I notice that alot of stories these days are havinghuge dumbledore bashings. Even some of the crappy harry/ginslut. Perhaps its just the current fad? Im really not sure but its getting old either way.

The problyme isnt nessesarily that manipulative and bad dumbledore is bad, its just tat not many can pull it off. tons of people try to pull it off but it comes out crappy. hes susposed to be a very smart old man. One thing that i always see happen is Harry is the first person to point out to dumbledore how bad his occlumency lessons go. And that snape mut be a traitor and then dumbledore suddenly sees the light and join harrys side. I think the most powerful wizard alive besides voldemort could probly gather this on his own...


I was thinking, why not put a bit of a difrent twist on manipulative dumbledore?

What if dumbledore manipulated Harry in such a way that harry knew he was being manipulated and rebelled, but rebelled in a way dumbledore wanted?

We basically know its in harrys good character not to use dark magic, or harm people, but we all know this must be done for Harry to acsend to Voldemort level.

Nowif Dumbledore taught him dark and powerful magic thats not susposed to be known or taught dumbledores public image could be ruined or distorted, and or Harry's faith or respect for the all knowing light leader could lower.

BUT, if Dumbledore carefully manipulated him to rebell and become more independent, not be so blind to the world, become more powerful and have a greater incentive to learn.
Manipulate him more slytherin, calculating, someone better suited to survive a war.

We've seen by example in many stories that the actions of dumbledore can turn Harry exactly into what ive described. I dont think it would be too much harder to give Dumbledore actual credit for doing in on purpose and not as a mistake.

Hell you can even have Hary hate dumbledore at the end for it stil wen he finds out, and it will still work out in dumbldores favor as he did the (greater good). And this would be in my opinion a much greater good than dumbledore trying to take over harry life like in most books and while failing miserably say its in the name of the greater good.

BTW sorry for the many spelling and grammer errors in this post but for somreason every time i go to fix somehting it erases the letters in front of the stuff imfixing lol. I was too lazy to figure out why this was happening.

 

A benign manipulative bastard Dumbledore? Sounds interesting to me, at least I can't recall a story that has that.

 

Well Lady Almeran posted a story that was a like that a while back. Here have a look...

Harmatia by Scela Letifer

 

thats was pretty awesome. Some more shit like that needs to float about. I would write it myself, only i appear to ahve this problem that every night before i sleep i find a new way to begin and end an entire story in my head lol. So i never get 1 down on paper. This idea is so tempting though if i can work it write. Perhaps ill sleep on it tongiht and see what i come up wtih

 

The problem with that is that it is unsatisfying.

Harry can't win.

Going against Dumbledore as payback means staying a stupid wimp.

TO avoid being a stupid wimp, you have to accept the manipulations, providing you even realize them in the first place.

When there is a manipualtive Dumbledore, people want to see the manipulations blowing up in Dumbledore's face. You can't if you do it this way, unless you have Harry go evil. But then you have Dumbledore overestimating Harry's character - making Harry weak.

It is frustrating.

 

Hmm... that's actually quite an idea.... Yes. I might be able to incorporate that into my story...

*goes off to plan*

 

Amerision is dead on about this idea. Nice one . I was thinking of giving DD some credit, I mean he is over 100 years old and defeater of Grindelward. But unless you want Harry to get the short end of the stick, Dumbledore couldn't be right about everything.

You can write a story where Dumbledore manipulated Harry to be rebel and be somewhat dark, but he's got to stumble somewhere down the line, giving Harry the opportunity to take him off guard or something. Amerision mentioned making Harry go evil, but you could have Harry giving the impression of going evil as well; basically manipulating Dumbledore to think that he went off the deep end when in fact he's just trying to make Dumbledore squirm.

Eh, but that's a pretty complicated plot to work out. Hmm...quite interesting though. You basically have layered sets of manipulations going on, one inside the other.

 

That is exactly what I plan to do for Temptations.

Harry will purposely act more and more like Tom Riddle, sucking up to teachers, dissapearing at Odd Times and yet have phenomenal grades. I don't know if it will be a concious effort, though, as there is no reason to do it bar being childish and making Dumbledore uncomfortable.

Any ideas?

 

That sounds like a concious effort on Harry's part to me. Though you could have Dumbledore taking Harry to his office and being concerned and Harry just shrugging it off.

Not sure what you are going for. But you could do whatever you want with Harry and Dumbledore if you just watch out for when they meet. My view on Harry-Dumbledore encounters is that as long as Harry keeps quiet about the important things, he basically comes out on top. Dumbledore's position of strength is being able to make Harry open up like a cheap whore (oh I'm so using that quote in my story ). I noticed that whenever Harry talks, 9 out of 10 times, he ends up looking like an idiot no matter what the author was trying to do. *Guess I should probably take my own advice*

So if you want Harry be riddle like, you could have Dumbledore being concerned, have Harry act clueless and end the meeting with Dumbledore being exasperated thinking Harry's being like Voldemort....something like that?

 

Well, it's not so much of that as why he would want to have Dumbledore think he is becmng more and more like Riddle. That only draws suspicion. Is there any good reason aside from just making Dumbledore squirm?

 

I know that this doesn't really go along with your original idea but...

This would be better, IMO if you made it into a humor fic where Harry, unwittingly, escapes Dumbledore's manipulations (Like in 'Make A Wish' where he accidentally defeats Death Eaters all the time). You could write from both of their perspectives, show Dumbledore meticulously planning everything out... only for his scheme to be foiled by a bumbling Harry Potter.

 

That's about every single Independent Harry Potter story in existence.

Besides, Temptations just doesn't do "funny". I started Adventures to get rid of any humor ideas so I could focus on the darker temptations.

 

I was actually talking about the general challenge and not your fic... But anyways, I don't think it's every Independent!Harry Harry fic. Most of them just have him running around doing whatever he wants. This would be closer to canon, Harry being at Hogwarts or something.

For example, say Dumbledore wanted Harry to spend more time studying and less playing Quiddich. So, he tries to get Harry in to a confrontation on the pitch in order to be able to ban him from the game (because he can't do it for no reason)... but Harry catches the snitch in record time or something. Then Dumbledore has a back up plan for Malfoy to goad Harry into attacking him, but Harry accidentally knocks himself out on a goal post and is taken to the Hospital wing. And the manipulations continue...

I think it would be hilarious to see Dumbledore get all frustrated when his plans don't work.

 

Rofl.

That's actually a good idea.

Maybe I'll do that as a chapter in The Insane Adventures of Harry Potter.

I'll call it "Too Stoopid"

*Goes off to plan*

 

you have to press the 'insert' key....


sorry, i know that was random. Its for fixing cazten's li'l typing problem.

Oh yeah, not a bad idea for a story. Seems a bit complicated to me right now but i suppose if it was written out fully and explained in a full length fic then it would be quite good.