Most soldiers don't start at age 11, so I'm sure something can happen, maybe a forced event in their 5th year involving the conspiracy, that will propel their adventures together.

15 really isn't that young to begin a story of child heroes.

 

There's some pretty lame next-gen series of fics called the Stygian Trilogy, in which the trio's children (with the arbitrary Scorpius and a bunch of other Americanized kids) do the whole "growing up fast" and "roam around the globe to fight a dark conspiracy" thing. The idea is nice I guess but it's just too likely to fall into Dan Brown cliches.

 

Every time this thread is resurrected I want to perform lobotomy on myself with a soup spoon.

 

A spoon isn't enough, a machete is alot better for this.

 

Curious how I have never seen a thread like this for Hermione.... very curious.

 

I'm pretty sure there's been a bunch of Hermione-hating threads over the past six months, though they might have ended in HoS.

 

I always kinda figured that in the end Harry was cool with(or at least forgave) the stuff Dumbledore pulled, so that means I can keep loving him as one of the coolest characters in the story.

 

Sorry dude, just had to add my own piece.

The Dumbledore bashing sued to make sense to me when I was a pre teen but now it's just stupid. I see fanfics that complain that he was raising Harry as weapon while others (Or even the same ones) say that Dumbledore should have trained Harry more. And even if he had done that in canon (Which there was no reason for - a couple years isn't goign to beat 40+ years fo experience) then people would just say that he took away Harry's childhood.

 

I think Dumbledore gets a really bad rep for being manipulative. Yeah he did play puppet master but for the best. As much as we all want Harry to be this awesome heroic fight machine, that's not what he was. He was average and it would have been stupid and unfair for Dumbledore to try to turn him into some super solider killer. The way everything happened was probably the best for harry. He still got as normal a childhood as someone like him could get and a mostly happy ending.

 

The word manipulative. I don't think it means what you think it means.

 

I think he just shorthanded his post. I got the idea he's saying it's not manipulation in the sense of "getting something for me" but rather, "manipulating a situation in which Harry played a part.

And, to that point (if that's what he meant), I'd agree. Dumbledore acted more like a general or wizened leader preparing someone for what was coming.

 

It would be nice to have a quick refference sheat for the cannon stuff Dumbledore did to check how much of a fic is made up. It was a while ago since I read the books last and things get fuzzy with too much fanfiction in between.

 

You mean something like this?

 

He is simultaneously the Headmaster of one of if not the best school in the world for magic, the Chief Warlock for the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump for the ICW, and after book 4 leading the Order of the Phoenix. Not to mention the fact that, he was probably constantly searching for information about how Voldemort survived throughout the series. He knew he was still alive the whole time. That's a pretty busy schedule for anyone no matter how smart or talented you are. He may have missed a few things along the way.

The reason people seem to think he knows everything that goes on inside of Hogwarts is because we see how other characters see him. He is treated with an insane amount of respect, and everyone talks about all the amazing things he has accomplished, but he is still human and makes mistakes. I can't imagine being shouldered with so many responsibilities at the same time helps.

Even if he knows that something is going on, he might not always know exactly what it is. He could just as easily be giving people just enough to succeed because he knows he can't be everywhere at once and on the off chance he gets called away when something happens he doesn't want them choosing to run into something they have no chance of surviving.

 

Look, Taure nailed this back on page one. If Dumbledore was manipulative, he was manipulative in name only, without any of the things that make such manipulation actually bad. Could he have been better? Yeah sure, he's hardly the paragon that everybody looked to him as. There was a whole big part of DH that dealt with that. But he was still a good guy. You want a flawless individual who was consistently fucking great? Try McGonagall.

 

No way in hell do I want to read McGonagall based lemons.

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Rakkety Tam also nailed it, however. And, there's been a number of fanfiction stories that have picked up on that idea. It's honestly one way to write Dumbledore a little differently than canon without falling into the "manipulation" trap.

 

Honestly, Dumbledore is aware of the manipulation he does, but ultimately has, as the quote goes 'good intentions that pave the way to hell'. There is a reputation with 'Manipulative Dumbledore' especially in fanfictions because that makes him more dramatic and interesting to read, but I think in the book he was human, he was old and wanted the best for everyone. However, his version of 'best' is not necessarily the best for everyone.

This means he is manipulative but not evil. He can't satisfy everyone because in the end he wasn't this super powerful god (maybe wizard) but he was human, with too many losses and expectations as a burden.

 

Um, no.

Where, exactly, is he manipulative? Snape? He laid down hard truths when Snape came crawling to him to save Lily. Harry? Where, in all seven books, does he manipulate Harry?

In fact, "Manipulative Dumbledore" would negate a basic tenant of Dumbledore's (and an overarching theme of the book) philosophy - you always have a choice.

 

To me, it seems more like Dumbledore just didn't take the right steps to prevent certain scenarios. Some of that was probably due to side-plots, some was due to him being removed at a later stage and not having already done it, and some could have been resolved by him being a bit more proactive in safeguarding the students of Hogwarts (but then again, a lot of that is almost certainly "hindsight 20/20").

He could've done more to protect the Philosopher's Stone (or at least the mirror), and he could have tried to include Harry in the plan a bit earlier, seeing as it was literally (whether correctly or not) pre-destined that Harry would be in a battle against Voldemort. The Philosopher's Stone could have been protected better, or not hidden in a school. If it was a trap, then it sorta worked, but it seems weird that first-years would be able to get past everything and for people to just consider those acceptable protections. He may have (I'm pretty sure he did) wanted to leave Harry to just enjoy his life a bit longer, and so didn't talk to him about the prophecy and so on.

Of course, bits can be put down to it being a book series that's (at least partially) aimed at children - you can hardly have the first-years go on a major adventure if they can't get past any of the obstacles due to their inexperience. The protecting-Harry-from-the-truth in fifth year was, again, a course that seemed like a good idea at the time.

But there are bits of the story that seem confusing, and he could definitely have been seen as manipulative (seeming to give them the tools needed to complete the tasks; giving vague, dire warnings about mysterious dangers), but I'm not sure there's really enough to see his actions as manipulative in the story; he didn't do the best things at the best times, and there are definitely some weird actions he took, but I think a lot of people try to fit him into the "manipulative" role and then look for any evidence (or vagueness or ambiguity) that could point to that. I'm not really sure he actually was very manipulative.

 

There always seems to be an inherent contradiction in the argument put forward by critics of Dumbledore in that they simultaneously describe him as manipulative (in the pejorative sense) but also accuse him of not manipulating Harry enough.

Example: people accuse Dumbledore of involving Harry in dangerous situations but simultaneously accuse him of not involving him in more of them. Which is it? Should Dumbledore have exerted complete control over Harry's life to keep him out of any dangerous situation, completely robbing him of freedom? Or should Dumbledore have crafted Harry into a child soldier? You can't have both at the same time, and anyway, to me both are highly undesirable.

The compromise Dumbledore reached in canon seems to me to be the least bad out of a bunch of bad choices.