A Worse State… Case in Point, Gellert?

[terri_testing]

In a comment on sunnyskywalker’s post about Horcruxes, marionros wrote:
Off topic, but this I would think this attitude ("look how good I am at self-control, I'm so awesome! It proves that I'm the right person to own the Deadly Hallows/direct the coming war/do whatever I please") a far better reason for why Dumbledore didn't have sex his entire

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

I love this analysis. Yes, it was originally Dumbles' idea.

I think we do have evidence that Gellert continued experimenting with Dark Arts after 1899. Though I don't know if that included torture specifically. Because when Tom brings up the memory of the young blond wand thief in Gregorovich's mind no name comes attached to the memory. I think by the time Gellert became ruler of magical eastern Europe his appearance had changed drastically from the younger version. Now I know this can happen naturally (just ran into a RL example recently) I think in the Potterverse such extreme changes are suspect.

[terri_testing]

Good point. But it's alittle more complicated than that.

we see Gellert in 199, fully recognizable.

we see him in year whenver, th merry theif, stealing the Elder Wand from Gergoroivich.

But no one, between 1945 and 1997, ver tracs eithe the Deathstick from a young thief to na a man languisishiing in Nurmengard...

OR identfiies an old man, guaring his wand in a cold prison cell, with viatl young man pulling its powers out to play with.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Dumbles claims to have heard rumors about Gellert's new, very powerful wand. And he did give Ollivander a feather of Fawkes', apparently before September 1938 (assuming Tom didn't get a new wand in the 1960s).

[terri_testing]

Didn't someone once comment that the really evil thing Tom did was ruin his looks?

[sweettalkeress]

Man, the more I read about Dumbledore in these essays and commentary, the more he seems like a textbook anime villain. "You see, young Harry-kun, this was all part of my brilliant plan...to violently abolish the Statute of Secrecy and subjugate the measly Muggles for the greater good! Now, watch as I indulge in a flashback about how my sister went mad after being abused by Muggle boys, and how the Statute of Secrecy prevented her from getting the help she so clearly needed! ...Oh, and by the way, I had a headache too."

[terri_testing]

All together now (piously),

But he repented!

Dumbledore believes in second chances, right?

[sweettalkeress]

Yeah, well...many anime villains repent too. There's even documented cases of creators who let their villains get off scot-free because they felt sorry for them owing to their tortured pasts!

[sunnyskywalker]

Now that is some classic misdirection. By only excerpting the portion of Albus's letter where he mentions Gellert's argument, it nudges us toward seeing Albus as responding to Gellert's shiny new idea about world domination for the greater good.

But if that were the case, wouldn't there be a statement - a damning statement which Rita would have quoted - to the effect of, "Your ideas about magical peoples' dominance over Muggles intrigue me and I find myself in full agreement with your arguments"? But he starts right off with "for their own good" being the new idea. Not dominance. So we're only seeing the middle of an ongoing conversation. Albus was evidently perfectly content to discuss magical dominance without any consideration of the Muggles' welfare

[terri_testing]

Well, we're told it was a full transcription, not an excerpt, but yes. They're in the middle of a discussion about world dominatoin (through overt violence rather than trickery and mind-violence), and it's Gellert who first considered the Muggle's welfare under their new world order.

Kendra--maybe. Look at Albus's visti to Tom's orphanage--he certainly doesn't act like someone who'd ever consorted on terms of equality with Muggles. He either has no idea how to dress and act so as to fit in with them (any more than wizards without the benefit of relatives who could coach them), or he deliberately refuses to do so.

But then, of course, there's Percival, that Muggle-hater who took a cruel retribution on three children. And Ariana's injury....

I think it's supposed to be more that Albus was thougtht always to have renounced his family's prejudices and been a shining example of forgiveness and kindness, and we see he wasn't.