That can't be explained by being young, not particularly bright, nervous about a new situation, and/or inbreeding?On the other hand, he should probably know not to trust his brothers at this point.
Adding on to the main thread, the Weasley Twins are amazing and can do just about anything as long as they are convinced it will be fun.
~~Silverex
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I had the impression that the "only one Taboo word at a time" thing was canon, actually, though I can't pin down from where now that I think about it.
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Silliness: Quote:"Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't - it depends on the world. And the name." I turned and raised my voice. "Voldemort! Voldemort! Voldemort!"
Nothing happened for a moment, then I heard the distinctive sound of air rushing away from an incoming teleport.
As I reached for my helmet and keyed in the code for Lightning's Hand, I continued, "What do you know? It worked!"
Okay, back to the cliches...
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Heh.
-- Bob
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The main problem with Dumbledore is....Fawkes
Because of that firebird, Dumbledore is either very good or very evil.
That old fairy tale of a being so evil that Baba Yaga helped get rid of him without any of her usual shenanigans is what causes the problems. what did that being? He enslaved a firebird for immortality.
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Tom Mathews aka Disruptor
I don't remember there being any solid information in canon on what exactly a phoenix cares about. For all we know his standard for determining that Dumbledore is good might be something like not eating turkey or chicken. I think it's pretty clear that Fawkes doesn't care about what kind of comic book character Dumbledore is, because in canon he's not a comic book character.
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Officially, in canon, Dumbledore was something of an idiot. Not a complete idiot, but his many duties prevented him from thinking various plans through. So, Good!Dumbledore is canon, but so is Mildly Incompetent!Dumbledore.
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Luc "Dump Stat" French
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Ah, who needs Wisdom? Wizards get a good WILL save even if they have a bit of a penalty from the dump stat, and Charisma is more useful for a public figure anyway, especially when Bluff is cross-class.
As for alignment... intentionally placing a child in a bad environment, always letting the bad guys off lightly to repeat offend, intentionally endangering a school full of kids by setting up traps inside it - no, good Dumbledore is NOT canon. At all.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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It's amazing how many people equate "good" and "well-intentioned"...
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
It's more that good is equated with competently well intentioned.
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Canon Dumbledore was very well intentioned. It's just that he was also an overworked idiot.
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Luc "Subtle Point" French
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ClassicDrogn Wrote:As for alignment... intentionally placing a child in a bad environment, always letting the bad guys off lightly to repeat offend, intentionally endangering a school full of kids by setting up traps inside it - no, good Dumbledore is NOT canon. At all. While I admit that Dumbledore made some mistakes throughout the series, the specifics which you cite are likely not among them.
1). Dumbledore wasn't placing Harry into a bad environment, he was placing Harry into a secure environment. While Ben Franklin did claim that "he who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither," the fact is that Voldemort, his Death Eaters and all of their mentally controlled thralls sat outside of that house waiting for the protection to drop naturally rather than trying to attack Harry directly, so that must have been a pretty damn good defense.
2). Letting the bad guys off lightly to repeat offend? Fanon hippy pacifist Dumbledore. He let Snape act in a petty and petulant manner because he needed Snape as his only spy within Voldemort's inner cirlce. Where else in canon do you see Dumbledore's supposed revolving door of justice?
3). Oddly, setting up those traps in the school may have saved kids. The Potter timeline has Quirrell meeting the Dark Lord while on sabbatical sometime between September 1990 and June 1991. Thus Voldemort already had an agent in Hogwarts before the entire plot with the philosopher's stone came about. The only likely reason for Hogwarts to be targeted at that specific time was if Voldemort was gunning for Harry Potter.
Since Dumbledore was trying to track Voldemort's movements, he knew that the Dark Lord had been in the Albanian forests right up to the time Professor Quirrell was there, after which he moved on. He must have also s uspected that Quirrell was Voldemort's agent. Dumbledore kept Harry alive by purposefully dangling the philosopher's stone in front of Quirrell as a greater temptation, since attacking Harry would have exposed him, thus preventing him from getting his hands upon a priceless magical artifact which could supposedly be used to help his master regain a living form.
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Oh dammit I hit the wrong button and lost my reply. Patience depleted.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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Shepherd Wrote:1). Dumbledore wasn't placing Harry into a bad environment, he was placing Harry into a secure environment. While Ben Franklin did claim that "he who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither," the fact is that Voldemort, his Death Eaters and all of their mentally controlled thralls sat outside of that house waiting for the protection to drop naturally rather than trying to attack Harry directly, so that must have been a pretty damn good defense.
2). Letting the bad guys off lightly to repeat offend? Fanon hippy pacifist Dumbledore. He let Snape act in a petty and petulant manner because he needed Snape as his only spy within Voldemort's inner cirlce. Where else in canon do you see Dumbledore's supposed revolving door of justice? Hmm. I like your interpretation in item 3 -- it certainly makes the events of Philosopher's Stone make a bit more sense.
As for 1, well, Dumbledore had some idea what he'd put Harry into, vis-a-vis his aunt's family and their attitudes -- he did admit and apologize for that in the denouement of one of the books, though I can't remember which one.
And with 2, I think the point is all the DEaters who got off scott-free with cries of "Imperius!" (and the occasional bribe). Given all the canon methods available to determine truth in such circumstanes -- well, the possibilities of Veritaserum alone have not only been exhausted by fic writers, but improved upon and looped back over again -- and given that the Wizengamot is not just a legislative body but the supreme judicial body as well for Wizarding Britain, it seems pretty obvious that an entire athletics storeroom full of balls were dropped when it came to prosecuting known associates of Voldemort; with Dumbledore's position as the head of the Wizengamot, much of the blame has be laid at his feet.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:...given that the Wizengamot is not just a legislative body but the supreme judicial body as well for Wizarding Britain, it seems pretty obvious that an entire athletics storeroom full of balls were dropped when it came to prosecuting known associates of Voldemort; with Dumbledore's position as the head of the Wizengamot, much of the blame has be laid at his feet. Especially when you consider the Ministry of the time. Crouch and Bagnold let the Aurors use Unforgivables against the DEs, and had no problem throwing Black in Azkaban without a trial, so I think it's fairly safe to say that they weren't opposed to the idea of a lot of blood purist murderers suffering and dying. You'd think Dumbledore could've made a deal with them- all three of them throwing their support behind a push to see all DEs tried, dosed with truth serum, and given quality time with the dementors. I would think the Minister, the head of the DMLE, and the Chief Warlock could round up enough support to see it done, especially with a goodly chunk of the opposition bound and waiting for trial.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
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And it's quite possible that money talked at length and with great elogquence in that case. The Ministry is known to be willing to bend rules for the right reasons and it's unlikely that it wasn't so in the immediate aftermath of Voldemort's fall. It's also quite possible that the laws of the land forbid compelling the use of certain magics except when the evidence is overwhelming anyway.
Logic does not necessarily apply in law or in politics.
There's also the whole lack of security in the "secure" environment to consider. From what we see in canon the protection (if it exists at all) is so full of holes as to be worthless.
My theory is the Malfoy and company found Harry long before he got to Hogwarts--and then realized that there was nothing they could do to him that was worse than what Dumbledore had already done. Perhaps they spent their weekends sitting around under magical concealment eating popcorn and watching Harry's home life...
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I know there are plenty of fics where Dumbledore compels the Dursleys to treat Harry badly, and others where he puts Harry there because they'd do it on their own. I vaguely remember seeing one where Vernon sells Harry out to Malfoy.
Have we ever seen one where a DE pays the Dursleys to mistreat Harry (more than they might've already done, themselves)?
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khagler Wrote:There's also the whole lack of security in the "secure" environment to consider. From what we see in canon the protection (if it exists at all) is so full of holes as to be worthless.
My theory is the Malfoy and company found Harry long before he got to Hogwarts--and then realized that there was nothing they could do to him that was worse than what Dumbledore had already done. Perhaps they spent their weekends sitting around under magical concealment eating popcorn and watching Harry's home life... The protections with the Dursleys worked fine in protecting and hiding him from Voldemort and those that served him. The only wizards that Harry ran into were those that had no hostile intentions to him, and even then, the reported Potter sightings were all over the map. (Plus, 'those that serve Voldemort' likely includes those that serve those who serve Voldemort, and so on, so hiring someone is likely out. Also, why would Malfoy care? As far as he knows, Voldemort is dead forever, and he got away clean for the crimes he had committed. He wasn't as crazy as Bellatrix or Crouch Jr. were, to want revenge on Harry, or to try to resurrect Voldemort. The same could probably be said of most of those that used the Imperious Defense in court. They weren't planning on Voldemort coming back.)
Anyway, other than the Potter sightings that were reported in the news, what other holes do you see in the protections?
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber." --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
Actually, I think "listing all the things wrong the the blood protection" is a cliché in itself...
Some of the obvious ones are:
It was supposed to be based on what his mother did to defeat Voldemort, and never claimed to work on anyone else. That means it was irrelevant when Voldemort didn't have a body, and became useless when he got a new one that bypassed those protections.
It doesn't have any effect on a house elf belonging to a death eater.
It doesn't reach beyond the house (or possibly the property line?), so an attack by (for example) Dementors elsewhere in the neighborhood isn't prevented.
It depends on Harry living under the same roof as his aunt. As Bluemage pointed out, fanfic authors have already pointed out that Vernon would hardly have been averse to selling Harry out.
That's just a few of the obvious ones. Again, listing all the flaws is a fanfic cliché of its own, there are many more than this out there.
Bluemage Wrote: and others where he puts Harry there because they'd do it on their own. That one actually fits canon. We don't see Dumbledore's thought processes, but his ridiculously elaborate plan to defeat Voldemort depends on (among other things) Harry being abused constantly by somebody so that he'll have the proper mindset to be a child soldier followed by suicide bomber as the plan requires.
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I think Canon Dumbledore does not know how to delegate and chose the wrong thing to micromanage. He was so concerned about getting Death Eaters into custody that he ignored his real job. So while that gross miscarriage of justice can and should be laid at his feet, it's because of well-intentioned negligence, not malice.
Canon Dumbledore also vastly overestimated the zeal of the free Death Eaters. The only ones with the wits to stay uncaptured or the wads of cash to use the Imperio Defense were also smart enough to take defeat with relatively good grace. Harry was placed with the Dursleys to protect him from a threat that didn't exist, as far as we can tell, until the summer before his first year at the earliest. (Once it was needed, it worked as advertised. But does that justify the decade or so of abuse he suffered before then?) Despite appearances, Dumbledore is more paranoid than Mad-Eye Moody, and with less cause.
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:As for 1, well, Dumbledore had some idea what he'd put Harry into, vis-a-vis his aunt's family and their attitudes -- he did admit and apologize for that in the denouement of one of the books, though I can't remember which one. I don't remember this, he apologized for keeping Harry in the dark about the Prophecy in book 5 and then for not telling Harry about the Hallows in book 7.
Quote:khagler wrote:
It was supposed to be based on what his mother did to defeat Voldemort,
and never claimed to work on anyone else. That means it was irrelevant
when Voldemort didn't have a body, and became useless when he got a new
one that bypassed those protections.
Actually, if you look at it Voldemort was defeated by HIMSELF. He even alluded to it in book 4 (at the graveyard) when he talks about old magic he forgot about. Remember, when Voldemort attacked he told her she didn't have to die, all she had to do was stand aside. This was an offer from Voldemort, brought about because Snape asked him to spare her. Lily then counters with "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead". When Voldemort kills Lily he then accepted her counter offer. When he then attempts to kill Harry the magic of the "contract" blasted back at him and almost killed him. It was only his Horcruxes that kept him as a spirit. The blood wards only worked because the "contract" between Voldemort and Harry, through Lily's offer was transferable to Harry's blood relative.
Also, they had to mean something or Voldemort would have been able to get access to Harry in the house anytime after the graveyard. All Voldemort would have had to do was walk up to the house and kill everyone. Something he'd been shown as having no problem doing. The protection did wear down over the year while Harry was not in the house. That is why, in my opinion, the most damaging attacks on Harry took place at/near the end of the school year. Before he was sent back to "recharge" the protections.
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On the topic of Dumbledore as head of the Wizengamot: There are a few possible flaws in the arguement that Dumbles could have forced the deatheaters' convictions.
1) He may be 'leader of the Wizengamot' the same way the Speaker of the House is the 'leader of the House of Representatives/Senate' (which ever it is), less overwelming authority and more first among equals/moderator.
2) Several of the supposedly 'Imperio'd' DEs were members of the Wizengamot. The majority of the others may have been reluctant to establish a precedent for prosecuting Wizgamot members in case it may later be used against them.
As for the blood wards, keep in mind, that pre first year, the only wizards who knew/could find The Dursleys' place were members of Team Dumbles. While Wizards/witches occasionally stumbled acrost Harry, it was always while out and about with the Dursleys (and each encounter probably freaked out Vernon and Petunia).
Also I rather suspect many of the reported Potter Sightings were more in the style of Elvis sightings than actually seeing Harry.
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Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
Quote:Shepherd wrote:
1). Dumbledore wasn't placing Harry into a bad environment, he was placing Harry into a secure environment. While Ben Franklin did claim that "he who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither," the fact is that Voldemort, his Death Eaters and all of their mentally controlled thralls sat outside of that house waiting for the protection to drop naturally rather than trying to attack Harry directly, so that must have been a pretty damn good defense.
2). Letting the bad guys off lightly to repeat offend? Fanon hippy pacifist Dumbledore. He let Snape act in a petty and petulant manner because he needed Snape as his only spy within Voldemort's inner cirlce. Where else in canon do you see Dumbledore's supposed revolving door of justice?
And with 2, I think the point is all the DEaters who got off scott-free with cries of "Imperius!" (and the occasional bribe). Given all the canon methods available to determine truth in such circumstanes -- well, the possibilities of Veritaserum alone have not only been exhausted by fic writers, but improved upon and looped back over again -- and given that the Wizengamot is not just a legislative body but the supreme judicial body as well for Wizarding Britain, it seems pretty obvious that an entire athletics storeroom full of balls were dropped when it came to prosecuting known associates of Voldemort; with Dumbledore's position as the head of the Wizengamot, much of the blame has be laid at his feet.
The problem with your argument here is that you're assuming Dumbledore was head of the Wizengamot at the time and that he lead the Death Eater trials in the wake of Voldemort's fall. The only thing we really know about Dumbledore's term as Chief Warlock is that Minister Fudge got him removed from the position in 1995 and that he'd held the job for 'several years' at the point. Had Dumbledore been Chief Warlock since 1981, that would have been 14 years, which seems more than 'several years' to me.
regarding the Death Eater trials, many of them were apparently carried out be the Council of Magical Law rather than the full Wizengamot, and Barty Crouch Sr. was in charge of that particular group. If you recall the pensieve scene, Dumbledore and Mad-Eye Moody were in the audience while Karkaroff was naming names in exchange for clemency. If Dumbledore'd had any special judicial powers, he would have been up front with Crouch Sr. instead of sitting with the rest of the crowd in the courtroom.
The Council of Magical Law trials of Barty Jr., Bellatrix and the LeStrange brothers apparently involved a presentation of evidence, the defendants being dragged before the court, and the four of them being sentenced to life in Azkaban without even being granted an opportunity to say anything in their own defense. Dumbledore later noted to Harry that he was ambivalent about Crouch Jr.'s sentence because the evidence presented against him was apparently circumstantial; the other jurors apparently didn't care, cheering as the prisoners were carted off.
As for Veritaserum, the Potter Wiki says this:
Despite being the most powerful truth serum in existence, it can still be resisted through different methods, including the taking of its antidote and Occlumency. [2]
For the same reasons Muggles use polygraph tests, Veritaserum is no more reliable than its Muggle counterpart. Since some wizards and witches can resist its effects while others cannot, Veritaserum is "unfair and unreliable to use at a trial" and cannot be used as definite proof of guilt or innocence.
Another weakness is that the victim only states what they believe to be true, so the victim's sanity and perception of reality also factors in during interrogations. This is the main reason why Barty Crouch Jr.'s testimony was not credible, as he was clearly insane. [3]
J. K. Rowling has said that Veritaserum "works best upon the unsuspecting, the vulnerable and those insufficiently skilled (in one way or another) to protect themselves against it...just like every other kind of magic within the books, Veritaserum is not infallible" [3]. For this reason, she explained that even if Sirius Black had been given the opportunity to testify to his innocence under Veritaserum, the Wizengamot likely still would have found him guilty by claiming that Sirius was using trickery to be immune to it. [3]
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"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV
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