It was only umm... 13 technical chapters, a note, and two prefaces.

Really, it wasn't that much. Going to be nitpicking these two chapters of Wraith till they get it up again I guess.

 

Workshop issue: I need to stop hating on Dumbledore.

In honesty, I don't, really. Empirically I can understand the man. Some actions need to occur to ensure the downfall of Voldemort, and it just so happens that one little boy gets caught up in it, and tossed around a bit.


Here's where I have hangups. He's obviously well respected and liked by the society he's a part of. Reconciling that man and the one that guided Harry on his journey clashes in my mind. I'm not saying a reasonably intelligent person cannot fathom being a cunning manipulator, but it feels too practiced. Perhaps his time as a politician (Acting his position in the ICW/ Wizengamot?) gave him that insight.


He doesn't hate or hold any animosity towards Harry. I understand this. He simply has to do some unpleasant things to make a really, really bad one go away. Understandable.


People make mistakes. Mistakes do not define who and what we are, yet people judge actions before words, before intent. Dumbledore made mistakes, and though most didn't affect anyone else, Harry suffered.


All in all, I like the man. I do. But whenever I write him, at least in a Harry-centric way, I can't help feeling rather antagonistic. He feels like the 'glass ceiling', or for a rather irritating reference, 'The Man'. I always start thinking about The Plan (Harry vs. Vold) thing, and it feels that breaking any trend in it, almost automatically puts Harry at odds with Dumbledore as well. All of a sudden, I'm trying to restrain myself from portraying Dumbledore as an ancillary villain or primary one, rather than the ultimately benevolent man he is.

 

Feeling that way about Dumbledore isn't inherently a problem, IMO. There are other mistakes that people make with his character, and it's those that really get my goat:

1. Dumbledore makes mistakes, so there's no problem showing him making mistakes. The problems start when people portray him as an idiot; Dumbledore is many things, but he's very much not an idiot. It's important to remember that his overly elaborate, multidecadal plan actually worked - between that and his magical ability, he can be assumed to be a genius, with great insight into human nature to boot.

2. On a similar note, I don't like it when people show Harry besting Dumbledore at rhetoric. IMO, when Harry is correct and Dumbledore is wrong, Harry has no choice but to prove his correct viewpoint by taking action, rather than with words. I saw no indications in canon that Harry would ever attain Dumbledore's ability to express his opinions verbally. So if Dumbledore's convinced he's right, I think that he'd be able to easily hold off Harry at word games - even if he's wrong.

But neither of those necessarily apply to you, belleradh. In your case I'll just point out the following: Dumbledore can be awfully inflexible, but he doesn't have to be totally inflexible. Canon-Harry never truly challenged Dumbledore's authority, so we don't know just how inflexible he could be. But in portraying Dumbledore in indy!Harry stories, I believe that you should allow Dumbledore to change his opinion after being proven wrong (again, proven wrong with actions, not with verbal debate). If the evidence of his errors is thrown in his face, I believe Dumbledore is more than flexible enough to adjust to the new reality...and at that point he can be a powerful ally to Harry once again.

The Dumbledore in Joe's Wastelands of Time is basically the ideal for an indy!Harry, IMO. It's probably not fair comparing that character to what you have in mind, because the Wastelands version has only had a minimum of page time in that story, whereas you'll probably need to have quite a bit of him (edit: in Snakecharmer). But he neatly sums up what I've been ranting about here.

 

This is slightly ridiculous. If you don't want to write him a certain way, then don't.

 

It's not ridiculous. Think of why I posted that, before knee-jerking.

If I didn't want to write him that way, in at least one story, I'd not bother posting what I did. What you aren't bothering to comprehend is that I do. My issue with it, is the point of that post.

I despise Dumblemort, in all his incarnations. That said, usually I don't want him to be a good guy. I prefer him as a stumbling-block, minor villain, or later major one with his own agenda. Just rounds things out more, in my mind, and allows closure of the issue he presents.

 

Dumbledore is nothing more than Gilderoy Lockhart with an extra kick; he gets in the way, yeah, but make the right moves and he'll be a non-issue. Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy figured that out, and used it rather effectively.

At worst, Dumbledore's actions are (thanks to canon) a slight alteration to the past mistake he made with his sister. Thanks to his mother and brother (both described as hard, gruff people), he's wired to think that family will always step in while he does his thing; when he brought his business back home, his sister died.

Fast-forward to Harry: same reasoning (hard, gruff Dursleys) + consequence with Ariana = I'm gonna stay the fuck away. Anything that involved Harry upon his arrival at Hogwarts was, largely, Harry getting in the way or not applying himself - not Dumbledore playing puppetmaster.

At the end of the day, somebody who would give a clueless kid an invisibility cloak (and I'm talking about its functional value, not the fact that it's one of the most priceless objects in the world) is not looking to hamstring him. The same guy who blithely ignored sending two children to fuck with time-space in order to save someone. Those are the aspects of his personality that you should focus on, and work with.