Well, Cervus was kind enough to lon me the HP books earlier today. I was just rummaging through them to check the quality, when i found this little tidbit:

I found in HPS in the scene at the end when Harry's still in the Hospital Wing.

"Well, I got back all right," said Hermione. "I brought Ron round --
that took a while -- and we were dashing up to the owlery to contact
Dumbledore when we met him in the entrance hall -- he already knew --
he just said, 'Harry's gone after him, hasn't he?' and hurtled off to the
third floor."

"D'you think he meant you to do it?" said Ron. "Sending you your
father's cloak and everything?"

"Well, " Hermione exploded, "if he did -- I mean to say that's terrible
-- you could have been killed."

"No, it isn't," said Harry thoughtfully. "He's a funny man, Dumbledore.
I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I think he knows more or
less everything that goes on here, you know. I reckon he had a pretty
good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just
taught us enough to help. I don't think it was an accident he let me
find out how the mirror worked. It's almost like he thought I had the
right to face Voldemort if I could...."

"Yeah, Dumbledore's off his rocker, all right," said Ron proudly.

Interesting?

*cue Ron Burgundy voice*

I certainly think so.

What do you people think? Can you come up with canon evidence to support Manipulative!Dumbledore?

I'll be skimming through them for reference with my fics, so if i find anything, i'll post it here.

Admins: I dunno if this has to go into the HP Books section...i thought that since it was just for general comments, GD was fine for it.

 

does fit better in HP books as it involves canon.

Do a search for a thread I made with a similar title along time ago, it had tons of good points

 

I'll check it out.

Will this one stay, or will it be locked/deleted?

 

I don't think that he is Manipulative!Dumbledore in canon. You could probably find evidence of it, but I believe that Rowling was trying to make Dumbledore the kind, grandfatherly leader of the light that he was portrayed. It is a children's story after all; leading to an ultimate moral of good vs. evil. Dumbledore is Harry's role model for what is good.

 

it'll stay I think I locked mine as it was asking for reasons to justify my stance on manipulative Dumbles to some flamer of a reviewer I got.

 

Well...yeah.

Loathe be it of JK to make Dumbledore anything but pure.

It targets kids, so she wouldn't, in good conscience, do something like that.

I just want to know people's opinions, and see if anyone can find evidence of it in canon.

 

That is from CoS. I also find it difficult to believe that he never noticed that Moody was being impersonated. I mean, he knew the guy for decades. Not to mention his complete refusal to tell Harry why he trusts Snape so utterly.

 

Well, it could also be that he thought that Harry could handle all of the challenges, because he is somehow omniscint. (sp?)

 

Could be, in fact, I believe it is. But I am presenting evidence to the contrary.

The fact that he had Hagrid take Harry with him to pick up the Philosopher's Stone.

Keeping Harry a his Aunt's and Uncle's far longer than nessisary before fifth year.

Giving a thirteen year old girl, who just happens to be Harry's best friend, a heavily restricted ministry devise just to do her homework with.

 

The time turner was McG. And... well... I got nothing. Maybe he is manipulative, maybe he is not, but we all know that he is a bumblebee.

 

I don't think McG would have done it without Dumbledore's approval...she's a stickler for the rules, so asking him would be the first thing she would do.

 

I believe it says in OotP that he allowed Harry to face Voldemort because he believed it was Harry's right to do so if he wanted. Harry didn't have to go after the philosophers stone, he chose to, and Dumbledore just made it so he could.

"It is our choices that define who we are, far more so than our abilities..."

 

the shining example of his manipulations for me come in OotP.

in his meeting with dumbles at the end of the book, after sirius dies - dumbledore goes on and on about the decisions he made about harry's life after the incident at godric's hollow.

seriously, i don't give a fuck who dumbledore is...there is due process for such things, and dumbledore bypassed them all in the face of his 'designs'.

now, he might not be some power hungry asshole like a lot of fics make him out to be, but i don't doubt for one minute that he has manipulated harry's life to turn out exactly how he envisions it.

it simply comes down to dumbledore, choosing entirely by himself, to place harry at the dursley's. he instructed hagrid to pick harry up, despite harry's godfather being at the scene (because no one refuses dumbledore?).

you're telling me that a man who seems to be omniscient (via SS/PS, PoA, etc) wouldn't know how harry's being treated? bolshevik.

power corrupts. absolute power corrupts absolutely. dumbledore is one quasi-step away from offical absolute power in the wizarding world - that being the minister of magic. as it is, the greatest political power in all the world is the raising and instruction of children - so imo, dumbledore's grip on power translates into his grey view on using said power.

and as far as what hermione said in SS/PS? no effing way dumbledore was in gryffindor.

 

Well, there may not be a due process for where to put kids in the wizarding world. And if there is, that would put him with his godfather, who Dumbledore already thought had set Lily and James up to die. Besides, the government is corrupt. You cannot leave the fate of the wizarding world in the hands of people who will just use it for their own ends. And while Dumbledore could know an awful lot about what is happening inside the school he works, it would be much more difficult to know what happens inside a house that he has never stepped foot in.

 

But if he's going to make that decision, it's his responsibility to know. Also, McGonagall flat out told him that Vernon and Petunia were pieces of shit, and I find it hard to believe that Lily would never have mentioned her terrible sister at some point. Dumbledore was clearly negligent.

 

I think Dumbledore is somewhat manipulative. Did he know they weren't the best? Yes. He even says so, "Perhaps unwilling, perhaps, grudgingly, but they took you in."

He knows they're cocksuckers, but he sent Harry there because A.) It was in the ultimate best interests of Wizarding society, and B.) Its where Harry was safest. Now, I'm sure some other place could have been made equally safe, and Privet drive isn't especially safe to begin with, but if you believe Albus, it offers something else. It kept the Blood protection going. That's it. Albus chose it for that reason. Albus isn't arbitrarily manipulating people for personal gain. I think he does it to serve the best interests of society. I don't think he says, "I'm going to give Harry a bad childhood in the name of the greater good." I also believe he's too forgiving. If he knew about Draco's plot (and he says he does) then he REALLY had an obligation to stop the kid. Draco almost killed TWO people (Alicia, and Ron). He may not have known about Rosemerta, but he knew about the others. Its so much he manipulates as he decides what's best for you without telling you.

 

I take it you mean that "It's not so much" right? If so than I don't that quite but than again this is just my opinion. I think that while he he is makeing the decision about what's best for them he is also manipualteing them at the same time by not telling them everything, only what he wants them to know and hides the rest so that they will take "his advice about what he thinks is best for them."

 

You know it may not be Dumbledore being minipulative as it is JKR only writing scences that advance the overall plot. That would leave us with a horibly minipulative Dumbledore who is always there at the last minute to save the day, like he was waiting of stage for his cue.

 

That is a problem.

She ends up writing Dumbeldore as omnicient, always giving him the wise, all-knowing persona...one which leads the reader to believe that he IS actually knowledgeable as to everything that happens.

Then, she fucks up by making him commit stupid mistakes.

1) He (apparently) orders wine/mulled mead from Rosmerta. She sends it, and it ends up poisoning one of the students. Sure, he might suspect Draco, but wouldn;t he have the brains to check whether it was a spoiled batch or something? He would have firecalled Rosmerta or something, and being the great legilimens that he is, he SHOULD have been able to notice the imperius immediately.

2) Good point...after TWO near-death situations, he should ahve made the SLIGHTEST fucking effort rather than sit back and twinkle. For fuck's sake, Malfoy nearly killed two students in his quest to be the greatest DE ever...don't just fucking assume that time will smooth out the wrinkles in the brat's mind! If he;s manipulative, i'm sure he could ahve 'arranged' for a detention or something where Hagrid takes him into the forest and 'accidentally' causes his death. He fucked Hagger over before (in the 1940s), so why not do it again? The oaf will hardly be sent to Azkaban, especially when the Dementors are gone.

3) For all his fucking 'vested interest' in Harry's future, he doesn't seem to do a thing to help. The kid has to murder a man that HE has trouble dueling against. Slowly feeding him tidbits of useless information is hardly conducive to winning the war. He didn't even teach him how to DESTROY the bloody Horcrux! And then he threw a fucking tantrum, like a three year old.

"Have you got the memory yet?"

"No."

"Then hop to it, boy! Now shoo...we'll have our 'private lesson' later on, when i can be bothered to save the fucking world."

Jesus...he wasted what...a month or so in HBP, just condescendingly forcing Harry to get a memory from Slughorn?

4) The memory. USELESS! It didn't tell him a fucking thing that he didn't already know. He knew that SLughorn told Tom a little bit about Horcruxes. Big shit. He KNOWS that Tom HAS Horcruxes. What the fuck is the point of getting that memory? He knows that Slughorn fucked with his own memory because he felt guilty...that hazy bit screaming "No! Mark my words, boy, you'll turn out bad!" was pretty fucking telling.

5) Snape. Why? He's good at Potions, so what? The only purpose he serves is to be a bastard in the first few books, and then betray him in the end. Sure, he saves Haryr ONCE, in the first book. (BTW...i can't stand it when people say that SNape has saved his life tons of times.) Apparently, Dumbledore comes out on the pitch for each Quidditch match, since it's a school event. For being the GREAT Albus Dumbeldore, he made a fucking pathetic effort trying to save his golden boy in the first book. Why wasn't he mumbling anything? Why didn't Snape tell him that Quirrel was chanting, and why didn't he NOTICE by HIMSELF? Why did he let Quirrel keep teaching?

Balls.

I'll add more to this later on, i gotta sleep. It's 2 in the morn or so over here.

 

Great point. Never thought od that before.