative Dumbledore fics are both oneshots - The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore by trip-trap and And Beggars Will Ride by Opalish. The latter story is especially jarring and beautifully written.

EDIT: Fixed the spaces before the punctuation. Hope its better now .

 

Yeah well, canon Harry is stupid, probably not one of the better ones from canon¹, and not worth replicating in a fic. Which is why there's barely any good fics that don't change his character in some way from canon. So of course he looks up to Dumbledore knowing those things, he's an idiot. To be fair Dumbledore is still extremely powerful and wise, I'd look up to him almost no matter what.

¹Canon Harry isn't baaad, there are things worth keeping about him of course (otherwise no one would write/read about him). He's just really, really flawed, which while sometimes good for a story, I at least find dull.

I actually like them having a close relationship myself. If they don't then Dumbledore doesn't really a reason to get screen time, and a good Dumbledore is one of my favourite characters (too bad they're extremely rare). That's not the only reason though, I just like Harry being something along the lines of Dumbledore's apprentice/successor.

 

Can you please stop putting space before commas and full stops. It's painful to read.

 

I disagree with your interpretation of Dumbledore. I think he wants to believe the best out of people. He said himself, as you said, that he knew Harry wouldn't be "happy" with the Dursleys. He also said that they treated him worse than he expected when he comes looking for him in the sixth book. From what I read on the books, it is not quite that he put him with the Dursleys because he needed someone heroic so he didn't want him to be famous but because he wanted him to have a somewhat normal childhood.

The defenses around the philosopher stone make more sense if you think that they are made to delay the perpetrator until Dumbledore got there rather than fully stop the thief. The mirror of erised was also there because if someone went through all that trouble to steal the stone then he wouldn't be able to get it out of the mirror. And considering that the thief was someone who got into Gringotts out of sheer magical skill, then it makes sense to make defenses that you need other skills to get through. With this, you also needed to be very good at flying, chess and logic which are not necessary to break into Gringotts and that are things that someone who is good at magic is not necessarily good at (admittedly, the puzzle was not that hard) and they are set by teachers who are not necessarily the best at setting defenses. It was reasonable to think that if the guy could break through whatever curse Gringotts had then he could break through whatever curse you could put there.

On the second year and Hermione being able to solve the mystery, the key part of it was Harry being able to understand the monster, which he only told Hermione and Ron. Dumbledore later admits that he had several theories about how Voldemort could have survived but that the diary was the first evidence he had about Voldemort using horcruxes so he couldn't have planned for Harry to die since the beginning (even if you argue that he told Harry he had a piece of Voldemort, not only was this after the diary was destroyed but it doesn't necessarily mean a piece of soul).

Then we have the feeling of triumph he had when Voldemort used Harry's blood to make his body. It is implied that Dumbledore knew that Harry might survive if he died for others without fighting. So even if Dumbledore knew that Harry had to die, he went about it so that Harry might at least have a chance to survive that (it is also implied that it wouldn't have worked if he knew).

Finally, the resurrection stone made no sense as a manipulation to make him commit suicide because Harry was already decided to do that before he figured out what was in the snitch. Yes, it served as a consolation when he was afraid of death and you could argue it was the final push but with everything Dumbledore ever told Harry about wanting him to have a normal childhood (not because he wanted him to fight Voldemort but because Voldemort wouldn't give them a choice and he wanted Harry to be a child before he was forced to fight) it makes more sense for it to be just that, a consolation.

Dumbledore is all about knowing that Harry had to fight Voldemort but not wanting that fate for him because it was unfair to an orphan. So you know what?

Pet Peeve: Dumbledore plans for Harry to die from the start and makes everything posible to make him a pawn/sacrificial piece with no self esteem.

 

*Sigh* You misunderstood the point of my post completely. Never once did I say that Dumbledore wanted Harry to die a painful death. In fact, I explicitly stated that Dumbledore did what he thought was best for the Wizarding world, and that everyone, including Harry, would agree what he did was for the best. What I said was that Harry should dislike Dumbledore nonetheless. At the very least, they should not have gotten along as well as they did in canon.

After all, if someone played with your life and made it miserable, even if it was justified and necessary for beating Voldemort and for the greater good of the wizarding world, would you still not hate him? Would you forgive him for all the lonely nights you spent in your cupboard, all the time watching your whale of a cousin eating full meals you cooked, while you slept hungry; all the time knowing that a few words from that someone could have fixed everything wrong with your life, but did not interfere for the greater good?
I think not.

Errr...... isn't this in direct contradiction with the fact that Dumbledore knew Harry was going to lead a life that was going to be unhappy at best and abusive at worst? If Dumbledore's idea of normal childhood included malnutrition, Harry Hunting and constant emotional abuse, I'm reasonably sure that Harry would have liked to skip out on the normal childhood part, Thank You Very Much.

Yes, yes, I think we all agree that Dumbledore wasn't an evil retard who actually wanted Harry to die. It doesn't change the fact that Dumbledore knew that Harry would have to die (with an even chance of not coming back), kept him in an abusive loveless family and yet had the gall to preach to Harry about A Normal Childhood and The Power of Love. It may not make him an evil bastard, but it sure makes him a hypocrite.

The point I was trying to make is that any reasonable person would dislike Dumbledore if put in Harry's situation, even knowing that Dumbledore's reasons were justified. That Harry actually looked up to the man as a mentor instead is completely and utterly ridiculous.

In the end, we have to agree to disagree. You prefer see Dumbledore as an old and wise grandfather/mentor to Harry. My preferences lie towards fics where Harry snubs Dumbledore and their relationship is frosty (as it should have been in canon IMO), or atleast fics where Harry isn't Dumbledore's submissive little pussy and doesn't agree to all the idealistic drivel about Love and Forgiveness that he spouts.

Thanks, I had no idea this was a problem for others- I can read my posts just fine. Anyway, I will fix this in my future posts. I hope this post is more readable.

 

Neither did I say that you said he wanted to make him die a painful death. What I said was that Dumbledore did not only what he thought was best for the wizardly world but what he thought was best for Harry and that Harry could see that. That when he left Harry with Petunia he knew she wouldn't love him as his son but he hoped she still loved her sister enough to treat him like a normal boy. That he thought it was best for Harry if he didn't have everyone's expectations and scrutiny since before he could remember since he would have enough of that once he returned to the wizardly world and Harry agreed with that for the most part since he wanted people to see him as Harry. That phrases like "played with your life and made it miserable to defeat Voldemort" and that "a single word could have got you out" are inaccurate because he didn't play with his life and because he couldn't have taken him away from the Dursleys as he had no legal right to do so while he did to leave him with them since they are his closest relations. That Harry was already in a shitty situation but that Dumbledore tried his best to make it bearable. That Harry friggin admires Dumbledore because the guy can admit when he fucked up and tries to always do the right thing even if it is not easy. That the whole "keeping him in a shitty situation even though he knew he had to die" is wrong because by the time he learned Harry had to die it was already too late to take him away. That once he found out that situation, he encouraged Harry spending as little time as necessary in that shitty situation. Harry doesn't hate Dumbledore because he is mature enough to see his point of view, to know he didn't mean to harm him and that sometimes, we hurt those we love even without meaning to.



By the way, I know you probably don't mean it that way, but putting *sigh* at the beginning of a post where you reply to someone sounds condescending as fuck, especially when you later say something like

because it implies your exasperation is not because he didn't understand what you were trying to say but that your exasperation comes from him having a different opinion. It sounds like you are tired of dealing with idiots with dumb opinions rather than you are tired because you will have to write yet another long post. Please be more careful next time.

 

Best for Harry and best for the wizarding world are mutually exclusive. Best for the wizarding world was more or less what happened in canon, best for Harry would have been leaving Britain either before or after the 965657th attempt on his life, changing his name to John Smith, settling down in another wizarding country and finally living Dumbledore's oh-so-precious Normal Life.

Dumbledore knew this was a fool's hope at best- he states so in canon. Anyway, it is irrelevant as DD knew of Harry's home life through his pet squib and yet did nothing anyway.

Errr...how does it make a difference at what age Harry entered the Wizarding world? If anything, after no news of their savior for ten years, the media should have been much crazier than they were in canon. If anything, being raised in the wizarding world would have meant Harry growing up with these expectations rather than being thrust on him overnight.

Legal Rights? Legal Rights? Are you implying something as mundane as muggle legal rights would have stopped DD from doing what he wanted, the same Albus fucking Dumbledore who found an illegal vigilante organization under the ministry's nose? Yeah, right.

Anyway, the point is DD need not have taken Harry away from the Dursleys at all. A few well chosen words were all it would have taken to ensure that Harry was well fed, but even knowing about the situation through Figg, DD turned a blind eye to it. If you were you Harry, would you not be pissed off?

Here lies the problem.
Fact 1: Harry lead an extremely shitty home life, bordering on abuse.
Fact 2: DD knew about it through Figg, but took no steps to stop it, even when it would have required little to no effort on his part.
Fact 3: DD knew that Harry would have to die for Voldemort to die from at least the second book, and while Voldemort's ritual increased his chances of survival, it was by no means certain that Harry would survive.

I want to state that knowing the above three facts,Realistically Harry couldn't possibly not dislike Dumbledore. Yes, Dumbledore probably wanted the best possible life for Harry as well and didn't want him to suffer more than necessary, but the fact remains that for some reason, DD deemed Harry suffering at the Dursley's necessary, or at least not serious enough to warrant intervention, and this fact alone should make Harry dislike DD.

Also, the fact that he had been essentially marked for death (or atleast, possible death) for atleast 5 years, maybe more, by his so called "mentor" should have left a sour taste in his mouth.

I assure you, Dumbledore knew what he was doing and certainly meant to do it, regardless of whether he wanted to or not. It was just that he put the wizarding world's survival over Harry's, which while understandable, doesn't in any way endear Harry to Dumbledore, considering survival of said world came at the cost of 10 years of misery in Harry's life.

 

That was basically the point of the Harry Potter books. That Harry, despite his awful upbringing, is a selfless enough person to put the needs of a world that constantly made life difficult for him above his own. Whether you agree with it or not, that's just the kind of person Harry is.
There's basically two themes to the Harry Potter ending. That self sacrifice is the most noble thing possible, and that the soul and the afterlife are more important than anything on earth. Of all the characters, only Voldemort gets the bad afterlife.

 

As Stan said, at the very least Dumbledore could have forced the Dursleys to feed him properly and give him a proper bedroom.

 

I'd just want to put a few things in perspective here. If I'd been in Harry's shoes, I'd be grateful. Yes, grateful.

Sure, I slept in a cupboard when I was a tiny little thing. Then I found out I was a wizard, and there was a whole new world before me. Magic's brilliant!

Of course, there's a power-hungry Dark Lord after my life. A wizard so terrible, so horrifyingly brilliant that wizards fear to speak his name a decade after he was supposedly killed. Of course, he isn't dead, he's after my life. A wizard widely accepted as one of the very best students to pass through the walls of Hogwarts, brilliant enough to lure tens of powerful wizards to his side to fight for his cause. A wizard who's done magic which many thought impossible.

Enter his antithesis, Albus Dumbledore. The old, grandfatherly type, who's secretly badass to the power 'n'. Sure, my home life was less than ideal. But then again, I was under threat of retaliation from several dark wizards, and even Voldemort himself later in life. Locked in a cupboard vs locked in a cell? Not really physically abused vs being hit with a few Crucio's. I'm with the former.

And let's be honest. I'm a decent wizard, but nowhere near the range of Dumbledore or Voldemort. Even Snape. I'm the average, everyday slacker who gets by life with a lot of luck and a little help from my friends.

Man, I should've been screwed in the war. Sure, it was tough, and we lost some great people, but let's take in the forest instead of the trees now. Dumbledore engineered the war in such a way that a singularly average 17 year old felled the most evil wizard of all time, came out of it unharmed, and somehow came away with a handy little new perk of mastering the Deathly Hallows. Yes, those Deathly Hallows. Now I can live the rest of my life in peace, fucking bitches, getting money...the usual. Maybe life's not so bad.

Can you imagine the decades of fighting without Dumbledore? I mean, my parents and their peers, who've repeatedly been established as some of the best wizards of their times, couldn't bring an end to Voldemort's rising power. How were a prophecy that only marked me as a target and (lulz) a summer of Pilates and meditation going to help?