Albus Dumbledore's fear: Ariana and Tom Riddle + driven to darkness
Typed in response to this:
http://guardians-song.livejournal.com/108716.html
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who compared "strange and dangerous" Ariana to Tom, but you and I have very different opinions on the two of them. I kinda like Albus, he's easier to like in spite of the many stupid things he's done when you remember the whole, pushed human being thing.
I don't think Albus had every made a sincere concrete effort to help Tom, from the moment he showed Tom magical might is right with the flaming wardrobe - when Tom was a 11 yr old kid who came to the orphanage with nothing, to that chilling moment when he told Harry to leave the baby because Nothing Can Be Done. Uh huh, just like nothing can be done about Harry having to live with the abusive Dursleys huh? God forbid you be wrong or try harder!
I find the way Albus, a full grown adult, treated Tom, the kid, as unforgivable and inexcusable - but it is understandable once you compare Tom to Ariana. Ariana went mad when all three of them, Ariana, Alberforth, and Albus, were kids, Ariana went mad and then the father was imprisoned. There are children who have survived terrible trauma and somehow retained sanity - Jaycee Dungard did. Considering how the senior Dumbledore went about revenge, and Albus's bout with Grindelwald, I think a certian amount of instability runs in the family, and Ariana's attack sets it off.
I think Albus was afraid of Ariana, the way Petunia was afraid of Harry. He was a good student but his sister was a dangerous freak, he does not say it to her face and he's probably ashame of thinking it, but he's afraid of her - madness is as unpredictable to Dumbledore as magic is to Petunia.
Both of Ariana and Tom's strange dangerousness stems from a very understandable thing - rage at previous helplessness. They feel like they could trust no one (though Ariana had the utter devotion of Alberforth) and that they will not be safe, they are angry at the world for letting them get hurt.
Ariana's father went to jail for her, what did her mother do?
Maybe that was what Ariana was thinking, even if she was not rational enough to be held responsible for it.
Maybe that's what Albus suspect of Ariana, they grew up together, and as Ray Bradbury noted in "The Veldt", children can be suspicious and feel irrationally, personally, persecuted. His sister took away his father, his mother, his future. The year Ariana died, she was 14 and Albus was 17? That would make Albus age 9 when his sister was attacked at age 4. His abandonment of Ariana that summer was the culmination of a decade of a child's fear and resentment. Then came the guilt, and still, fear. Tom Riddle was only an 11yr old little boy, but Albus Dumbledore was afraid of his darkness, and more suspicious of the harm that Tom could do, than concerned for Tom's welfare.
...and once again, instead of the leave baby Voldemort alone conclusion to the series, I wish that Harry and Ginny had adopted an orphaned child, and that our narrator Harry had better understanding of exactly how bad an environment Tom grew up in, and sought to prevent another Voldemort, wizard or muggle, by working for the welfare of vulnerable children, the ones in abusive homes like Harry, the ones in orphanage like Tom, the ones in the foster system. Then again, it could still happen, if JK Rowling can declare Dumbledore gay after the book is done, the same can be said of some of the listed children in the finale being adopted.
Plus, while the book is mostly in Harry's POV, and it is important for Dumbledore to tell him about how it's the choices people makes that determines light or dark, it'll be nice if there were more other POV on how the choices of other people affected Harry as well - if the Weasleys had not practically adopted Harry, would he have turned out like Tom Riddle, then Voldemort? I myself made conscious choices not to be a violent criminal - but my choices are influenced by what I was taught and what I learnt by example as a child - I looked out for some of my more vulnerable classmates because that's what I saw the teachers do for us, beyond duty.
http://guardians-song.livejournal.com/108716.html
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who compared "strange and dangerous" Ariana to Tom, but you and I have very different opinions on the two of them. I kinda like Albus, he's easier to like in spite of the many stupid things he's done when you remember the whole, pushed human being thing.
I don't think Albus had every made a sincere concrete effort to help Tom, from the moment he showed Tom magical might is right with the flaming wardrobe - when Tom was a 11 yr old kid who came to the orphanage with nothing, to that chilling moment when he told Harry to leave the baby because Nothing Can Be Done. Uh huh, just like nothing can be done about Harry having to live with the abusive Dursleys huh? God forbid you be wrong or try harder!
I find the way Albus, a full grown adult, treated Tom, the kid, as unforgivable and inexcusable - but it is understandable once you compare Tom to Ariana. Ariana went mad when all three of them, Ariana, Alberforth, and Albus, were kids, Ariana went mad and then the father was imprisoned. There are children who have survived terrible trauma and somehow retained sanity - Jaycee Dungard did. Considering how the senior Dumbledore went about revenge, and Albus's bout with Grindelwald, I think a certian amount of instability runs in the family, and Ariana's attack sets it off.
I think Albus was afraid of Ariana, the way Petunia was afraid of Harry. He was a good student but his sister was a dangerous freak, he does not say it to her face and he's probably ashame of thinking it, but he's afraid of her - madness is as unpredictable to Dumbledore as magic is to Petunia.
Both of Ariana and Tom's strange dangerousness stems from a very understandable thing - rage at previous helplessness. They feel like they could trust no one (though Ariana had the utter devotion of Alberforth) and that they will not be safe, they are angry at the world for letting them get hurt.
Ariana's father went to jail for her, what did her mother do?
Maybe that was what Ariana was thinking, even if she was not rational enough to be held responsible for it.
Maybe that's what Albus suspect of Ariana, they grew up together, and as Ray Bradbury noted in "The Veldt", children can be suspicious and feel irrationally, personally, persecuted. His sister took away his father, his mother, his future. The year Ariana died, she was 14 and Albus was 17? That would make Albus age 9 when his sister was attacked at age 4. His abandonment of Ariana that summer was the culmination of a decade of a child's fear and resentment. Then came the guilt, and still, fear. Tom Riddle was only an 11yr old little boy, but Albus Dumbledore was afraid of his darkness, and more suspicious of the harm that Tom could do, than concerned for Tom's welfare.
...and once again, instead of the leave baby Voldemort alone conclusion to the series, I wish that Harry and Ginny had adopted an orphaned child, and that our narrator Harry had better understanding of exactly how bad an environment Tom grew up in, and sought to prevent another Voldemort, wizard or muggle, by working for the welfare of vulnerable children, the ones in abusive homes like Harry, the ones in orphanage like Tom, the ones in the foster system. Then again, it could still happen, if JK Rowling can declare Dumbledore gay after the book is done, the same can be said of some of the listed children in the finale being adopted.
Plus, while the book is mostly in Harry's POV, and it is important for Dumbledore to tell him about how it's the choices people makes that determines light or dark, it'll be nice if there were more other POV on how the choices of other people affected Harry as well - if the Weasleys had not practically adopted Harry, would he have turned out like Tom Riddle, then Voldemort? I myself made conscious choices not to be a violent criminal - but my choices are influenced by what I was taught and what I learnt by example as a child - I looked out for some of my more vulnerable classmates because that's what I saw the teachers do for us, beyond duty.