So when I look at Harry Potter, my goal is to separate what I think the books are intending to say, from what they actually say, from what the movies sayā¦ and what the common fan interpretation is. So today Iām interested in Dumbledore, and specifically in the common headcanon ofĀ Manipulative/Morally Gray Dumbledore. Is that (intentionally or unintentionally) supported by the text?
PART I: Ā Omniscient Dumbledore
āI think he knows more or less everything that goes on hereā
In Book 1, yes Dumbledore honestly does seem to know everything. He 100% arranged for Harry to find the Mirror of Erised, publicly left Hogwarts in order to nudge Quirrell into going after the Stone, and knew what Quirrell was doing the whole time. It is absolutely not a stretch, and kind of heavily implied, that the reason the Stoneās protections feel like a little-end-of-the-year exam designed to put Harry through his pacesā¦ is because they are. As the series goes on this interpretation only gets more plausible, when we see the kind of protections people can put up when they donāt want anyone getting through.Ā
Book 1 Dumbledore knows everythingā¦ but what heās actually going to do about it is anyoneās guess. One of the first things we learn is that some of Dumbledoreās calls can beā¦ questionable. McGonagall questions his choice to leave Harry with the Dursleys, Hermione questions his choice to give Harry the Cloak and let him go after the Stone, Percy and Ron both matter-of-factly call him āmad.ā The ānitwit, blubber, oddment, tweakā speech is a joke where Dumbledore says heās going to say a few words, then literally does say a few (weird) words. I know there are theories that those particular words are supposed to be insulting the four houses, or referencing the Hogwarts house stereotypes, or that theyāre some kind of warning. But within the text, this is pure Lewis Carroll British Nonsense Verse stuff (and people came up with answers to the impossible Alice in Wonderland āwhy is a raven like a writing deskā riddle too.)Ā
This characterization also explains a lot of Dumbledoreās decisions about how to run a school, locked in during Book 1. Presumably Binns, Peeves, Filch, Snape are all there because Dumbledore finds them funny, atmospheric, and/or character building. He's just kind of a weird guy.Ā He absolutely knew that Lockhart was a fraud in Book 2 (with that whole āImpaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy?ā thing after Lockhart oblivates himself. ) So maybe he is also there to be funny/atmospheric/character building, or to teach Harry a lesson about fame, or because Dumbledore is using the cursed position to bump off people he doesnāt like. Who knows.
(I actually donāt think JKR had locked in āthe DADA position is literally cursed by Voldemortā until Book 6. )
Dumbledore absolutely knows that Harry is listening in when Lucius Malfoy comes to take Hagrid to Azkaban, and itās fun to speculate that maybe he let himself get fired in Book 2 as part of a larger plan to boot Lucius off the Board of Governors. So far, thatās the sort of thing heād do.Ā But in Books 3 and 4, we are confronted with a number of important things that Dumbledore just missed. He doesnāt know any of the Marauders were animagi, he doesnāt know what really happened with the Potterās Secret Keeper, doesnāt know Moody is Crouch, and doesnāt know the Marauders Map even exists. But in Books 5 and 6, his omniscience does seem to come back online. (In a flashback, Voldemort even comments that he is "omniscient as everā when Dumbledore lists the specific Death Eaters he has in Hogsmeade as backup.) Dumbledore knows exactly what Draco and Voldemort are planning, and his word is taken as objective truth by the entire Order of the Phoenix - who apparently only tolerate Snape because Dumbledore vouches for him:
āSnape,ā repeated McGonagall faintly, falling into the chair. āWe all wondered . . . but he trusted . . . always . . . Snape . . . I canāt believe it. . . .āĀ
āSnape was a highly accomplished Occlumens,ā said Lupin, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. āWe always knew that.āĀ
āBut Dumbledore swore he was on our side!ā whispered Tonks. āI always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didnāt. . . .āĀ
āHe always hinted that he had an ironclad reason for trusting Snape,ā muttered Professor McGonagall (...) āWouldnāt hear a word against him!ā
McGonagall questions Dumbledore about the Dursleys, but not about Snape. I see this as part of the larger trend of basically Dumbledoreās deification. In the beginning of the series, heās treated as a clever, weird dude. By the end, heās treated like a god.Ā
PART II: Chessmaster Dumbledore
āI prefer not to keep all my secrets in one basket.ā
When Dumbledore solves problems, he likes to go very hands-off. He didnāt directly teach Harry about the Mirror of Erised - he gave him the Cloak, knew he would wander, and moved the Mirror so it would be in his path. He sends Snape to deal with Quirrell and Draco, rather than do it himself. He (or his portrait) tells Snape to confund Mundungus Fletcher and get him to suggest the Seven Potters strategy. He puts Mrs. Figg in place to watch Harry, then ups the protection in Book 5 - all without informing Harry. The situation with Slughorn is kind of a Dumbledore-manipulation master class - even the way he deliberately disappears into the bathroom so Harry will have enough solo time to charm Slughorn. Of course he only wants Slughorn under his roof in the first place to pick his brain about Voldemortā¦ but again, instead of doing that himself, he gets Harry to do it for him.Ā
Dumbledore has a moment during Harryās hearing in Book 5 (which he fakes evidence for) where he informs Fudge that Harry is not under the Ministryās jurisdiction while at Hogwarts. Which has insane implications. Itās never explicitly stated, but as the story goes on, it at least makes sense that Dumbledore is deliberately obscuring how powerful he is, and how much influence he really has, by getting other people to do things for him. But the problem with that is because he is so powerful, it become really easy for a reader to look back after they get more information and sayā¦ well if Dumbledore was controlling the situationā¦ why couldnāt he have done XYZ. Here are two easy examples from Harryās time spent with the Dursleys:
1. Mrs. Figg is watching over Harry from day one, but she canāt tell him sheās a squib and also she has to keep him miserable on purpose:
āDumbledoreās orders. I was to keep an eye on you but not say anything, you were too young. Iām sorry I gave you such a miserable time, but the Dursleys would never have let you come if theyād thought you enjoyed it. It wasnāt easy, you knowā¦ā
Itās pretty intense to think of Dumbledore saying āoh yes, invite this little child over and keep him unhappy on purpose.āĀ But okay. Itās important to keep Harry ignorant of the magical world and vice versa. fine. But once he goes to Hogwartsā¦ that doesnāt apply anymore?Ā Iām sure when Harry thinks heās going to be imprisoned permanently in his bedroom during Book 2, it wouldāve been comforting to know that Dumbledore was sending around someone to check on him. And when he literally runs away from home in Book 3ā¦ having the address of a trusted adult that he could easily get to would have been great for everybody.Ā
2. When Vernon is about to actually kick Harry out during Book 5, Dumbledore sends a howler which intimidates Petunia into insisting that Harry has to stay. Vernon folds and does exactly what she says. If Dumbledore could intimidate Petunia into doing this, then why couldnāt he intimidate her into, say - giving Harry the second bedroom instead of a cupboard. Or fixing Harryās glasses. In Book 1, the Dursleys donāt bother Harry during the entire month of August because Hagrid gives Dudley a pigās tail. In the summer between third and fourth year, the Dursleys back off because Harry is in correspondence with Sirius (a person they fear.) But the Dursleys are afraid of all wizards. Like at this point it doesnāt seem that hard to intimidate them into acting decently to Harry.Ā
PART III: Dumbledore and the DursleysĀ
āNot a pampered little princeā
JKR wanted two contradictory things. She wanted Dumbledore to be a fundamentally good guy: a wise, if eccentric mentor figure. But she also wanted Harry to have a comedically horrible childhood being locked in a cupboard, denied food, given broken glasses and ill fitting/embarrassing clothes, and generally made into a little Cinderella. Then, itās a bigger contrast when he goes to Hogwarts and expulsion can be used as an easy threat. (Although the only person we ever see expelled is Hagrid, and that was for murder.)
So, there are a couple of tricks she uses to make it okay that Dumbledore left Harry at the Dursleys.ā The first is that once Harry leavesā¦Ā nothing that happens there is given emotional weight. When heās in the Wizarding World, he barely talks about Dursleys, barely thinks about them. They almost never come up in the narration (unless Harryās worried about being expelled, or theyāre sending him comedically awful presents.) They are completely cut from movies 4, 6, and 7 part 2 - and you do not notice.Ā
The second trickā¦ is that Dumbledore himself clearly doesnāt think that the Dursleys are that bad. During the Kingās Cross vision-quest, he describes 11-year-old Harry as āalive and healthy (...) as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.āĀ Ā
Now, this could have been really interesting. Like in a psychological way, I get it. Dumbledore had a rocky home life. Dad in prison, mom spending all her time taking care of his volatile and dangerous sister. Aberforth seems to have reacted to the situation by running completely wild, itās implied that he never even had formal schoolingā¦ and Albus doubled down on being the Golden Child, making the family look good from the outside, and finding every means possible to escape. I would have believed it if Molly or Kingsley had a beat of being horrified by the way the Dursleys are treating Harryā¦ but Dumbledore treats it as like, whatever. Business as usual.Ā
But that isnāt the framing that the books use. Dumbledore is correct that the Dursleys arenāt that bad, and I think itās because JKR fundamentally does not take the Dursleys seriously as threats. I also think she has a fairly deeply held belief that suffering creates goodness, so possibly Harry suffering at the hands of the Dursleysā¦ was necessary? To make him good? Dumbledore himself has an arc of ālong period of suffering = increased goodness.ā So does Severus Snape, Dudleyās experience with the Dementor kickstarts his character growth, etc. Itās a trope she likes.
Itās only in The Cursed Child that the Dursleys are given any kind of weight when it comes to Harryās psyche. This is one of the things that makes me say Jack Thorne wrote that play, because itās just not consistent with how JKR likes to write the Dursleys. Itās consistent with the way fanfiction likes to write the Dursleys. And look, The Cursed Child is fascinatingly bad, I have so many problems with it, but it does seem to be doing like ā¦ a dark reinterpretation of Harry Potter? And itās interested in saying something about cycles of abuse. I can absolutely see how the way the play handles things is flattering to JKR. It retroactively frames the Dursleysā abuse in a more negative way, and maybe thatās something she wanted after criticism that the Harry Potter books treat physical abuse kind of lightly. (i.e.Ā Harry at the hands of the Dursleys, and house-elves at the hands of everybody. Even Molly Weasley āwallopsā Fred with a broomstick.)Ā
PART IV: Dumbledore and Harry
āThe whole PotterāDumbledore relationship. Itās been called unhealthy, even sinisterā
So whenever Harry feels betrayed by Dumbledore in the books - and he absolutely does, itās some of JKRās best writingĀ - itās not because he left him with the Dursleys. Itās because Dumbledore kept secrets from him, or lied to him, or didnāt confide in him on a personal level.Ā
āLook what he asked from me, Hermione! Risk your life, Harry! And again! And again! And donāt expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly, trust that I know what Iām doing, trust me even though I donāt trust you! Never the whole truth! Never!ā (...) I donāt know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isnāt love, the mess heās left me in. He shared a damn sight more of what he was really thinking with Gellert Grindelwald than he ever shared with me.ā
Eventually though, Harry falls in line with the rest of the Order, and treats Dumbledore as an all-knowing God. And this decision comes so close to being critiquedā¦Ā but the series never quite commits. Rufus Scrimgeour comments that, āWell, it is clear to me that [Dumbledore] has done a very good job on youā - implying that Harry is a product of a deliberate manipulation,Ā and that the way Harry feels about Dumbledore is a direct result of how he's been controlling the situation (and Harry.)Ā But Harry responds to ā[You are] Dumbledoreās man through and through, arenāt you, Potter?ā with āYeah, I am. Glad we straightened that out,ā and itās treated as a badass, mic drop line.Ā
Ron goes on to say that Harry maybe shouldnāt be trusting Dumbledore and maybe his plan isnāt that greatā¦ but then he abandons his friends, regrets what he did, and is only able to come back because Dumbledore knew he would react this way? So that whole thing only makes Dumbledore seem more powerful? AberforthĀ tells Harry (correctly) that Dumbledore is expecting too much of him and heās not interested in making sure that he survives:
āHow can you be sure, Potter, that my brother wasnāt more interested in the greater good than in you? How can you be sure you arenāt dispensable (...) Why didnāt he sayā¦ āTake care of yourself, hereās how to surviveā? (...) Youāre seventeen, boy!ā
But, Aberforth is treated as this Hamish Abernathy type who has given up, and needs Harry to ignite his spark again. Thereās a pretty dark line in the script of Deathly Hallows Part 2:
Which at least shows this was a possibleĀ interpretation the creative team had in their headsā¦ but then of course it isnāt actually in the movie.Ā
So in the end, insane trust in Dumbledore is only ever treated as proper and good. Then in Cursed Child they start using āDumbledoreā as an oath instead of āMerlinā and itās weird and I donāt like it.
PART V: Dumbledore and his Strays
āI have known, for some time now, that you are the better man.ā
So Dumbledore has this weird relationship pattern. He has a handful of people he pulled out of the fire at some point and (as a result) these people are insanely loyal to him.Ā They do his dirty work, and he completely controls them. This is an interesting pattern, because I think it helps explain why so many fans read Dumbledoreās relationship with Snape (and with Harry) as sinister.Ā
Letās start with the first of Dumbledoreās āstrays.ā Dumbledore saves Hagrid's livelihood and probably life after he is accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets - and then he uses Hagrid to disappear Harry after the Potters' death, gets him to transport the Philosopherās Stone, and heās the one who he trusts to be Harryās first point of contact with the Wizarding World.Ā Also, Hagrid's situation doesnāt change? Even after he is cleared of opening the Chamber of Secrets, he keeps using that pink flowered umbrella with his broken wand inside, a secret that he and Dumbledore seem to share. He could get a legal wand, he could continue his education. But he doesnāt seem to, and I donāt know why.Ā
So, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a well known fix-it fic that basically asks āWhat if Harry Potter was a machiavellian little super genius who solves the plot in a year?ā I enjoyed it when it was coming out, but the only thing I would call a cheat is the way McGonagall brings Harry to Diagon Alley instead of Hagrid. Because a Harry Potter who has spent a couple of days with McGonagall is going to be much better informed, better equipped and therefore more powerful than a Harry spending the same amount of time with Hagrid. McGonagall is both a lot more knowledgeable and a lot less loyal to Dumbledore. She is loyal, obviously, but she also questions his choices in a way that Hagrid never does. And as a result, Dumbledore does not trust her with the same kind of delicate jobs he trusts to Hagrid.
Mrs. Figg is another one of Dumbledoreās strays. Sheās a squib, so we can imagine that she doesnāt really have a lot of other options, and he sets her up to keep tabs on (and be unpleasant to) little Harry. He also has her lie to the entire Wizangamot, which has got to present some risk. Within this framework, Snape is another very clear stray. Dumbledore kept him out of Azkaban, and is the only reason that the Order trusts him. He gets sent on on dangerous double-agent missionsā¦ but before that heās sort of kept on hand, even though heās clearly miserable at Hogwarts. Firenze is definitely a stray - he can't go back to the centaurs, and who other than Dumbledore is going to hire him? And I do wonder about Trelawney. We donāt know much about her relationship with Dumbledore, but I wouldnāt be at all surprised if she was a stray as well.
I think there was an attempt to turn Lupin into a stray that didnātā¦ quite work. He is clearly grateful to Dumbledore for letting him attend Hogwarts and then for hiring him, but Lupin doesnāt really hit that necessary level of trustworthy that the others do. Most of what Dumbledore doesnāt know in Book 3 are things that Lupin could have told him, and didnāt. If had to think of a Watsonsian reason why Remus is given all these solo missions away from the other Order members (that never end up matteringā¦) itās because I donāt think Dumbledore trusts him that much. Lupin doubts him too much.Ā
āDumbledore believed that?ā said Lupin incredulously. āDumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James. . . .ā
Ā We also see Dumbledore start the process of making Draco into a stray by promising to protect him and his parents. And with all of thatā¦ itās kind of easy to see how Harry fits the profile. He has a very bleak existence (which Dumbledore knows about.) He is pulled out of it by Dumbledoreās proxies. Itās not surprising that Harry develops a Hagrid-level loyalty, especially after Dumbledore saves him from Barty, from his Ministry hearing, and then from Voldemort. Harry walks to his death because Dumbledore told him too.Ā
Just to be clear, I donāt think this pattern is deliberate. I think this is a side effect of JKR wanting to write Dumbledore as a nice guy, and specifically as a protector of the little guy. But Dumbledore doing that while also being so powerful creates a weird power dynamic, gives him a weird edit. Itās part of the reason people are happy to go one step farther and say that the Dursleys were mean to Harryā¦ because Dumbledore actively wanted it that way.Ā I donāt think thatās true. I think Dumbledore loves his strays and if anything, the text supports the idea that he is collecting good people, because protecting them and observing them serves some psychological function for him. Dumbledore does not believe himself to be an intrinsically good person, or trustworthy when it comes to power. So, of course someone like that would be fascinated by how powerless people operate in the world, and by people like Hagrid and Lupin and Harry, who seem so intrinsically good.Ā
PART VI - Dumbledore and Grindelwald
āI was in love with you.āĀ
I honestly see ā17-year-old Dumbledore was enamored with Grindelwaldā as a smokescreen distracting from the actual moral grayness of the guy. He wrote some edgy letters when he was a teenager, at least partly because he thought his neighbor was hot. He thought he could move Ariana, but couldnāt - which led to the chaotic three-way duel that killed her.Ā
One thing I think J. K. Rowling does understand pretty well, and introduces into her books on purpose, is the concept of re-traumatization. Sirius in Book 5 is very obviously being re-traumatized by being in his childhood home and hearing the portrait of his mother screaming. Itās why he acts out, regresses, and does a number of unadvisable things. I think itās also deliberate that Petuniaās unpleasant childhood is basically being re-created: her normal son next to her sisterās magical son. It's making her worse, or at the very least preventing her from getting better. We learn that Petunia has this sublimated interest in the magical world, and can even pull out vocab like āAzkabanā and āDementorā when she needs to. Ā She wrote Dumbledore asking to go to Hogwarts, and I could see that in a universe where Petunia didnāt have to literally raise Harry, she wouldnāt be as psychotically into normalness, cleanliness, and order as she is when we meet her in the books. After all, JKR doesnāt like to write evil mothers. She will be bend over backwards so her mothers are never really framed as bad.
And I honestly think itās possible that J. K. Rowling was playing with the concept of re-traumatiziation when she was fleshing out Dumbledore in Book 7. We learn all this backstory, thatā¦ honestly isnāt super necessary? All Iām saying is that the three-way duel at the top of the Astronomy Tower lines up really well with the three-way duel that killed Ariana. Harry is Ariana, helpless in the middle. Draco is Aberforth, well intentioned and protective of his family - but kind of useless, and kind of a liability. Severus is Grindelwald, dark and brilliant, and one of the closest relationships Dumbledore has. If this was intentional, it was probably only for reasons of narrative symmetryā¦ but I think it's cool in a Gus Fring of Breaking Bad sort of way, that Dumbledore (either consciously or unconsciously) has been trying to re-create this one horrible moment in his life where he felt entirely out of control. But the second time it plays outā¦ he can give it what he sees as the correct outcome. Grindelwald kills him and everyone else lives. That is how you solve the puzzle.
If you read between the lines, Dumbledore/Grindelwald is a fascinating love story. I like the detail that after Arianaās death, Dumbledore returns to Hogwarts because itās a place to hide and because he doesnāt feel like he can be trusted with power. I like that he sits there, refusing promotions, refusing requests to be the new Minister of Magic, refusing to go deal with the growing Grindelwald threat until he absolutely canāt hide anymore, at which point he defeats him (somehow.) I like reading his elaborate plan to break Elder Wandās power as both a screw-you to Grindelwald, the wandās previous master, but also as a weirdly romantic gesture. In Albus Dumbledoreās mind, there is only Grindelwald. Voldemort canāt even begin to compare. I like the detail that Grindelwald wonāt give up Dumbledore, even under torture. And, Dumbledore doesnāt put him in Azkaban. He put him in this other separate prison, which always makes it seem like heās there under Dumbledore authority specifically.Ā Maybe Dumbledore thinks that if he had died that day instead of Arianaā¦he wouldnāt have had to spend the rest of his life fighting and imprisoning the man he loves.
And then of course, Crimes of Grindelwald decided to take away Dumbledore's greatest weakness and say that no, actually he was a really good guy who never did anything wrong ever.Ā He went all that time without fighting Grindelwald because they made a magical friendship no-fight bracelet. Dumbledore is randomly grabbing Lupinās iconography (his fashion sense, his lesson plans, his job) in order to feel more soft and gentle than the person the books have created. Now Dumbledore knows about the Room Requirement, even though in the books itās a plot point that he's too much of a goody-two-shoes to have ever found it himself. He loved Grindelwald (past tense.) And Secrets of Dumbledore is mostly about him being an omniscient mastermind so that a magical deer can tell him that he was a super good and worthy guy, and any doubt that heās ever felt about himself is just objectively wrong and incorrect. Also now Aberforth has a neglected son, so heās reframed as a bit of a hypocrite for getting on his brotherās case for not protecting Harry.Ā
So to summarize, I think Dumbledore began the series as this very eccentric, unpredictable mentor, whose abilities took a hit in Books 3 and 4 in order to make the plot happen. He teetered on the edge of a ādarkā framing for like a secondā¦ but at the the end of the series he's written as basically infallible and godlike. Iāve heard people say that JKRāsĀ increased fame was the reason she added the Rita Skeeter plot line, and I donāt think thatās true. But I do think her fame may have affected the way she wrote Dumbledore. Because Dumbledore is JKRās comment on power, and by Book 5 she had so much power. In her head, I donāt think that Dumbledore is handing off jobs in a manipulative way. She sees him as empowering other less powerful people. That is his job as someone in power (because remember - people who desire power shouldn't wield it.)
Dumbledoreās power makes him emotionally disconnected from the people in his life, it makes him disliked and distrusted by the Ministry, but it doesnāt make him wrong. Thatās important. Dumbledore is never wrong. Dumbledore is always good. Thatās why we get the Blood Pact that means he was never weak or procrastinating. Thatās why we get the qilin saying he was a good person. Itās why we get the tragic backstory (because giving Snape a tragic backstory worked wonders when it came to rehabilitating him.) And that is why Harry names his son Albus Severus in the epilogue, to make us readers absolutely crystal clear that these two are good men.Ā
(art credit to @fafodill for the amazing banner.)
