'Dumbledore, A Personal Favourite White Boy?'

[borg_princess]

Thought some of you may enjoy the read - I just came across this essay on Dumbledore that pleased me greatly. The facts are nothing new to us, of course, but they're outlined in a lovely cohesive discussion of his many flaws that fans tend to excuse or overlook

Comments

[vermouth1991]

The indication that Dumbledore is the head of the only magical school in the UK and also a war leader and also dabbles in other areas of politics is terrifying. Drawing from a fandom well that I'm personally familiar to, it's like how in DC Comics Lex Luthor is ostensibly just a billionaire philantrophist, but secretly is behind a whole chunk of organised crime and illegal dealings out there. In the early 2000s "Justice League Unlimited" series, he started running for PotUS, and The Question (crash course: Justice League's resident conspiracy theorist, and arguably a better detective than Batman) went into his penthouse to kill him because he believes that Luthor becoming President would set off a chain reaction that would lead to the Justice League mutinying and destroying the world in war. For spoiler reasons, Luthor is shown to have gained super strength and invulneralbility, and moped the floor with the Question, as he uttered this famous line: "Foolish little man. You think I did all this to become president? Do you have any idea how much power I'd have to give up to become *president*?"

[aikaterini]

/The indication that Dumbledore is the head of the only magical school in the UK and also a war leader and also dabbles in other areas of politics is terrifying./

Maybe the idea is the what-if scenario of "What if your high school principal was actually your archenemy's worst nightmare?" and how cool that would be. The problem is that by giving Dumbledore so many roles, it raises the question of why he doesn't do anything with them or properly prioritize them. For example, if Dumbledore is the head of the Wizengamot and Fudge asked him for advice before their split in GOF, why couldn't he have asked for Sirius to be given a trial? If he's the headmaster of a school, why did he hide the Stone there (yes, I know that the real answer is "Because the plot said so") instead of another secure place, one that wouldn't put children at risk? If he's the head of the Order, why doesn't he quit his job as headmaster in order to focus more on defeating Voldemort for good?

If Dumbledore *was* just a headmaster, then it would make sense why he was limited in what he could do: why he couldn't help Sirius, why he couldn't go on a hunt for Horcruxes after Voldemort fell from power, etc.