Harry Potter Blaming Dumbledore or Mcgonagal for not noticing something wrong with Ginny

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

Ashaman said:

He's actually really shitty at that, too. Both Orders of the Phoenix had a ridiculously highly casualty rate (consider that there's maybe three survivors of the first one, out of a couple dozen dudes), he's horrible at briefing the troops (name the last time Dumbledore ever actually told someone what needed to be done and why, in plain English, instead of playing all his little mystery games, like with Harry and the clues after his death), he has no loyalty down but still expects loyalty up (how many times in the series has one of Dumbledore's people hung in the wind, with no back-up or response to their requests or follow-up? Sirius, Sturgis Podmore outside the gates of the DoM, Harry himself year after year over and over again. Arthur Weasley was also left out there and would have died if Harry hadn't gotten the word out, no thanks to Dumbledore), he's all reactive posture and does nothing proactive, always letting the enemy set the pace before he does anything, and even when spies are bringing him secret information he never uses any for actual strategic or tactical advantage.

Dumbledore's ability to command military-style is awful. Like, the Nigerian army has better officers than this.

nixofcyzerra · Jan 12, 2015

Of the 26 members of the 1st generation of the Order of the Phoenix that we know of, only 9 died in the first war: Molly's brothers, Dorcas Meadowes, Marlene McKinnon, Edgar Bones, the Potters and the Longbottoms (admittedly a 1/3 fatality rate is pretty bad,) and in the 2nd Wizarding War, the only members who died before Dumbledore did were Sirius and Emmeline Vance.

Dumbledore might have been obtuse with Harry, but I can't really recall him playing games with the adult members, Sturgis Podmore and Arthur Weasley were both standing sentry beside the entrance to the Department of Mysteries, in the Ministry, so if they'd had back-up they would have attracted more attention, and it's hard to be pro-active without being labelled a terrorist when the government considered the Death Eaters to be upstanding citizens at the time, and the Death Eaters themselves used Guerilla tactics, appearing, murdering, and leaving before any response team, Aurors or Order, could arrive.

If he'd decided to fight in the political arena, he could have potentially endangered his own positions, and thus the students of Hogwarts could have been endangered (or did you forget Umbridge, and that the students were being tortured by the teachers less than a couple of months after Dumbledore died.)

TL;DR, fighting terrorist organisations in the real world is damn hard, and I can't imagine how much harder it would be if the terrorists were all rich, politically connected, and could teleport.

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

nixofcyzerra said:

Incorrect. In the scene where Mad-Eye is showing Harry the group photo of the first Order of the Phoenix, he itemizes the survivors.

Short version -- out of the entire membership of the original Order of the Phoenix, here are the only people who lived:

* Albus Dumbledore
* Aberforth Dumbledore
* Mad-Eye Moody
* Sirius Black
* Remus Lupin
* Sturgis Podmore
* Emmeline Vance
* Hagrid
* Elphias Doge

Technically the Longbottoms also lived, but given how they ended up I have them on the casualty list.

So I was wrong about there being three survivors. Canonically, there are nine. Survivors. Total.

So either the original Order held its meetings in a broom closet, or else Jesus christ, what a wipeout.

Sirius Black would like to point out that if Dumbledore had so much as bothered to spend one day investigating his alleged crimes, or even so much as talked to Sirius in his cell, he wouldn't have been in Azkaban for twelve years. Its a direly shitty commanding officer who does not bother to do even a cursory investigation of one of his own accused of treason before locking him up and throwing away the key. Fuck, even if you do think he's guilty you still should damn well go interrogate him... to find out exactly how large the damage is and exactly what he gave away!

Also, if I was Severus Snape I'd be direly pissed at Dumbles for what he did in book 6. Dude, if you're going to order a man to kill you because double agent, its generally considered polite to actually leave behind a note explaining this so he doesn't, y'know, GET EXECUTED FOR YOUR MURDER AFTER THE WAR IS OVER. If Voldemort hadn't killed Snape, what the fuck was Snape's plan for avoiding trial? Dumbledore didn't leave behind a single goddamn thing to clear Snape except Snape's own testimony and memories... which would of course not exactly be found convincing at trial.

But no, Dumbledore doesn't think to tell so much as one other member of the Order, such as, oh, McGonagall, that Snape is actually on their side and his death was all part of the plan.

PS: Note that failing to tell McGonagall this is the direct cause of her forcing Snape to flee Hogwarts at the end of DH, which leads in a direct causal chain to his being in a position to be murdered by Voldemort. Snape's death is, ultimately, Dumbledore's fault, because Dumbledore didn't do Snape the courtesy of even minimally covering his ass. I may hate Snape, but even I go 'Dumbledore really screwed the guy over here'. Snape did everything for Dumbledore and didn't even get a basic loyalty back down the line in return. As I said - Dumbledore expected loyalty up, but showed no loyalty down.

Which means Dumbledore should not have put them there in the first place, because its a fucking suicide mission. What is one guy supposed to do vs. an entire Death Eater raid team if he can't get back-up and can't call for help? Die? Risking your peoples' lives when there is no point is stupid. If the circumstances are such that they have no rational hope for success, don't send them. Either figure out a way you CAN get it done, or accept that you can't and do something else somewhere else to make up for the loss.

BTW, please note that Arthur Weasley would have died if Harry hadn't crapped a miracle right then. Dumbledore's own plan would have left him there until they found his body under an invisibility cloak in the morning.

Let's not even get into the stupidity of needing to guard the orb at all... Dumbledore could easily have just destroyed it and left a fake in its place. (Yes, you can destroy the orbs even if you can't pick them from the shelf -- Bellatrix does precisely this with her stray shots during the DoM fight.)

Dumbledore doesn't lose all of his political influence until after Voldemort's return. He had fourteen fucking years to politically act against Lucius Malfoy and co. in the Wizengamot without wrecking himself, AND HE DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Which is a dire mark against Dumbledore given that he is supposed to be THE CHIEF WARLOCK OF THE WIZARDING HIGH COURT.

Please note that this also means I can slam Dumbledore for Lucius getting off in the first place -- Dumbledore was one of the presiding judges at his trial, and what, he just let the others all be bribed in front of him without speaking against it?

Yeah, well, there's a word for a general who doesn't fight for his troops because keeping his own career viable is a higher priority to him then backing up his people when they need it.

Its a not a very nice word.

I stand by my statement -- as a commanding officer, Dumbledore was the worst.

Rising Dragon · Jan 12, 2015

Like you'd do any better? None of us are familiar with the Wizarding World's political climate. We certainly wouldn't know what could be done.

Do you realize that maybe, just maybe, Dumbledore couldn't have acted on his own to deal with people like Lucius? That perhaps the rest of the Wizengamot would've interfered? It's not like he's the type to assign hits on the suspected criminals. That's not the kind of person he is, and going down that path would've made him little better than Voldemort (and he's already seen where that path leads to, given Grindelwald). The man's not comfortable in positions of power due to what "the Greater Good" gave him. Beyond that, the rest of the society wanted to wash their hands clean of Voldemort and be done with it. The Ministry certainly wasn't cooperating with the man when it came to Voldemort's return, I can't imagine they'd've been any more cooperative in the years following his initial defeat.

Oh, and let's not forget that maybe, just maybe, Dumbledore found himself a little fuckin' busy after Voldemort's first defeat? What with making sure Harry was safe behind his mother's continued protections, and figuring out how to deal with Voldemort for good, since he was rightfully convinced he wasn't dead? Tracking down the memories and testimonies of people he associated with, tracking down potential Horcrux locations, trying to figure out how Voldemort survived, etc? He'd've been busy, doing all of that on top of maintaining his school.

And destroying the Prophecy? I doubt they'd let Dumbledore into the room at all, before or after they thought the man had finally lost his mind. I imagine they kept everyone out other than authorized personnel (which, news flash, Dumbledore was not). What could his sentries have done to protect the prophecy? Well, for starters, not engage them the moment they appear, and instead notify other members of the Order so they could mobilize and fight back. You're also assuming that the orbs could be convincingly faked at all. Given the nature of research in that area, perhaps, just perhaps, the people in charge would've known something was off? Swapping it is right out as well, given that only people whom the prophecy pertains to could've handled the damn thing at all, as that's why the Death Eaters needed Harry there.

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

Rising Dragon said:

Well, for one thing, I'd remember that if somebody is trying to be acquitted in court on a defence of "I was coerced!", that means it's the defendant to prove that such coercion actually existed, not on the prosecution to prove that it didn't, because coercion is an affirmative defense (like claiming self-defense), which means burden of proof is on the defense. But I suppose Dumbledore's too awesome to expected to be able to remember basic legal concepts. He's only the senior guy on the Wizarding High Court, after all, actually expecting him to know about law and jurisprudence is expecting far too much. /sarcasm

I'd also have spent at least, like, one hour out of my day to go visit Sirius and interrogate him.

I'd also have thought to discreetly smash the prophecy orb and replace it with a fake, so as to leave Voldemort wasting an entire year chasing something worthless.

Add: I'd also have cast an anti-Apparition Jinx over the Ministry lobby before stepping out to fight Voldemort there, so that he couldn't run away. Boom, Tom's captured at the end of book 5. His Horcruxes can't do shit to save him if I don't kill him but just take his wand away and lock him up. After feeding him some Draught of Living Death, or Obliviating him like Lockhart, or fuck, just throwing his ass through the Veil of Death, which is right there. (It might kill him, it might not, but it will definitely send him on a one-way trip to the land of Not My Problem Anymore, because nobody returns from beyond the Veil.)

Oh, wait, right, the Prophecy says Harry must defeat him. OK, fine. I pound Tom's ass into nothing and then HARRY throws him into the Veil of Death.

Then we go hunt Horcruxes together, while Voldemort's out of action for a few months. Should be a lot easier than three kids doing it from inside a tent while an army of Death Eaters chases them.

So yes, I'd entirely have done better. Because at least I'd have done something. Its not that hard to do better than "nothing", which is what Dumbledore did.

It's not hard to beat 'Sit on your ass and suck your thumb' as a plan, dude.

Do you realize that book 1 introduces Dumbledore as the guy that Fudge won't blow his nose without writing Dumbledore a letter first to ask his advice about proper nose-blowing? I remind you yet again -- Dumbledore doesn't lose his political influence until over halfway through the series.

So yes, early on, Dumbledore could have crushed Lucius like a fucking bug, politically. But no, he does nothing and just waits for shit to pile up and bury him, and then... he still does nothing useful.

Straw man. Dumbledore doesn't need to go vigilante murderer to put Lucius away -- he just has to actually enforce the law with common sense, instead of letting a dude get away with obvious bribes right under his nose.

I might also point out that canonically, Dumbledore is willing to set Harry up to DIE as part of his plan so fuck, if he's willing to go that far, he's already lost the ability to plead 'but I'm too decent to use such methods!'.

Dude, the guy who runs the DMLE after Voldemort's initial defeat is Barty Crouch Sr., the guy who made it legal to use the Unforgivable Curses on Death Eaters. He doesn't lose his job until after Barty Jr. is outed at trial.

He obviously still had time to attend the trials of the Death Eaters, seeing as how he was one of the presiding judges at Bellatrix's trial, Karkaroff's trial, and Snape's trial, among others.

So, its hardly asking too much that he actually DO SOME WORK while he's there, if he's already in the courtroom.

A job that in canon took him all of one day, to set up the spells, drop Harry off and write Petunia a letter. Lord knows Dumbledore didn't go anywhere near the place again for fifteen years.

And this took every waking moment of fourteen years... I think not.

Well, hey, a responsible person would go 'If I have too many jobs to actually be able to do them all, I should find the least important job and quit it'. Its not like he couldn't have just handed the school over to McGonagall. It would be in good hands there... and since the Headmaster can let people be permanent guests of the school, a la Trelawney, Dumbledore woulnd't even have to leave the school grounds and could still be there to guard the students.

In addition to the fact that up until year 5 Dumbledore is the Chief Warlock, and up until year 2 the Minister's nose is entireyl up Dumbledore's ass, and the fact that Dumbledore is the greatest wizard in the world and there is jack shit they can do to keep him from sneaking in wherever the fuck he feels like because if people like Lucius and Bellatrix can hack the door lock without raising an alarm Dumbledore could do it in his damn sleep...

... there's also the simple fact that Harry has a legitimate right to go see the Prophecy, as its about him, and of course he would have to be escorted by an adult, as he's underage. Gee, I wonder who that 'adult' would be. Plus, of course, if Dumbledore is there, the fuck are the Death Eaters going to do? They so much as show their faces and Dumbledore will pwn them. Voldemort himself would have to come to have even half a chance... and of course, Voldemort showing himself inside the Ministry is how he lost book 5.

Dude, you just SAID that the sentries couldn't be expected to get back-up becuase of how deep in the Minsitry they were. And now you're saying that the plan is 'they could call for backup'? Be consistent!

... its a glass ball. I'm pretty sure the greatest Transfiguration master alive (hint: his name is Albus Dumbledore) could make one of those.

He doesn't have to fake the Prophecy itself, after all. He just has to put a ball on the shelf. Let Voldemort waste an entire year figuring out how to steal it... and then realize he's wasted all that time trying to steal a transfigured Christmas tree ornament.

How can they? The only people who can pick the Prophecy up from that shelf are Harry Potter and Tom Riddle. Not even Department of Mysteries personnel can move them -- Broderick Bode explicitly fries his brain trying to.

... you just contradicted yourself AGAIN. First you say 'the Unspeakables woudl totally check it', then you go 'but nobody but Harry can touch it or read it'. Fuckin' make up your mind, dude! (Plus, you're wrong. Anybody can smash it on the shelf, and at that point you just put your fake in the hole.)

nixofcyzerra · Jan 12, 2015

Chuckg said:

OOtP said:

11 people still alive at that point (one a traitor,) and 11 people dead or insane. 50/50. Yeesh.

I did judge Dumbledore for this, but remember that Sirius was found laughing like a madman in the middle of a blown-up street. The Potters were dead, the Fidelius was broken, and the supposed Secret Keeper had just been found laughing his head off after apparently blowing his other friend into tiny bits. I think most people would consider it an open-and-shut case. Sirius didn't even proclaim his innocence while he was being arrested! Add the fact that Dumbledore was probably very busy dealing with the fallout of Tom blowing himself up (he had 3 jobs,) and I can understand why looking into Sirius's case wasn't a priority.

The problem with this is you think Snape planned or hoped to survive past the war in the first place. The plan, which Snape was apparently both aware of and on board with, was for him to kill Dumbledore and become the Elder Wand's master, get disarmed by Harry (with his regular wand, natch,) and then have Tom kill Snape so he would think that he had become the Elder Wand's master. The plan was always for Snape to die. Problem was, Draco disarmed Dumbledore. That's why Snape wanted to go find Harry right before Nagani bit him. He wanted to go find Harry and tell him to disarm Draco.

Run away, find a fireplace, and Floo Dumbledore. Arthur had an invisibility cloak. He should have been safe enough. Dumbledore just didn't predict Voldemort would send Nagini.

And if the orb is still in the DoM, then Voldemort is obsessing about it and plotting to get it, and isn't massacring muggles by the truck-load elsewhere.

How? How exactly does one fight in the political arena? Curry votes? Lobby? What exactly could Dumbledore have done, especially without definitive proof?

Lucius Malfoy was legally free and a personal friend of the Minister who's also a big philanthropist and a school governor. He's like Bruce Wayne in Gotham! Practically bullet-proof!

What's the word for a guy who keeps his position as a school teacher so school children don't get tortured or trained in the dark arts so they all grow up to be little Sociopaths?

Chuckg said:

Apparently there are no barristers in the Wizarding World. Go figure.

Dumbledore literally got there from the DoM, through the revolving doors room and up the lift, just in time to stop Tom AK'ing Harry. "Right, just take a moment to cast that jinx and... Oh, Bugger!"

Couldn't find him to do it. Terrorist.

Fudge asked him for advice. Doesn't mean that if Dumbledore had replied "Stop taking bribes and double-check that the victims of Voldemort's Imperius really were under it," Fudge wouldn't have blown his nose with the letter before vowing to not bother asking him for advice anymore.

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

nixofcyzerra said:

Irrelevant. Its still necessary to follow-up in order to know the extent of the damage, if nothing else. You do NOT just drop a high-level traitor in the memory hole once exposed and never talk to him again. You investigate every minute of that guy's time from the day he first joined, because you HAVE to know everything he might have touched.

Dumbledore wants to be considered a 'military commander'? Then I will judge him like one. By which professional standards he is abysmal.

I'm the goddamn Dumbledore, I can read minds. Shit, I can read the minds of people as insane as Morfin Gaunt, after they've been memory charmed by Voldemort himself. This is not a problem for me. If I actually get off my ass and try.

*arrrggggh!*

HAVING THREE JOBS IS NOT AN EXCUSE. HAVING THREE JOBS IS ANOTHER FAILURE OF DUMBLEDORE'S RESPONSIBILITY. IF YOU TAKE TOO MANY JOBS SO THAT YOU'RE TOO BUSY TO DO THEM ALL PROPERLY, THAT IS YOUR FAULT and YOU ARE A BAD OFFICER. FUCKING DELEGATION OF RESPONSBILITY IS A SKILL EVERY COMMANDER MUST LEARN.

/rant

Sorry for raising my voice, but you directly ignored me saying it like twice already, and it is an IMPORTANT point.

You do realize that what you're saying here is 'Dumbledore has no problem using suicide bombers'.

Yyyyyyyyyyyyeahhhhh... that's not going to make Dumbledore look any better here.

Um, no. The plan was for Snape to NOT become the Elder Wand's master (because he didn't actually defeat Dumbledore, Dumbledore died cooperating with Snape) and then the power of the Elder Wand dies with Dumbledore.

This plan of course did not work, but the plan was NOT for Snape to die. At least, not Dumbledore's plan.

Source? Because I damn sure don't remember seeing that in DH.

Irrelevant! YOU JUST GOT THROUGH SAYING THAT IT WAS TOO DEEP INSIDE THE MINISTRY TO SAFELY SEND MORE THAN ONE PERSON.

That means that the plan CAN'T be "call for help", becuase if he could call for help, you could have more than one person there in the first place!

Yes, because it isn't like any Death Eaters ever know how to cast "hominem revalio". /sarcasm

You're only underlining that Dumbledore is a direly shitty planner, if he's thinking like this.

Add: Actually, its even worse. Months after Lucius Malfoy found Sturgis Podmore under his invisibility cloak, thus proving that it doesn't work, Dumbledore is still having his people, like Arthur, rely on the invisbility cloaks. Wow, sticking with a plan even after you know its failing, without adjusting anything... that's just brain-dead.

I will admit that sending Nagini was so stupid on Tom's part that you can't have seen it coming. However, the logical move would have been to send Wormtail, who is damn capable of a quick AK to the back of a guy who thinks he's invisible. (Rats have animal senses too, and Wormtail's really good at sneaking up behind people.)

How does Tom know the real orb isn't there until after he's finally gotten in and stolen it? That's the entire point of leaving a decoy behind.

Exposing the people who are taking bribes and seeing them convicted, a job that is made easier when YOU ARE THE JUDGE?

Stupid, if he can do the same thing by just letting McGonagall be Headmistress while he's a part-time houseguest at Hogwarts and a full-time politician.

You know who else is expected to know the law, besides barristers? THE JUDGES.

Um, dude, Dumbledore makes it to the Ministry of Magic before Tom does. Remember that he shows up to save Harry & Neville from Bellatrix, which happens like five minutes before Tom even makes it in the door.

You're going off the movie version, not the book.

Yes, because Snape didn't know that Voldemort was hiding at Malfoy Manor, despite going there to meet him regularly. /sarcasm

Seriously, the fuck is the point of having a double agent in the Death Eaters if you never actually ask him where the Death Eaters are? Its not like Voldemort was using the Fidelius Charm to hide his HQ like the Order was.

Again, Dumbledore's a fucking moron.

Fudge isn't Minister of Magic until years after the Death Eater trials are over, dude. Plus, y'know, I'm pretty sure Fudge might stop taking bribes if Dumbledore went "If you don't want to be in my courtroom on charges of taking bribes, stop taking the fucking bribes. I know you're doing it, and I can prove it." (Again: Can read minds. Has no excuse ever for not knowing everywhere to look for evidence on everything, if he actually tries. Well, not unless the guy knows Occlumency.. which Fudge don't.)

I mean, shit, its not like the DMLE head wasn't an honest person. (Oh yeah, there's another idiot Dumbledore moment. Did he not think that Voldemort wouldn't target her once the shooting started? Apparently not!)

Shirotsume · Jan 12, 2015

Nix, you have a little something on your nose

Rising Dragon · Jan 12, 2015

Chuckg said:

Well, no. But seeing how that wasn't Dumbledore's plan, you haven't really convinced me you'd do better either.

Chuckg said:

And Dumbledore also knew that Voldemort couldn't do shit to Harry thanks to Voldemort's own blunder--all of his talk with Harry in the end kinda hints at that. Why didn't he tell Harry or Snape? Just this little thing called Voldemort really not needing to be in the know about it.

Chuckg said:

Really? Barty Crouch Sr., he'd be perfect for helping Dumbledore! He's so infallible after all! It's not like he'd do something like break his evil son out of jail, risking national security on the off-chance he'd get free and seek out his master, and kick off an insidious plot that'd result in the country's biggest threat coming back to power...

Oh. Wait. That totally did happen, didn't it? Ah well. So much for him being viable in helping Dumbledore.

Chuckg said:

We don't even know what the duties of the Chief Warlock are. If it's anything like the Queen's role in judicial matters, it might be something like being an impartial observer to judicial matters. And if he had to be impartial, he couldn't play his hand at destroying everyone in every possible way but physical, could he?

Chuckg said:

No, having them call for backup against Death Eaters would be a good idea. Your statement implied that they were all that would be there to fight against Death Eaters, which is a preposterous idea. I'm being consistent, you're just being pissy.

Chuckg said:

Dumbledore had all the fucking support in the world until the moment he fucking needed it! The Ministry did not want to consider the possibility that Voldemort wasn't finished for good. The moment Dumbledore tried to make any overt moves to stop Voldemort, the Ministry instantly turned on him. And you think they'd somehow help him before then?

Chuckg said:

Harry and the prophecy being used to switch or destroy it? Get real. For starters, Harry has a mental link to Voldemort, and one that Voldemort wasn't afraid of using at that point. Voldemort would know if they switched it just by witnessing Harry aiding them in doing so or going through his memories.

On top of that, if they do get him in, it'd likely be in a legal manner, and chances are they'd be under escort, who'd most certainly mind if they tried to destroy or steal the damn thing in front of them. And, once again, Voldemort would know. If it was switched, he'd go after the real one and wouldn't bother attacking the Ministry like he did. If it were destroyed, he'd likely go on a rampage (bad) or go after others who'd know of the prophecy, like Trelawny (worse).

Chuckg said:

The prophecy isn't just a glass ball. It's a glass ball with mystical prophetic memory magic crap inside of it, I'm fairly certain it'd look a lot fucking different on the inside than a regular glass ball. And as for seeing if it IS just a glass ball or a genuine contained prophecy, that doesn't mean they need to manhandle the damn thing. I daresay they'd have spells to check it with, among god knows what else. Christ, that's easy enough to think of, why can't you consider it? Stop thinking of it as just some prop and think of the bloody setting its in.

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

Rising Dragon said:

Really? Where exactly in the books does Dumbledore do much of anything except 'sit back, let Harry do all the work, roll in at the end to say a few things?' Shit, his entire endgame is to die on cue and leave the job to Harry.

Wrong. Dumbledore explicitly admits, in exactly that many words, in the King's Cross Station sequence that he was only guessing that Harry would be safe.

So, yeah, Albus' plan was to sit on his ass and trust to luck. That is the worst plan ever.

OK, now you're cheating and moving the goalposts. First its all 'Dumbledore would be arrested if he tried to act against the Death Eaters!', and when I point out that the then-head of the DMLE wouldn't arrest Dumbledore even if he Crucio'ed Lucius Malfoy in broad daylight, you suddenly are talking like 'Oh no, he wouldn't be able to do it without Crouch's help, but Crouch would guarantee failure!'

I grant that Crouch's plans are stupid, but Dumbledore doesn't need him to help plan. The only thing Dumbledore needs Crouch to do is nothing -- which he'd be perfectly happy to do if Dumbledore was having fun kicking Death Eater ass without him. As witness, oh, the 11 years the original Order of the Phoenix ran around being vigilantes while the Ministry did absolutely nothing to stop them. In stark contrast to the second Order of the Phoenix.

Well, judging from Dumbledore's memories of Bellatrix's trial, whatever they are they include "being the one of the judges at the trial". Which is what I'm talking about.

I might also point out that if Lucius is going to be claiming the Imperius curse, then logically his claims should be examined by a court-appointed expert, like any other evidence? Can anybody here name Magical Britain's greatest living expert on mind magic? Hint: His initials are A.P.W.B.D.

The Wizengamot already canonically has a "Special Advisor", dude -- Elphias Doge. Dumbledore is the other guy, the Chief Warlock.

If he had to be only an impartial observer, then he wouldn't have been allowed to intervene and get Snape's charges dropped. Which he, in canon, did. So your theory is again wrong and ignores the books.

So, they can't all be there to fight against Death Eaters, but the sentry can call for backup to fight Death Eaters, and you're being totally consistent when you say this.

You are either jerking my chain or you've totally lost the plot.

You do realize that's the entire point of my criticism, right? Dumbledore is an idiot for not using his support back when he still had it, to do things like cut Lucius Malfoy off at the knees pre-emptively.

I mean, fuck, Dumbledore has known since day one that Voldemort would return eventually. WHY IS HE LEAVING VOLDEMORT'S FOLLOWERS IN PLACE? Wouldn't it make more sense to remove their influence BEFORE Voldemort returns, so that Tom returns to find out he has no support structure waiting for him? It's called "defeat in detail", and its something any second lieutenant should know.

Dumbledore's entire mistake is that he waited for Voldemort to return before he started making moves. He pissed away a fourteen-year head start. That is the worst commander ever. In war, when you have the initiative on the opposition, you fucking USE IT.

What part of 'remove Lucius Malfoy's political influence' requires Dumbledore to announce that Lord Voldemort has returned, or to campaign on that basis? It's not like Lucius and Albus aren't political opponents anyway.

Seriously, you act like Dumbledore is the least popular guy ever and can't get a single vote ever. When he was the hero of the age until he after started talking about Voldemort reborn. Solution: Don't wait until after Voldemort is reborn before you start talking.

He just needs to use Harry to get in the room. He doesn't have to let Harry actually hear the Prophecy.

Add: Actually, since he's just using Harry to get in the room and doesn't intend to actually have him pick up the sphere, he doesn't even need to use the real Harry. Oh, if only there was some form of magic that let you impersonate a person!

Yes, if only there was a spell that could remove inconvenient memories from someone's head and replace them with different ones.

*coughobliviatecough*

Dumbledore can stun an entire room full of Aurors who have their wands already pointed at him, starting with his wand in his pocket, and without even breathing hard. He can memory charm this escort to not see anything and the dude will never know. He's the goddamn Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard alive. The dude can bust a move.

He just almost never actually bothers to. That's his problem.

Once again, Harry doesn't have to know shit.

Fuck, Dumbledore doesn't even have to use the real Harry to get in the room. It's not like he doesn't have a goddamn Metamorphmagus on the payroll. It's not like he doesn't know to make Polyjuice Potion.

It looks like a glass ball full of smoke. Again -- world's greatest Transfiguration master.

Now you're just making stuff up. They obviously DON'T have spells that check everything regularly, or else they'd have noticed the multiple break-in attempts over months. Which the Department of Mysteries never did.

Because the security on the Department of Mysteries, in canon, ranges from 'bad' to 'nonexistent', what with them unable to even notice that multiple burglary attempts have been made over the entire year, much less the complete lack of guards or alarms when an entire small army of Death Eaters just walked right in the fucking door and started shooting whatever they felt like.

So, yeah, not going to go with a theory that they're actually paying attention and will notice the slightest disturbance in the inventory. In canon, they didn't even notice when Bellatrix was setting the entire room on fire.

Stop writing your fanfic in your head and actually read the books.

nixofcyzerra · Jan 12, 2015

Chuckg said:

Didn't feel a reason too. What info could Sirius have passed onto the DE's that "he" hadn't already revealed? Identities of the order members? Those were probably already common knowledge within the DE's as they kept tracking them down and killing them. Safe houses? Oh look, they use another one (Grimmauld Place) once Wiz War 2 starts up.

He doesn't. Want to, that is. It's just that everybody looks to him and there are no better options. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if what Dumbledore really sees in the Mirror of Erised is finding someone who's make a good minister (and who won't keep bothering him,) and a couple more people who can definitely can be trusted with power, so he can fob the Supreme Mugwump and the Chief Warlock positons off on them, and go back to Hogwarts and just be a Headmaster.

Dumbledore isn't even sure that Tom made a horcrux at this point. I mean, he had suspicions that he wasn't really dead, but right up until Tom turned out to be on the back of Quirrel's head, Dumbledore did acknowledge the possibility that Tom was dead and gone. THE WAR'S OVER MAN, YA GOTTA STOP ACTING LIKE IT AIN'T!

You realise that if he had quit being Chief Warlock, Malfoy probably would have thrown his name in the ring to be the next one, right? Dumblefore suffers from a severe lack of electable people he can trust to hold important political positions.

Dumbledore never forgot that Snape didn't give a damn if James and Harry died as long as Lily lived. And Snape didn't really care if he lived or died as long as Lily's son was safe. The second that Harry was safe from Voldemort, he probably would have taken poison.

Plan A was Elder wand power dies with Dumbledore. Plan B was Snape loses to Harry's wand. Plan C (made up on the spur of the moment) was to ensure that Draco loses to Harry's wand. I think there was an interview that said that Snape never expected to survive. I inferred the rest from that.

No, I'm saying that two guys wearing invisibility cloaks standing outside the entrance to the DoM, on Level 9, accessible via the lifts from the Ministry Atrium, are more likely to get caught than 1 guy wearing an invisibility cloak standing outside the entrance. Malfoy's either more savvy or more paranoid than Dumbledore expected, and cast a revealing spell, or Sturgis screwed up and let Malfoy know he was there and let him get the drop on him with an Imperius. On the other hand, if Sturgis had suddenly been confronted with a large group of men in DE outfits, then he probably would, oh, I don't know, snuck away without letting them know he was there and then sent a Patronus messenger to Dumbledore.

Yeah, because every Death Eater is more paranoid than Mad Eye Moody and can't go 5 minutes without casting it./sarcasm.

You're claiming that sending Pettigrew to do anything important is a smart move? Really?

The people who work there must have some method of determining whether the orbs have been messed with, and Voldemort probably had spies. I mean, he had Rockwood the first time round. And if Dumbledore had taken Harry to get the prophecy, Voldemort might have seen it through his eyes, or Harry might have wanted to know about it/obsessed over it, and Voldemort would have sensed his thoughts.

Judges can't just hand down verdicts without decisive evidence, or they get investigated and their verdicts thrown out.

People just don't respect McGonagall the same way they do Dumbledore, and damn it, he hates politics, stop trying to take the one thing he actually enjoys doing away from him!

No, Dumbledore and Harry were in the DoM. Bellatrix runs off, Harry pursues. Harry makes it to the atrium with a decent lead, and nearly gets killed for it, but gets saved by Dumbledore, who shows up just in time. As for Anti-Appiration Jinxing the atrium before entering the DoM, he's not a tactical genius who thinks six steps ahead, and the kids could be dying down there, no time to spare!

Voldemort could have moved around a lot, could have run away when Dumbledore showed up to storm the gates (leaving him to face charges of breaking and entering when the Aurors show up,) and there's also the fact that Dumbledore's probably not sure he can beat Tom anymore. It's by no means a sure thing.

Bagnold then. And: "Well Albus, if you have evidence that I've been accepting monetary transactions in exchange for favours, I'd love to see it."

Your argument is based on the idea that Politicians aren't very good at hiding the fact they've accepted bribes. That's a bad move on your part.

Shirotsume said:

?

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

nixofcyzerra said:

Did he Memory Charm anybody? Did he Imperius Curse anybody? Did he leave behind any curses or boobytraps, like Tom did on the DADA classroom? Are there any unsolved murders he might be responsible for? Was there ANOTHER double agent in the Order that we didn't catch, and if so, does Sirius know who he is?

The amount of damage that a traitor can do with magic is WAY HUGE. Dumbledore never checked for any of it. Idiot.

I'm sorry, if his fans are going to defend him with 'he is a military commander' -- and they did, that's the post I orignally replied to -- then they don't get to duck out now!

Also, if Dumbledore doesn't want to be considered a military commander, THEN PERHAPS HE SHOULD NOT TAKE COMMAND OF THE FORCES OF LIGHT DURING A WAR.

Then why was he bothering to guard Harry?

You keep wanting it both ways. 'Dumbledore has to be all these precautions for Harry because Voldemort will return', but at the same time, 'Dumbledore shouldn't act like Voldemort will return until year one because'.

No. Sorry. You don't get to be inconsistent because its easier for you.

Yes, that's exactly why I suggested that he quit the Headmaster job, as that's the one he DOES have a trusted person to take over for him. (McGonagall). I only said that twice.

Dude, if you're going to ignore what I say and substitute dumb shit over and over, then we're going to have difficulties. Quit straw-manning my shit.

Which means that yes, Dumbledore is totally willing to use suicide bombers, if they volunteer.

At this point, any argument that Dumbledore can't do something because it would be unethical fails utterly, because if Dumbledore's willing to be this ruthless, then holy shit, what is he not willing to do.

Again, source?. Dude, I do not remember reading this, and I just went and looked at the book again right now to double check. I didn't see this anywhere. So tell me what page it's on, if I missed it. At least tell me what chapter. But quote a source. I'm not gonna take your word for it if I can't find it in the book somewhere.

Well, that at least makes some kind of sense, but remember, the reason Dumbledore has his people wearing invisibility cloaks in the first place is because if they're seen standing there, they will be arrested and sent to Azkaban. As indeed Sturgis Podmore was arrested and sent to Azkaban.

Which means that no, he can't just send the entire Order of the Phoenix charging in whenever. I mean, fuck, the only reason they avoid all getting arrested at the end of book 5 is because Voldemort publicly revealed himself to Fudge in the lobby, and that was a huge stroke of luck for Dumbledore, not his plan.

So, one Death Eater he can see coming can get the drop on him, but if a whole group of Death Eaters showed up he'd be fine?

... dude, the inverse ninja law is a running gag. Its not actually a serious plan, much less a good idea in Harry Potter.

Yes, because a Death Eater wouldn't possibly try to break into anywhere without checking for guards. /sarcasm

Seriously, dude.

Pettigrew snuck around Hogwarts years and years without getting caught once, despite everything Dumbledore was allegedly doing to protect the school. He only got caught in the end because Sirius already knew he was there.

So yeah, trusting Pettigrew to sneak into somewhere actually is a good idea. Pettigrew is the grand champion sneaking master of the Death Eaters. He is a goddamn rat animagus ninja master.

PS: Voldemort trusted Pettigrew with his resurrection. Barty Jr's job was to get Harry there, but Pettigrew is the guy who did the ritual and killed Cedric. Pettigrew might be a miserable little coward with disgusting personal hygiene, but he actually knows his job.

*points up*

Again, is that why nobody showed up and no alarms were sounded even when Bellatrix was setting the entire prophecy storage room on fire and blowing it up? Because they have "methods of determining when the orbs are messed with"?

In canon, there are exactly zero anti-tamper alarms in that room. This was demonstrated. Epically.

So quit with the fanfic already.

Dude, they already KNOW Voldemort doesn't have any spies left still inside the Unspeakables this time around, because if he did THEN LUCIUS MALFOY WOULDN'T NEED TO TRY AND BREAK IN. That's basic logic.

See above re: "He doesn't need to take the real Harry, just someone who looks like him." Which means Polyjuice or Tonks. Easy peesy.

I mean, hell, they had no problem making SEVEN Harry decoys in the last book. One would be even easier.

They can in the Potterverse! Just ask Sirius Black. Or Hagrid. Or Stan Shunpike. Or, well, lots of people.

I mean, fuck, getting somebody convicted in a wizarding court without any real evidence is the easiest damn shit in the world. It happens all the time. Why not use that to your ADVANTAGE for once, Dumbledore, instead of just letting everybody else do it to you?

Plus, of course, when you're the world's greatest mind-reading wizard then maybe, just maybe, you can also be a kind of detective.

Is that why she became Headmistress of Hogwarts every time Dumbledore wasn't there to do it himself, except when Voldemort himself took over the Ministry? Even Umbridge couldn't get McGonagall out of the Headmistress chair after Dumbledore had to flee.

FUCK his enjoyment! The goddamn wizarding world needs saving from Voldemort, and he's the guy in charge of that effort! Boo fucking hoo if he doesn't like the work! Fucking nut up or shut up, Dumbledore!

Man, the one question nobody ever asked me during my military service was "Are you having fun?" Because, y'know, I wasn't. No excuses! You do your damn job even if you don't like it, because peoples' lives depend on this shit.

If Albus priorities keeping his happy little mellow as more important than saving the world, then Albus is a self-centered jackass.

Since you can normally Apparate inside the building -- Tom proves that -- what the fuck is Dumbledore doing, taking the scenic route? Harry runs off after Bellatrix and Dumbledore, who was standing right there next to him, just waits five minutes before going after him?

Yet again, Dumbledore is wasting time he could have put to better use.

Um, I'm sorry, didn't this start when Dumbledore's fans were talking about how his plans were so brilliant and we had no room to criticize?

Yes, I actually am expecting him to be a tactical genius. He claims to be one, his fans claim he's one, so let's see if he lives up to the hype!

He doesn't.

'Snape, when's your next scheduled meeting with Voldemort?'

The man makes appointments for his Death Eaters to see him. That means you know where he will be, when he will be.

Hey, you know all those Death Eater home invasions where they trap the people inside the house by throwing up anti-Apparition jinxes and blocking the Floo first, and only then boot the door? The ones they did for 11 years all during the first war?

Wouldn't it be ironic if Dumbledore, like, turned their own tactics back on them?

Woudln't it also be basic common sense?

Dumbledore: "Your Occlumency is shit, and so I know every bank account # you have, and the dates, times, and amounts of every transaction. AND the exact location of which secret sock drawer you keep your account records in. So I went and got them."

The equation kinda changes when you are the best mind-reader in Magical Britain.

Shirotsume · Jan 12, 2015

He literally has a known DE spy. He can get that information and then just say he got it from 'unnamed sources.' He shouldn't admit that he used occlumency.

Also, why the fuck are you still arguing about Sirius. He should have had a trial, BAR NONE. No other reasoning necessary, everyone involved should probably be chucked in Azkaban for collusion, possibly treason. You fucking give trials to people.

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

Shit, they gave a trial to Bellatrix Lestrange, who got caught red-handed burning the brains out of two of his Order members, who was a cop-killer who went after families of cops.

Cynical Kyle · Jan 12, 2015

Shirotsume said:

Every government on Earth would give show trial at best were they to be put in equivalent position, namely miraculously winning a losing war and having convenient target for blame available. As sad as it is, even the civilized and democratic governments trample upon those principles whenever given a chance. WW I was completely Germany's fault because they lost and while most of the people tried at Nuremburg certainly deserved what they got, they couldn't really be called fair ones. Hell, recently British troops in Iraq were tried for completely trumped up crimes and found guilty without evidence. Given how much smaller magical world is and how much personal the war against Voldemort was to average magical citizen it's no wonder that their government just rushed Sirius to prison as alleged Voldemort supporter number one. Lack of trial after that can be explained as combination of politically connected death eaters wanting to avoid inconvenient reveals that could cause and using their connections to keep him locked up and Rowling's lack of planning.

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

If that's true, then why wasn't Bellatrix taken outside by the Aurors, shot in the face, and then they dropped a wand on her corpse? I mean, a known cop-killer going after a cop's family inside their own home, that's the #1 statistical risk for "dying while 'resisting arrest'", you'd think.

But no, she gets a trial with full attention paid to whatever rights you have in Magical Britain's justice system. And yet Sirius doesn't.

The problem here isn't just that Sirius' treatment is barbaric, its also that its inconsistent. Because, sure, Magical Britain as shown in the books has a very primitive and biased justice system, nobody can argue that. Its just weird how even with all that, Sirius still gets a worse deal than raving psycho killers caught red-handed. Even 'his guilt was obvious!' doesn't cover it -- Bellatrix was caught with the smoking wand literally in her hand, standing over the bodies. And yet she's not 'obvious' enough to allow skipping the trial phase, but he is?

Add: Also, refusing to investigate Sirius' case is stupid, from a POV of damage limitation. You can have literally zero interest in justice or civil rights but still you should be doing this, just to cover your own ass. Stalinist Russia would have investigated Sirius' case, not because they care about fair trials, but because they care about digging up everything they can on spies who are caught... because that's how you find OTHER spies.

Shirotsume · Jan 12, 2015

This thread has made me realize that I really want to to see a time-travel fic where they go to get Sirius a trial early, so they put everything in the newspapers 'turn yourself in by XYZ and you'll get a trial' blah blah blah.

Harry eagerly awaits being able to see Sirius again, and then in the newspaper there's a letter to the editor basically saying 'fuck no, do you think I'm stupid? I know from (Bellatrix/Rookwood/blah) that I'm the only person to get chucked in there without a trial, even while You-Know-Who's right-hand man was somehow found 'innocent.' Your 'justice' system can go fuck itself, you'll never find me you fucks.'

I just woke up, so probably not the best letter, but you get the general idea. I could definitely see the other inmates mocking Sirius, as they damn well know he was never a death eater, and that actual death eaters got away scott free and merry while Sirius didn't even get a so much as a trial. As for how he would abandon his godfather duties, it's a time-travel Harry. Pettigrew might already be dealt with, and Harry might be living with someone else.

Would just be an interesting sucker punch for the usual "Everything goes perfect for the antagonists because they went back in time."

nixofcyzerra · Jan 12, 2015

Chuckg said:

Seeing as Imperius Curses end when the caster dies, and so there must be some sort magical conection between the caster and the target, I find it very hard to believe that a Wizard could sustain an Imperius from Azkaban. And, also here. Anyway, Crouch Senior was the one who got Sirius locked up without a trial, and I can't remember a single moment in canon where Sirius seems to blame Dumbledore for it. From that, we can infer that perhaps the Chief Warlock acts as an impartial executive figure, much like the Queen of England does over British and Commonwealth Parliaments.

THERE WAS NO-ONE ELSE. IF HE DIDN'T, THEN WHO WOULD? That phrase can be said to have dominated Albus Dumbledore's life. He doesn't trust himself with power. The only reason he would have taken on all of his positions is if he trusts the alternatives even less. Who should have taken over leadership of the Order? Moody? People mock him for blowing up his bins!

Because A; there is the possibility that Voldemort's only "almost-dead," and B; Death Eaters might want revenge on the boy who "killed" their master? Or consider him a useful asset and want control over him? Hell, Malfoy probably would have tried to adopt him so he could "raise him to be a fine example of Wizardkind."

I'll admit that Dumbledore probably should have given up the Headmaster position and elect Mcgonnagall to the position. Whenever I read a fanfic where Harry tells Dumbledore that he should, I approve. But I can also accept that it wouldn't occur to Dumbledore that he should do so. He likes being the Headmaster, and the idea of giving up one of the few things in his life that brings him any joy isn't going to occur to him by itself. He's not going to think of it.

And considering that the Government didn't collapse for the likely several decades that Dumbledore held the positions, he apparently was up to the task of holding all three. He just couldn't handle all three and the plot.

Dumbledore could be a ruthless Mofo if he had to. Once he accepted that the only way the Horcrux in Harry could be removed was if Harry died, he set up a plan that would end in Harry walking to his own death. He couldn't know (although he hoped) that Harry would be able to come back to life.

That doesn't mean he's going to do sh*t like that for the lulz.

An online copy of DH (Not sure what's up with all the "C's." said:

I inferred from that that all that Snape lived for was to protect the last remaining piece of Lily Evans. Once that was done... Also, there's the fact that the Potions Master didn't have an Anti-venom for Nagini. Come on, dude. Dumbledore even tells you about the snake.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. I mean, he had so much going for him! His job (which he hated.) His extensive circle of friends (oh wait.) His veela-hot girlfriend (never moved on from crush on Harry's mum.) Etcetera, etcetera.

Yeah, and if you send one scout into enemy territory, he's less likely to be caught than if you sent two. I'm not saying that it wasn't dangerous, just that making it a solo mission might have actually been, paradoxically, safer.

Group Psychology. People feel safer in large groups, and thus less paranoid. So I do actually think that a large group of DE's would be less vigilent than a single DE.

The DoM is on the 9th floor, only accessible by a lift. If Arthur, hiding under his cloak, suddenly hears the lift come to life when the ministry should be empty, he goes on full alert and gets ready to GTFO of there if he has to. I'm not saying it wasn't without risk, but I'd say the risk had been minimised to an acceptable point. Except no-one expected Nagini.

He might be a rat Ninja, and he might have been able to kill Cedric when Voldemort's right there telling him to, but that doesn't mean that if you send him on an infiltration mission, he'd be able to kill any guards. He's a coward, not an assassin.

Or it just means all the burglar alarms were disabled by the DE's before Harry and co. got there. Which sounds more reasonable to you?

Fair enough. He's just got some damn fine Wizarding Cat Burglars.

Except that fake Harry wouldn't be able to pick the orb up.

*shrugs* Wizarding equivalent of the USA Patriot Act? Hagrid was supposedly "temporarily detained." And the Minister (and the DMLE head, probably with the minister signing off on it,) did those, not the Chief Warlock.

Well, yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll accept Mcgonagall taking the position when Albus is still around to do it and isn't a fugitive or dead. She's the next best thing.

Again I point out that as far as we know, Dumbledore was actually handling all 3 positions quite well for decades, right up until the plot kicked in. Maybe he should have found a replacement for Chief Warlock or Supreme Mugwump before the plot kicked in, but there was no suitable candidate, and he probably couldn't abdicate the Headmaster position after GoF, because the Ministry was trying to interfere with Hogwarts, and it would have been giving the ministry a massive opening.

Tom screwed with the "wards" (a completely fanonical term but whatever) before showing up? Maybe you can apparate from the atrium, but not from the lower levels? And Harry was there for less than a minute before Dumbledore arrived.

"I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being--forgive me--rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."

I don't think Dumbledore's perfect. I think he's a man doing the best he can. And sometimes that's not good enough. And his long-term strategies are better than his short-term tactics.

Patronus message to the Auror office (I know Rowling said that most DE's can't cast a Patronus but come on.) Any other kind of messaging spell.

"Dobby, pop over the Ministry and tell them that Albus Dumbledore is laying siege to our house."

Bagnold: "Oh, I see, you're a Legilimens. Well, I guess it's a good thing that illegally obtained evidence is inadmissible in court. For me, that is. Not for you. Especially not for you, seeing as you just admitted to reading the mind of the Minister of Magic. Oh, Aurors? Put him in a holding cell."

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

nixofcyzerra said:

Wizards in Azkaban aren't dead, and Draco could actually Imperius someone else (Madam Rosmerta) to Imperius Katie Bell for him, so your 'connection' theory is way flimsy.

Dude, there is barely a single moment in canon where anybody ever blames Dumbledore for anything, even when Dumbledore is openly confessing that its his fault. (Witness Harry's convo with Dumbledore after Sirius dies -- Harry is still blaming himself even after Dumbledore says that Harry should blame him instead). The only thing you're proving here is that Dumbledore gets away with shit because everybody buys into his PR, and that wizards are sometimes stupid about fairly apportioning blame. Which anybody who's read this series already knows.

And from Snape's being gotten off because Dumbledore said 'No, let this guy off', we can MORE than "infer" that Dumbledore has the authority to intervene in a trial if he feels like it, we can KNOW IT AS A FACT. Dumbledore is demonstrably capable of issuing free pardons, much less just trials.

There is no "I don't have to actually try to do a good job, because I didn't volunteer, I was drafted!" exemption in the military, dude.

Dumbledore chose to assume the responsibility. Why he chose to do that is irrelevant. Once he did so choose, he owes it to the world to do the best job he possibly can at fulfilling those responsibilities. And if he really can't do that, then he owes it to the world to get the fuck out of the way and find someone else who can do the job, and then let them have the authority.

He did a horrible fucking job, and he had to fucking die before anybody else even began to step up and do it for him.

My heart bleeds. There's a reason they say "war is hell", dude -- war doesn't care how much you don't want to do this, you still have to do it anyway, or else you and the people relying on you will die. That's why its called "duty", instead of "happy fun vacation".

Straw manning again. Nobody suggested Dumbledore quit leading the order. In fact, all the jobs we suggested he'd quit are jobs that *don't* involve commanding the war against Voldemort. Such as, oh, being chief administrator of a school. Or being a diplomatic envoy to some useless ICW that never does anything. Let somebody else be the ambassador and go on the cocktails and canapÃ© circuit, Dumbledore! You have a time management problem!

Exactly! You can't argue that Dumbledore shouldn't act like Voldemort's coming back, because you just said, right now, that Dumbledore should expect the possibility of Voldemort's coming back.

You keep going back on yourself whenever convenient and I'm getting sick of it. Pick ONE argument and STICK WITH IT. Do not argue out both sides of your mouth in alternate posts.

Now, having settled that Dumbledore has every reason to operate on the contingency of 'Voldemort will likely return one day', and can be reasonably faulted if he fails to do so, let us move on.

Exactly.

Which means that... Dumbledore is fucking up his job as a commander because he's putting his own personal enjoyment ahead of the demands of his position, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS CRITICIZING HIM FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Because he wasn't actually doing the work of all three, but since it was peacetime the system could survive him not actually doing anything but half-assing it. Of course, the instant a real crisis starts, shit falls apart like a balsa wood airplane in a tumble dryer.

That's the entire thing he's being criticized for.

Which means he failed as a crisis manager due to epically shitty time management, which is, again, exactly what he was being criticized for in the first place.

Concession accepted! We will now stop using the 'Dumbledore couldn't do that, that would be mean' defense. Ever.

Saving Magical Britain from Voldemort ain't 'lulz'.

*sighs*

Yet again you play dumb and pretend you're answering a different question than the one I asked.

Hint: I never questioned that Snape was a suicide bomber. I agreed with that the instant you said it. I agreed it with again, just now, imimediately above.

What I questioned was your claim 'Dumbledore always intended Snape to die because Elder Wand', because I damn sure didn't read that anywhere, and you didn't quote that anywhere just now.

If you can't actually use any data that the scout sends back, then you're just wasting a scout if you send him at all. You only put the forward observer in places your artillery can actually reach. You only put a sentry where you can send your reaction force to respond to his alerts. If you can't, then DON'T PUT A FUCKING MAN THERE, because all you're doing is exposing his ass out there all alone, to any potential amount of enemy fire, in a position where you cannot effectively or timely respond.

You're not supposed to use your people like bait on a fishhook.

That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Please never try to argue military tactics again. You obviously don't know anything about them.

Hint: In combat, it is considered easier to sneak up on a lone enemy than on a group, for the simple reason that a lone man can only look in one direction at a time, but a group of people can simultaneously maintain watch ahead and on flanks and rear. Like, fucking duh.

Then how did Lucius Malfoy get the drop on Sturgis Podmore? Does Dumbledore pick guards who just fall asleep sleep on watch?

*remembers Mundungus Fletcher*

... fuck, that's probably exactly what he did. Welp, its official -- Dumbledore is a shitty commanding officer who leads some direly less-than-impressive troops.

He's also a guy capable of blowing up an entire street with a single spell. Seriously, Pettigrew is living proof that "fights like a cornered rat" is not just an expression. He might be a coward, but he is a dangerous coward sometimes.

If the Death Eaters can disable the alarms, then Dumbledore can do so too, so either way you have no argument.

You're doing that thing where you pretend I didn't say something again. Hint: He doesn't need to pick the orb up. He's just there to get Dumbledore in the room.

Remember, Dumbledore already has his own copy of the orb. He doesn't need to actually use the Ministry's.

nixofcyzerra · Jan 12, 2015

Chuckg said:

I don't think it's flimsy to assume that Wizards have a hard time sustaining spells when their memories are slowly deing devoured by Dementors. Draco's Imperio-ception isn't evidence either way, as he could have just used Rosmerta as a "conduit" (unless you think a Pub Landlady is skilled at casting an Unforgivable Curse.)

So you're saying the fact that Sirius didn't blame or show any significant resentment towards Dumbledore is a failing of JK's writing, rather than a result of Sirius canonically blaming himself for tearing after Peter and then cackling in the street like a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain?

OK.

Nope.

Dumbledore gave evidence that Snape was a spy, and "the council" made the judgement to both accept the evidence, and exonerate Snape based off of it. Dumbledore didn't just pardon Snape, and he had no evidence that Sirius was innocent to present to "the council."

He did do the best job he could, and apparently there was no-one else in canon who could have done a better job due to being either Evil or politically incompetent. It's just that Dumbledore's best wasn't good enough.

And Dumbledore did his duty, to the best of his ability.

Fine. Who should Dumbledore have nominated to be the next Chief Warlock, and campaigned to ensure that they were elected? Name someone.

HE DIDN'T KNOW FOR SURE EITHER WAY! He was taking precautions in case his worst fears were true! And who else could Dumbledore arranged to take care of Harry instead of the Dursleys? The convicted "traitor?" The "dead man?" The Werewolf? How about the two Aurors who had just been cursed into insanity? It's possible that the Dursleys were a supposed to be a stop-gap measure, but by the time Hagrid arrived at Privet Drive, the day after Halloween, the Longbottoms had already been attacked and Sirius arrested. So who would Wizarding Society accept having guardianship of the "Boy Who Lived?" Again, name someone.

IT DIDN'T OCCUR TO HIM! If in 1982, Snape or Flitwick had said to him "Albus, maybe you should think about stepping down as Headmaster so you can focus on politics and ensure that the Wizarding World is completely prepared for Voldemort if he ever returns," them Dumbledore might have seriously thought about it, and decided that even though he loves being Headmaster and F'ing hate politics, that the "needs of the many" outweigh his own personal preferences. But the idea never came to mind. He never considered it, and then said "Good idea, but I like being Headmaster too much."

Source? Because "in his obituary for Dumbledore, Elphias Doge praised the wisdom the late Chief Warlock had displayed in several judgements while he had occupied that position."

Any evidence that suggests that prior to 1995, Dumbledore didn't totally kick ass at "Chief Warlock-ing?"

Do we know that time management was the problem? Because if it was, then he'd probably just have grabbed a Time Turner.

There's a difference between "ruthless" and "evil," which Dumbledore was probably highly aware of, considering his issues when it came to trusting himself. Also please point out an argument I've made based on Dumbledore being too squeaky-clean. 'Cause I'm pretty sure I haven't done that.

...And? You're proving my point. He accepted Snape going the "slow Kamikaze" route and didn't try to talk him out of it because saving Wizarding Britain was too important.

I know. I was pointing out that it would be in-character for Snape to want to do it. And the alternative is that Dumbledore planned for Snape to get the Elder Wand mastery, and then be able to hide somewhere that Tom would never find him. Which, well, no character has ever really displayed the ability to do. Voldemort always gets his man. Even Slughorn was moving from muggle house to muggle house weekly to avoid DE's, and Dumbledore still found him. Instead, Dumbledore commits suicide by Snape, the Elder Wand mastery hopefully dying with him, and the actual Elder Wand going to his tomb. Tom takes the physical actual Elder Wand from the tomb, and still kills Snape to try to become the master, whether Snape had been the master but had since passed it to Harry without Tom knowing, or the mastery actually was dead and gone. But Draco was a spanner in the works they had to try to compensate for, but ultimately didn't have to due to Harry disarming him at Malfoy Manor.

It was the entrance to a ministry department, not a bloody warzone! Urban Warfare is very different from combat in the open at both the operational and tactical levels!

Except that it isn't about sneaking up on the invisible person, it's about suspecting that there might be an invisible person there in the first place, and then casting the Revealing Spell. If you're less paranoid, then you're less likely to be casting Homenum Revelio every five minutes. Also keep in mind that Death Eaters are terrorists and haven't received military training that would cause them to effectively adopt tactics like this.

...Fucking Duh.

Malfoy probably walked up to within less than a few feet from Sturgis (doing recon by looking at the DoM entrance) and then heard Sturgis exhale or scuff his shoes or something. One quick Imperius later, and Malfoy has a new lab rat to test the security on the DoM entrance with.

Blowing sh*t up in a panic is very different from a cool, pre-meditated assassination. There's no way Wormtail had the nerve for the latter.

Except that people who work in the DoM probably do routine checks to authenticate the Prophecy orbs haven't been tampered with. If Dumbledore swapped the orb out for a fake, it probably would have eventually been discovered by the Ministry.

Gringotts has the Thief's Downfall, a defensive enchantment that dispels any concealment or enchantments that are being used by those who pass through it. Am I supposed to believe that a high-security place like the DoM doesn't normally have something similar? And don't say "Hogwarts doesn't have anything like that," it's a bloody school. Maybe my old University would benefit from security like Fort Knox, but that doesn't mean that people will think it really needs it.

Except that the Minister can apparently temporarily detain people. Show me evidence that the Chief Warlock can too.

Bones wasn't as honest as fanon describes her? And her behaviour at Harry's trial was because she had some scruples, or because she wanted to act against Fudge/Umbridge and used Harry's trial to do it?

Would they? Headmaster of Hogwarts is apparently quite a distinguished position, and if Dumbledore had announced a desire to quit one of his positions, and had chosen the Headmaster position to be the one he steps down from, it's possible that the reaction of the Wizarding public would be for Dumbledore to stay on as Headmaster and quit one of the other jobs. Something that anyone who wants the Chief Warlock or Supreme Mugwump positions would vigorously support and "fan the flames" of. Not to mention that Hogwarts apparently has all kinds of secrets and keeping control of them might be a high priority, and that having the opportunity to play a role in influencing the next generation could be considered more important than you think.

*rolls eyes* Oh, I suppose they should have had Dumbledore run drills, to test whether he could handle all 3 jobs while his house was on fire or something?

All of Dumbledore's roles, aside from his leadership of the OoTP, were effectively political or bureaucratic. You don't pile fake paperwork on a Desk-Jockey to see if they can handle their job if the metaphorical sh*t hits the fan, you make sure they can handle the regular duties, and if they ever stop being able to handle the pressure, you step in and do something about it, whether it be hiring an assistant for them, or firing them. Dumbledore handled his 3 jobs without issue until Harry came to Hogwarts. Then, shockingly, they stripped Dumbledore of his political positions when he started talking about how Voldemort had come back from the dead. They probably thought he had lost it and was one more hard day away from stuffing two pencils up his nose, putting his underwear on his head, and just saying "Wibble" when anyone asked him a question.

*sigh* Fine. Then maybe Tom screwed with the "defensive charms, enchantments or jinxes applied to a wide space that prevent Apparation." You know, like the ones that Hogwarts have?

Writing "Wards" was just easier, but whatever, I'll be more pedantic just for you.

And yet apparently there was no-one in canon who could have done better.

Moody personally put extra protections on 12 Grimmauld Place to prevent Snape and the other Death Eaters from entering before he died, Dumbledore fed the "7 Potters plan" to Fletcher via Snape, and Shacklebolt guarded the Prime Minister, sent a Patronus to the Weasley-Fleur wedding, contributed to the Potterwatch radio broadcast under the alias of Royal, and then fought at the Battle of Hogwarts.

Neither Moody nor Shacklebolt really distinguished themselves as Generals either, did they?

"Ensure that Elder Wand power is either lost with my death, out of Voldemort's hands, or in Harry's, Harry's horcrux is removed, and that:

is actually a frigging amazing strategy.

It stretched credibility for me that there weren't other methods of communication that Harry just didn't know about. But fine, then, all the Death Eaters have multiple sets of Two-way mirrors. Happy?

Fine, then a message is sent directly to a DE sympathiser/Pure-blood supremacist that's within the Auror office, that Malfoy/Random DE has cultivated as a contact. Or Malfoy sends Dobby to Fudge directly, who panics that his "good friend Lucius" is undergoing a home invasion.

Except if this goes wrong, then Malfoy get's away squeaky-clean thanks to copius use of bribes and Bones gets accused of "Auror Misconduct," and sacked by Fudge for "trying to drag poor Lucius's name through the mud."

Fudge: "Can't you see the man's suffered enough after being a victim of Lord Thingy's Imperius for so long?"

According to the wiki, Voldemort only took over Malfoy Manor as his headquarters after Dumbledore was killed. He probably kept moving around prior to that.

Fudge: "Bones, you're fired. Now, Dawlish/Robards/Scrimgeour, take a team and get over to Malfoy Manor!"

Except we've never seen Dumbledore being the sole Judge of a criminal trial, and even if he's got the Chief Warlock position, he's heavily out-numbered? Seriously, Harry's trial seemed like Dumbledore vs the entire Wizengamot, with a little assistance from Bones who didn't seem to like seeing Harry being rail-roaded. Where were all of Dumbledore's supporters?

HP Wiki said:

Extracted the memory. So Pensieves are legally permisable. Not necessarily Legilimency.

HP Wiki said:

Gee, I wonder how compassionate most politicians in the HP-verse are.

Bagnold: "Oh, and you'll be willing to testify to that in a court of law? Gentlemen, you do know that Perjury is a crime, don't you? And perhaps you should study your law books again, as I'm afraid the onus of proof is on the prosecution, meaning that I don't have to prove that Dumbledore read my mind, he has to prove that he didn't falsify the evidence he's presenting or obtain it though illegal means. Good day, Gentlemen. Moody, Shacklebolt, you can turn in your badges on the way out."

Chuckg · Jan 12, 2015

nixofcyzerra said:

I don't think I have much more patience for your habit of assuming anything convenient to your argument even when canon is going the other way. Seriously, how many times do I have to say that I have no interest in talking about your damn fanon. Books or go home!

Wait, if Sirius is blaming himself, then isn't that another reason why his not blaming Dumbledore isn't actually proof of Dumbledore's noninvolvement in the judicial process? Which means your original point doesn't even apply?

Wow, its like I don't even need to debunk you anymore -- if I leave you alone for a while, you get so wrapped up that you debunk yourself.

Impartial observers aren't allowed to testify because that's actual participation in the process, so my point still stands, and you're still wrong about Dumbledore not being allowed to involve himself when he wants to. But thanks for doing the legwork for me.

PS: As the greatest living expert in mind magic, Dumbledore could also "give evidence" such as "Imperius curse my ass, I just scanned that guy and Lucius has never been under the curse in his life". Now that we've established that Dumbledore is allowed to testify at those trials and all.

But he doesn't. Because he sits on his ass way way too often instead of actually doing some work where it would be useful. Which is my point.

We're judging Dumbledore by the standards of a military commander, remember? There are no points for second place in combat. You are good enough or you aren't, and people pay with their lives if you fail. Dumbledore wasn't good enough.

Which was still nowhere near good enough, and so I will still criticize him for his failures.

I have specifically said THREE TIMES by this point that the Chief Warlock job is the one we want him to KEEP. I've talked about him quitting being Headmaster, and him quitting being Supreme Mugwump, but I have always said for him to focus MORE on Chief Warlock.

So what do you do? You keep saying, repeatedly, about 'Dumbledore can't quit being Chief Warlock!'

Dude, fuck you. This goes beyond mistake and it goes beyond not paying attention. By this point the pattern is obvious -- you are deliberately straw-manning everything I say whenever you can, and you are not remotely arguing in good faith.

From now on, if I don't reply to something you said, that isn't because I'm stuck for an answer -- its because I'm tired of your tricksy, straw-manning bullshit and am ignoring it whenever I feel like.

In fact, I'm starting to seriously wonder why I'm even bothering trying to talk to you at all, given that all you've done so far is:

* straw-man
* or ignore canon and substitute your fanon
* or just repeat shit over and over even after being debunked

To quote Vampire Willow -- "Bored now."

, and campaigned to ensure that they were elected? Name someone.

But he BELIEVED Voldemort was coming back, right from the start. All of his plans were made on that basis.

Also, its part of his duty to plan for the worst-case scenario if need be. That's part of military command. To be already be ready in case the shit drops.

So yeah, as a general, Dumbledore is a fucking disaster.

Skipping ahead...

A fact clearly not in dispute. Of course, what we're discussing is how fuckheaded Albus was, because this never occurred to him.

If you allow a problem (such as, oh, political dry rot and corruption aided and abetted by poor time management) to fester because you're not aware of it, this doesn't excuse you for having allowed the problem to fester. It just means your error was one of complacency and obliviousness instead of one of deliberate malice.

Y'know what? That's still nowhere remotely near 'good', or 'competent', when it comes to evaluating someone's fitnesss for command.

Basically, you seem to want me to forgive Albus Dumbledore all his mistakes because he meant well. Well, fuck that shit. You know what's paved with good intentions? THE ROAD TO HELL! Good intentions don't save your ass in a war, only GETTING IT RIGHT does. So Dumbledore can go take a ride in the waaaaaaaaaahmbulance for all I care about his 'good intentions', now moving on.

Elphias Doge, Dumbledore's #1 fanboy and suck-up, openly so called by other people in the setting, writes in Dumbledore's obituary 'Dumbledore was sooo smart!', and I'm supposed to just take that as the Word of God? By this same logic Dumbledore is a senile old idiot, because Lucius Malfoy said so once. When, um, no.

Different people in the settings have different personal opnions of Dumbledore each based on their own point of view and personal feelings. None of them are guaranteed to be right. So you cherry-picking one from Dumbledore's old fanboy and saying that proves you right? *eye roll*

"Everything Lucius Malfoy politically got away with in the first five books" is a good starting point. "Dumbledore getting fired from the job the instant the Death Eaters actually exerted themselves" is another one.

Three full-time jobs and only one guy to do them, and he visibly underperforms at all of them. (How much of his Headmaster work did he dump on McGonagall? Did any of his ICW duties ever actually produce ANY visible result? And we've already been talking aobut the chief Warlock thing...)

"Time management problem" is a good way of describing that.

Dude, Hermione ran herself to exhaustion just trying to double up on two class periods, and you're coming up with a theory that Dumbledore was actually doing three shifts for every workday, for years on end? How the hell can he possibly keep up that kind of pace without dying of exhaustion?

Again, you're off writing your own fanfic in your head while canon is busy going "Dude, it doesn't actually work that way".

Irrelevant straw-man bullshit again, because where did I go around saying 'Dumbledore should do this totally evil thing!'?

[snip a whole lot of changing the subject and "forgetting" to answer the question I actually asked]

The Ministry Six would like to point out that it very rapidly became a war zone when the Death Eaters actually made their move.

Your gaping ignorance of all things tactical reveals itself yet again, as everything I said applies equally as well to building security as to the battlefield. Any site security manager knows that putting guard posts out beyond where your reaction forces can reach them in a timely manner when they call for help during an attack is a waste of manpower, pure and simple. If you can't sustain an effort that far away, don't go out that far.

Furthermore, it is elementarly tactics that if something you can't let the enemy capture is in a position where you cannot effectively guard it, then you either figure out a way to move it to somewhere you CAN guard it, or else you destroy it before allowing the enemy to capture it.

This is an even easier equation to solve if you yourself have no use for it, and your only concern is denying it to the enemy.

Well, from the very beginning of book 5 onwards they don't need to suspect that an invisible person will be there, because they've already found Sturgis Podmore. So they KNOW an invisible person will be there.

But Dumbledore never changes his layout to deal with this problem. Even after he knows that the Death Eaters know what he's doing and where and how he's doing it, he still keeps on doing the exact same thing in the exact same way.

This is called "epic tactician fail".

Really, its a miracle he didn't get MORE people killed.

And Sturgis didn't notice him walking up? For realsies? There's a reason I'm basically going with the 'he had to be sleeping on the job' theory, because otherwise we're going to need a 'Sturgis Podmore has more stupid in his body than Crabbe & Goyle put together' theory.

They had two burglary attempts in six months, one of them by an Unspeakable under an Imperius curse, and still never so much as changed the locks on the door, dude. Your theory is bullshit. Any theory that has the DoM being alert and with good security practices is bullshit. They visibly, in the canon, have no such thing.

And "eventually" still works, because Voldemort has still wasted months of his time, which is all we wanted him to do. So even if you're right, you still have no point.

Yes you are, because not only do invisibility cloaks still work even if you're hanging around in the DoM lobby, but Lucius and his gang were able to be waiting around the place in an ambush without Harry and the Ministry Six seeing them, meaning that they were Disillusioned or invisibiity cloaked.

Edit: Just found my book and double-checked...

So, yeah, they were using invisibility cloaks just fine inside the DoM.

So we don't need to speculate -- we know, as canon, there is no Thief's Downfall in the DoM.

Plus, y'know, Harry would have narrated it if he'd seen one there, and he does know what one looks like.

For a guy who's always demanding proof of shit from other people, you sure have a prolem giving any yourself.

Bones is corrupt now? PROVE IT.

[skipping over a ton of straw man and bullshit...]

IIRC, Tom ARRIVED by Apparition. Obviously they weren't there before he showed up.

I'm sorry, but that's circular logic bullshit. Your 'proof' that nobody could do it is that nobody in canon did do it, and your explanation for why nobody eles did do it in canon is the theory that nobody else could do it. You are literally using your initial assumption to "prove" your conclusions.

So no, your logic is invalid.

No, but pointing out where other people failed does nothing to make Dumbledore succeed. At best, you're demonstrating that Magical Britain is full of stupid people, and shit, nobody's arguing with that one.

No, because we don't even have any canon for that. Plus, if the Death Eaters had little magical two-ray radios or anything, a whole lot of scenes in Deathly Hallows would have worked WAY differently. So, kinda sure they don't.

There's a word for generals who never actually advance on the enemy because they're trying to guarantee nothing might go wrong. In fact, there's a phrase. It's called "command paralysis" and its one of the biggest flaws a commander can have.

War is a bunch of calculated risks, dude. If you can't deal with that, don't try to command anything.

Then the wiki is wrong. Bellatrix, and therefore Voldemort, was already living at Malfoy Manor before book 6. Bellatrix taught Draco Occlumency over the summer, remember?

Sheesh, the wiki researchers need to up their game if they're letting shit like this slide by. Ah well, that's why you shouldn't rely too much on fan wikis.

How is Fudge knowing to be there all johnny on the spot? Is he a Seer now? Seriously, Dumbledore is the guy who gets to pick his raid time, remember? He can pick a time when Fudge is not standing right over Bones' shoulder, and unless he's a TOTAL moron, he would.

Yet again you show your convenient habit of making up whatever fantasy you need to 'win' an argument at any given time. Seroiusly, why am I bothering. I can't have a debate with someone who can't decide on what reality he's living in from minute to minute.

How the fuck is a pensieve supposed to get you something that even Morfin Gaunt doesn't remember he knows anymore? Remember that the dude was memory charmed by Voldemort. If Dumbledore can get past that to find the truth, he's using a goddamn mind probe, not a pensieve.

I wonder how many can look up an Occlumency tutor. They're obviously very fucking rare if Dumbledore had to try and get Snape to teach Harry, when it would have been so much smoother to get someone else. Clearly there was no one else. (Well, I suppose he could have tried Slughorn, but dude was out of contact that year. And he obviously can't use Bellatrix or Tom.)

Kingsley Shacklebolt: "Well, seeing as how I was perfectly willing to Memory Charm a witness in front of the Undersecretary herself in order to tamper with their testimony, let me see... I think the answer to your question is HELL YEAH I WILL."

So's witness tampering, which is a crime Kingsley is canonically willing to commit if Dumbledore asks him to. As he does exactly this in OotP.

Witness tampering on a minor, no less.

So, yeah, I'm sure they'd be willing to creatively omit exactly HOW they found Bagnold's secret sock drawer with her bribe records in it... and of ocurse, they just need the records themselves.

nixofcyzerra · Jan 13, 2015

Chuckg said:

Ok, let's return to the original point, and flip it around. How about you show me, with reference to book, chapter and page number, that Sirius (prior to Halloween 1981) knew:

A: vital information that could have been damaging to the now-disbanded and defunct order if leaked to the Death Eaters (that said Death Eaters couldn't have already known or easily found out themselves,)

or:

B: incredibly advanced magic, the sort of thing that Voldemort himself would cast, that would allow him to put a curse on something like Voldemort did the Defense position?

Go on, I'll wait. Oh, and while you're at it, how about you also cite some evidence that Dumbledore didn't look into time-bombs that "Evil-Sirius" could have left ticking, through good old-fashioned detective work and magical analysis, rather than having to deal with Dementors and having to confront someone he trusted, in a prison like the one his former lover is in, who may or may not be proficient in Occulmency?

If I were Dumbledore, I wouldn't want to go to interrogate Sirius if there was a reasonable alternative. And oh yeah, he's a magical prodigy, so there probably was.

Except, genius, Sirius blames himself, but also harbours dislike for Crouch Senior:

Goblet of Fire said:

Please forgive me for not stating something I considered to be blindingly obvious.

Sirius blames himself first and foremost, but still resents Crouch for not giving him a trial, but doesn't resent Dumbledore. Judges don't send people to trial, they oversee trials. And Dumbledore's the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, which is Wizarding Britain's highest court of law. Whixh means that the only cases that end up there are the ones that lower Wizarding courts can't solve. And I know that there was never any mention of lower Wizarding courts in the books, but according to Pottermore, the Council of Magical Law, "a Ministry of Magic board comprised of a judge, a panel of members and jury, with competence to pass a verdict on criminal cases as well as reviewing information given to them by convicted criminals," that is "hierarchically inferior to the Wizengamot," was the court which tried most Death Eaters, including Crouch Junior. Arthur was very surprised that Harry was being tried in Courtroom 10, which is where the Council of Magical Law and the Wizengamot both meet.

In the UK, Crown Prosecutors are the ones who arrange for accused to be put on trial. They're Britain's versions of District Attorneys. Crouch Senior was the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and part of his duties must include being the Wizarding equivalent.

So you're basically blaming Dumbledore for not being the DA when he's already the Chief Justice of Wizarding Britain's Supreme Court, the Wizarding version of the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations (and as he's the Supreme Mugwump, also the Secretary-General of the United Nations,) and a Headmaster to one of the most prestigious private schools in Europe.

...Smart. /sarcasm

Then he acted as the defence in Snape's trial like he did in Harry's, temporarily forgoing his position as one of the judges to avoid any accusations of bias affecting the verdict. In Karkaroff's he was one of the judges (as was Moody, apparently,) and clarified that he had presented evidence in Snape's trial, but seemingly made the distinction that he had no say in the verdict or sentencing of Snape itself.

And as I mentioned in my last post, there's no conclusive evidence that mind-reading is admissible in court.

Except that Dumbledore isn't an Auror or a Hitwizard, which are the closest things to soldiers the Wizarding Worlds have, so really we should be judging him by the standards of a civilian (seeing as Judge, National Representative and Schoolteacher aren't military roles) who was the head of a voluntary Militia. He wasn't a professional, he never claimed to be a professional, and if the professionals could have handled it, he would have left it to them. But they couldn't.

So you know what? I revise my earlier statement. Dumbledore wasn't a General of an Army. He was the Commander of a Militia.

Feel free to hold that opinion. I personally think that if someone does their best at something, and there wasn't anyone around who could have done a better job, then we shouldn't condemn them if they make some mistakes, as you weren't in their position and have an outside perspective that lets you see stuff that they, at the time, couldn't. Hind-sight is 20-20, after all.

O.K, first of all, here, because you apparently have no idea what a Straw Man Argument actually is, and you're just using it as some sort of Buzz word to make my points look weaker.

Second of all, I'm not disputing the fact that of the 3 jobs Dumbledore held, the Chief Warlock position was the most important, and that that's the last one he should give up. I'm claiming that for two of his three jobs, there was no-one who would make a decent successor. So, same question, but for Supreme Mugwump instead of Chief Warlock. Who should Dumbledore have chosen to suggest to the Minister (or the Wizengamot) that they be the next appointed representative of the British Ministry of Magic, and worked to ensure that they were elected? Name someone.

Again, not really a soldier, and he suspected, that Riddle was alive, but had no proof and thus no hope of convincing anyone but the people who had the highest opinion of him (Hagrid) and the people who were desperate for some form of atonement (Snape.) He didn't know that Voldemort had survived until the end of book 1, at which he figured "he must have a Horxcrux." That's Horcrux singular. Then, after seeing how cavalier Tom was with the diary:

Half-Blood Prince said:

and after thinking about what Harry said Voldemort had claimed at the Graveyard:

Half-Blood Prince said:

he began to suspect that Tom had made more than one, but it wasn't until OoTP that he confirmed it:

OOTP said:

So really, the reasons that he placed Harry at the Dursleys are threefold, the first of which he mentioned in chapter 1 of Philsopher's stone. To stop Harry from growing up big-headed. The second, to make sure he didn't grow up as Harry Malfoy or Harry Fudge. And the third, the fact that Harry living with his relatives for 16 years means Voldemort can't touch him for 16 years (as he didn't consider the possibility of Tom taking Harry's blood and binding the two of them closer together.) Remember, Voldemort taking Harry's blood was a collossal fuck-up on Tom's part, as it created the possiblity that Harry could survive an AK from Voldemort and lose the Horcrux in his scar in the process. Dumbledore couldn't, would't and shouldn't plan on or expect Tom to make such huge mistakes.

Explain to me where the book says that Dumbledore being a full-time Judge would allow him to root out corruption. Actually, explain to me how being a Judge allows you to actively seek out corruption, instead of merely passing judgement on it when it appears before your court. If anything, you should be arguing that Dumbledore should have accepted the nominations to be the Minister of Magic (which he wouldn't because CHILDHOOD TRAUMA.)

No, but considering that it's the only canonical source we have for Dumbledore's "mad Warlocking skillz," we can't just ignore it, though I admit it isn't definitive proof, but seeing as Rita Skeeter apparently didn't say anything bad to say about Dumbledore's verdicts as Chief Warlock...

Also, when you only have direct one source about something, referring to it isn't "Cherry-picking."

Nooo. Seeing as Lucius never ended up in court with Dumbledore presiding in any of the five books (unless it happened at the end of OoTP when Lucius was sentenced to Azakaban,) Lucius being free isn't an indication that Albus doesn't know how to Warlock like nothing you've ever seen before.

*sings*Citation pleeeaaase!

Except that Hermione was travelling back an hour at a time to attend extra classes, and wasn't allocating extra time for more meals and sleep. Dumbledore could spend a day working in the Headmaster's office (with meal breaks and sleep,) Time-Turn back a whole 24 hours the next day, spend a whole day working at the ICW, and then again at the Ministry. 3 full days for everybody else's one.

I'm not saying that he did do that, but he could, so time management likely wasn't his problem.

*Rolls eyes* Again with the strawman thing. And in case you haven't noticed, I've acknowledged that Dumbledore could be ruthless. I've also pointed out that I've never used the "But that would be EVIL!" argument when discussing anything Dumbledore did or did not do, something you seem to think I have.

But at the time, it wasn't.

All true. But Dumbledore didn't own the Ministry building and thus couldn't act with impunity as a Site Security Manager could. Sturgis and Arthur weren't supposed to be there, and if they'd been caught by an employee that was neither a DE/Pureblood-supremacist or loyal to Dumbledore, they would have been questioned as to what they were doing there/escorted out/fired. Less people = less chance of being caught.

The DE's couldn't conclusively know that Dumbledore could repeat the tactic, they didn't even know that Sturgis had been Imperius'd until after the 31 August, and just because they did catch Sturgis doesn't mean keeping an eye on the DoM didn't still need to be done. If anything it's more a sign of Arthur's bravery for signing up for a job that's become much more dangerous. He's got guts (as Nagini could probably tell you

.)

Admittedly, Tom probably did send Nagini as a direct response to the use of Invisibility Cloaks, which Albus didn't foresee.

*sigh* Remember what Harry did all those times he was nearly caught under his cloak? He froze and tried to make as little noise as possible.

Sturgis probably tried the same thing, thinking that moving away from Lucius would make noise that would definitely let Malfoy know that someone was there. Unfortunately, unlike Harry, Sturgis didn't have the Devil's (read: protagonist's) own luck, and was caught.

Actually, tell you what. Go find a tranparent piece of plastic/cloth, and then experiment to see A; how hard it is to throw it off and point a weapon at someone in one smooth motion, and B; how hard it is to grapple with someone while wearing it.

Daily Prophet said:

HP Wiki said:

So one guy couldn't even get through a door, and was caught and subdued by a security guard, and the other, an employee, fell victim to the spells on the Orb, and ended up in Saint Mungo's, all of his colleagues thinking that he'd just had an accident.

Why exactly would anyone feel that they need to up-grade the security?

Except apparently those security spells are no joke. Maybe even Dumbledore couldn't bypass them, meaning that it would have to be Tom or Harry.

Except that A; the lobby might not have as high security as the rooms further in do, and B; any security measures would have been turned off by the DEs before Harry and co. arrived. So they would be able to hang around Disillusioned.

And in OoTP, Harry hasn't seen a Thief's Waterfall yet, and Wizards might use something functionally similar but aesthetically different.

Prove she was as pure as the white snow. All we know about her is that she did her best to make sure Harry's trial was fair, and she was impressed that Harry could cast a corporeal Patronus. She could have thought that Harry was a disturbed attention seeker, or was being led about by the nose by Albus, who was completely losing it for thinking that Voldemort had returned. That doesn't mean that she's the sort of person who'd let a minor be rail-roaded. We don't know.

Actually, considering that she wasn't a member of the OotP, she probably didn't think that Voldemort had returned, and was shocked and horrified when he turned up to kill her.

OoTP said:

Harry's eyes were shut, and he didn't hear an Apparition crack or pop. So, uh, no he didn't.

So then what's your theory for why no other member of the Order displayed outstanding tactical ability?

No, but it does lend strength to the argument that Dumbledore was the best of the possible options. The best of the options might not be especially impressive, but he's still the best choice. My argument is basically that there was no Grand Admiral Thrawn, no Ursarkar E. Creed, no Bruce Wayne, no tactical/strategic genius who could out-manoeuvre and predict every move Tom and his Merry Men made. Albus was the best the light had, and he did his best. It's not his fault he wasn't Sun Tzu, and it's unfair to condemn him for it.

Point. But the idea that Dumbledore can show up, and use the same tactics the DE used, and they wouldn't have some sort of counter, stretches my sense of credibility. Voldemort could probably summon reinforcements with the Dark Mark, anyway.

There's also a word for leaders who rush forward with plans that have a no guarantee of success, and a lot of potential things that could go wrong.

Really? You'd think that Narcissa would have mentioned it when visiting Spinner's Lance at the start of HBP. And why couldn't Bella have just visited the Manor for the lessons?

Lucius sends Dobby directly to Fudge before Bones. Fudge tells Dobby to tell the Aurors, and then rushes down the office just in time to hear Amelia's words.

It was a hypothetical scenario to demonstrate that Dumbledore laying siege to Malfoy Manor wasn't a feasible option, as a house-elf can bypass any forms of transport restriction, and Lucius has one. Duh.

HBP said:

What does this mean, and how does someone display the results of a mind-probe in court? Was part of the reason the Ministry was taking a while to reach a decision because Dumbledore was trying to do something without a legal precedent, something that had never been tried before?

Except Albus trusts Snape completely. He trusts Snape with Harry's head. It's possible that there were plenty of people in Dumbledore's circles that did know Occlumency, but he wasn't about to trust another person with Harry's brain when Snape already knows so much vital intel.

Maybe politicians (and Aurors, because that makes sense) know enough about Occlumency that they can tell when they're being probed and kick out basic, low-powered probes. So if Dumbledore tried to probe Bagnold, while she's in her office, well, he'd probably end up in quite a bit of trouble.

Incidentally, according to an interview by Rowling, "the Wizengamot believed that Sirius Black might have been an Occlumens, as they believed that even if they give him a fair trial under the influence of Veritaserum, he would still be able to resist it with Occlumency or other tricks."

So I guess it's not that obscure. Slughorn, Draco, Sirius was thought to probably know it, Lupin lied to both Dumbledore and Snape in book 3, etc.

Does Bagnold have records? And you realise you're talking about Albus breaking into the home of the Minister of Magic and falsifying evidence, right? He's a Schoolteacher, not a Cat Burglar or a Forger!

And what if Bagnold's defence demands that memories of finding the records be presented?

Rising Dragon · Jan 13, 2015

Concerning Voldemort's appearance in the Ministry during OotP, I should point out that he could fly without a broomstick, too, and that shocked the hell out of everyone present. He could know other normally-unknown ways of instantaneous transport other than the three we know of (Apparition, Floo Networks, and Portkeys).

Chuckg · Jan 13, 2015

nixofcyzerra said:

And, you go straight for the straw-man again.

I didn't say that Sirius actually did any of this, because, of course, Sirius was not actually the traitor.

So, of course, you just arrogantly demanded proof of something that you know not only didn't happen, but that I wasn't actually saying happened.

What was I saying? Why, that Dumbledore should have investigated this possibility because as far as Dumbledore knew at the time, it could have happened (which, y'know, it could have, had Sirius actually been the traitor)... and that if he'd done this, he would have, in the process, discovered that Sirius was actually innocent.

And that, of course, 'going back and investigating anything a suspected traitor actually touched in hindsight' is standard operating procedure for any competent organization.

You really are a total stranger to honest debate, aren't you?

Hint: if you're going to make claims about someone's alleged competence, you don't demand that other people prove that they didn't do things. You do the work to prove that those characters did do things.

And yet again you circle back to 'Dumbledore's desire to avoid anything that might be emotionally distressing is a valid excuse for Dumbledore not doing his work'.

Wow, Dumbledore really is a precious little snowflake in your world, isn't he? He's so sensitive and delicate! Its all right if he wraps himself up like Shinji-hedgehog and sits their avoiding any possibility of having to expose himself to things that might be harsh or awful!

Feh. What kind of a commander is this?

Dumbledore expects Harry to endure years of abuse at the hands of the Dursleys and eventually to die on cue. Dumbledore expects Snape to pretend to serve a man he hates, surrounded by the worst people on Earth, having to fake all of his behavior and pretend to love it. Dumbledore expects his Order members to face hardened killers who casually use the Unforgivables, who casually torture and murder. Dumbledore even expects some of his people to be outright suicide bombers. In short, Dumbledore expects the people under his command to go through a fucking shit ton of emotional and even physical pain, because that's what's needed to get the job done.

Not really fair if Dumbledore expects that much from everybody else, but keeps using the 'Oh, I couldn't do that! That would be emotionally distressing!' excuse for himself, isn't it? No. Its not fair at all.

So, immediately after you said 'Let's get back to showing proof!', you needed about five minute to segue into 'Hey, let's assume that Dumbledore can just do whatever he needs to do off-stage using magic that Rowling never wrote about because why not'.

*rolleyes*

I also love how later on in your post you go on to argue 'Dumbledore is just a schoolteacher!' when *I* was going 'Man, Dumbledore knows entirely enough magic to solve /this/ problem here'. So, which is Dumbledore? The magical genius who can do whatever? Or the guy who's just a schoolteacher and can't be expected to do so much as dig up evidence of corruption at the Ministry? (And Ministry politicians are /not/, by and large, magical geniuses with awesome protections on their stuff. Just look at Umbridge.)

*rolleyes*

Your basic ignorance of the law is an epic thing.

Hint: Who issues and signs arrest warrants? Judges. Who presides over arraignment hearings? Judges. Who do lawyers go to to apply for habeas corpus? Judges.

Judges are entirely one of the two groups of people that decide whether or not something goes to trial, you idiot. The other people are, of course, prosecutors. But in the conventional Western legal system the prosecutor can't nol pros something without a judge's agreement. This also works in reverse, via habeas corpus, i.e., the demand of the judiciary system that someone be brought into court for a trial even if the cops & prosecutor want to keep him in pre-trial confinement forever. Not only is this exactly what Sirius needed, judges are precisely the people who issue this writ.

tldr: your statement that 'judges don't send people to trial' is 200% backwards from the truth.

So yes. Assuming a system that even vaguely resembles British Common Law, then there are indeed two people to blame for Sirius' never getting a trial. One of them is the prosecutor (Barty Crouch Sr.) The other one is... the judge. (Albus Dumbledore). Sirius' ignorance of how the legal system works does nothing to change this.

Now, you can try to say that 'Magical Britain's legal system is different and doesn't involve the judge at any point in the arraignment process, it's all up to prosecutors'. I might even believe that... if you could show any canon for it... OH WAIT, Harry's underage magical trial. Only made possible because Dumbledore wasn't made Chief Warlock anymore... Fudge had to get him out of the way first before even trying to use the system to screw Harry.

And Dumbledore showed up and spiked the whole thing anyway, despite not being Chief Warlock anymore, simply because he's that good a lawyer whenever he actually tries to be!

Wow. Looks like Dumbledore could totally have intervened to help Sirius in some way, but didn't.

Annnnd, you're proven wrong in canon again! You can take an ordinary underage magic case -- something that doesn't even normally get a trial, but is heard in summary judgement by a juvenile welfare official -- all the way to the Wizengamot as your first stop, without any lower courts even touching this first. If you really want to. Because that's exactly what happened to Harry.

Seriously, now you're just saying stuff where the books openly say the opposite.

I said "books or go home". Gee, thanks for yet again doing whatever the hell you want to do. So much for arguing in good faith, huh?

But even if we let that in, you still torpedo yourself right here...

I find it hilarious that you yourself refer to the canon proof that any criminal manner can be taken directly to the Wizengamot and leapfrog any lower courts if they want it to be, while at the same time basing an argument on the assumption that it can't. Dude, seriously, you're beating yourself up again.

Yes. But if we're using UK law, then Crouch's actions are hideously illegal and only total negligence at the judicial level explains how he gets away with them. The Crown Prosecution Service cannot sentence someone to prison indefinitely without a trial... the only way "no trial" occurs by CPS fiat is if its accompanied by "and we're dropping the charges". Britain are the people who invented habeas corpus, dude. In the 17th century.

"The evidence is so obvious that there's no point in holding a trial" is only possible in British law when they're talking about 'it is so obvious this guy is INNOCENT'. There is no 'its so obvious this guy is guilty, skip the trial' provision. No matter how blatant the dude is, he gets a judge and a jury anyway. The jury might deliberate for all of ten days or ten seconds before reaching a verdict, but before that happens both sides have a chance to make their cases and present evidence and all.

Of course, there is no dispute that Crouch's actions are hilariously illegal. The dispute is over whether any of that negligence attaches to Dumbledore. And I say 'yes', because prosecutors can't put people in jail without at least one judge's cooperation, which means Crouch's bullshit is as much a failure of the judiciary as the prosecution service. And Dumbledore, as the highest official of that judiciary, ultimately bears responsibility.

At this point the question is 'Can Dumbledore legitimately plead that he did not know this was going on, because the case was not one with his personal attention?' And the answer is '... fuck no. While normally he doesn't handle every case, Sirius was not only a suspected Death Eater -- which were all cases Dumbledore sat on personally -- Sirius was also a member of the Order of the Phoenix, meaning he used to work for Dumbledore directly, and so Dumbledore has every reason to follow Sirius' case personally and with the greatest of interest'.

You might argue that this personal involvement would recuse Dumbledore from sitting on Sirius' judgement panel. You'd even be right there. However, you don't actually have to be the presiding judge to follow a case in progress, and to realize "hey, this guy isn't even GETTING a trial! somebody file a fucking writ of habeas corpus already!", as witness Dumbledore's pro bono publico lawyer performance at Harry's trial, when he wasn't even a judge anymore.

Straw man again! *points up*

And he could easily have done the same thing at Lucius' trial -- whether he was a judge or just an observer -- by volunteering to be a prosecution expert witness, thus destroying Lucius' whole perjury re: the Imperius, which Dumbledore knew was entirely false. But he doesn't.

What kind of judge sits there, watches a defendant lie his ass off, knows he's lying his ass off, and does absolutely nothing to prevent a blatant miscarriage of justice in his courtroom? A shitty one.

Only if I accept your claim, which you entireyl failed to prove, that Dumbledore didn't use legilimency. (Hint: pensieve do not work that way!)

Dumbledore, of his own free will, chose to form a private army (the Order of the Phoenix) and appoint himself as the commander of it. Hey, guess the fuck what. At this point the "it's not my job!" defense doesn't apply, because Dumbledore chose to MAKE it his job. If you decide to start your own PMC, you get to be judged like any other military commander, because its your profession now!

Militia commanders are commanders too, and expected to be either good enough to not lead their troops like idiots, or resposnible enough to go 'holy shit, I'm getting my people mulched because I don't know what I'm doing, I'd better step back and let someone better take charge'.

So, your entire defense is based upon 'Dumbledore knew that someone had to be better than the Aurors and Hitwizards because they weren't up to the job', while you're simultaneously going 'But Dumbledore needs to be excused for not being as good as an Auror or Hitwizard, becuase he never had the training'. Both things you're saying at once?

That is the logical equivalent of an Escher drawing.

PS: Dumbledore, unlike any other person in Magical Britain at the time Voldemort kicks off his first war, is a veteran of the war against Grindelwald. The guy who won the pivotal battle of that war, in fact. I actually do have a legitimate reason for expecting him to be at least as combat-experienced as anybody else in this fucking mess.

Wouldn't matter if he was the commander of a platoon, dude -- fuck, wouldn't matter if he was a squad leader. He fails basic military leadership principles at any level. (Such as, oh, loyalty up and loyalty down, contingency planning, not overextending your forces, reacting in a timely manner, proactive vs. reactive, identifying core objectives, the list goes on and on!)

And I personally think that if somebody takes command during a war and makes avoidable mistakes that leave people dead on the ground, that dude should be cashiered, no matter what if hindsight, or couldn't have done a better job or he did his best. You know who else thinks so? The Army. And the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, and even the Coast Guard.

War is hell, dude. And the judgement standards are harsh. In fact, you could say its the ultimate pass-fail exam.

And now you're a blatant liar.

A straw man argument is, according to your own source...

This is exactly what you are doing every time you get on the 'Dumbledore can't stop being Chief Warlock!' train, when you know perfectly well I was never on the 'Dumbledore should quit being Chief Warlock' train, and am in fact saying the exact opposite.

I mean, that's entirely a straw man. That's the classic definition, in fact -- arguing back against a claim that your debate opponent never actually made.

So, having established you are a complete and total stranger to the truth or honesty, I have to ask myself, why am I even bothering to talk to you.

Solution is thus obvious -- dump the third.

Anybody with a pulse. Supreme Mugwump, as shown in the series, is clearly a job of total irrelevance to the plot. It never affects things either way. Unlike the Headmaster or Chief Warlock's positions, we don't see any junction points where intervention by this person could have decided a plot event. The ICW is 200% offstage to the entire thing and never shows up ever, either for good or ill.

And so Dumbledore can let anybody who isn't Lucius Malfoy take that job over, because apparently all it does is waste his time. Fuck, put Elphias Doge in that thing, dude will rubber-stamp anything Dumbledore says and he seems to be mostly retired anyway. And I suppose a 'Special Advisor to the Wizengamot' is senior enough he can be plausibly nominated for this. But it doesn't have to be him... really, he can let Fudge have it for all we care. Hell, maybe that will actualyl help, by letting Fudge be kicked upstairs to where he can't fuck anything up.

To add on to my prior statement, even as a corporal, Dumbledore is a fucking disaster. Contingency planning is not just a job for flag officers only, after all... only the # of people under you changes, not the amount of responsibility you have for the people under you. Or depending on your unit's successful accomplishment of your mission.

You seem to really want Dumbledore to enjoy the benefits without having to live up to the responsibilities.

A job any family such as the Weasleys or the Tonkses could have managed. There was no need to deliberately place him into a cruel situation.

A situation, btw, which Dumbledore entirely knew about.

Back at the time Harry's custody decision was made, Fudge was a junior department head in Magical Catastrophes and Lucius Malfoy was a guy desperately bribing people to avoid going to Azkaban for life. Their rise to political power did not occur until later. And the people who were in office at the time, despite their own personal flaws, were still no friends of the Death Eaters.

If Dumbledore isn't even sure Voldemort is alive, why does this matter? Or if Dumbledore is so sure of Tom's being alive that he will allow Harry to delbierately stay in an abusive situation because things are that desperate, how does any of Dumbledore's other inactions make sense?

This is the crux of the matter here. Keeping Harry at the Dursleys, given the abuse that Harry undergoes there and that Dumbledore by his own admission entirely knows about, is an act of desperation. It can only begin to be justified only if you absolutely believe as a fact that Voldemort is out there and will one day return.

Which means anything else Dumbledore does in the interim should also be judged on that basis, which means you forfeit the 'But Dumbledore didn't knooooooooooooow!' defense.

You can't have it both ways. Either Dumbledore deliberately kept a child in an abusive situation based merely on a theoretical possibility, OR Dumbledore was pretty damn sure that Tom would come back even before he could prove it absolutely.

And in either case, some of Dumbledore's decisions look very questionable. The only thing that changes is which decisions.

That is precisely what and how we've already been arguing about half the day yesterday. Not surprised you'd suddenly pretend to have amnesia about it now.

Well, for one thing, you become one of the people who can sign search warrants... which is a great way to help fight corruption if you happen to have friends and allies who are, oh, senior police investigators.

Actually, that entirely would have helped too. Thank you for reminding me, I'd overlooked that. Yes, Dumbledore should entirely have done this.

And boo-hoo 'CHILDHOOD TRAUMA'. Yet again we're back to "Dumbledore is such an oh-so-special snowflake that his own emotions are more important than stepping up to serve his nation when it so desperately needs him". Fuck, YOU'RE the guy who keeps underlining that 'only Dumbledore could possibly do this job!' Dude, if I actually go along with that, then that means there is NO excuse for Dumbledore NOT doing the job! Yes, not even "CHILDHOOD TRAUMA!"

... because the first four books, where we actually see Dumbledore's actions (or, rather, lack of action) as Chief Warlock, aren't canon?

Seriously?

Dude, in a contest of "show" vs. "tell", "show" wins every time. Sure, Elphias Doge (not even an omniscient third-person narrator, but an unreliable first person narrator) tells us that, in his opinion, Dumbledore was awesome. But when we read the books, we see very little -- if any -- of Dumbledore showing he was awesome. And all that awesome is about Dumbledore as a powerful wizard (which nobody disputes), and none of it is about Dumbledore as a leader or a politician.

Hell's bells, Dumbledore doesn't even get any muggleborn protection laws passed, despite being Chief Warlock. Arthur Weasley has to do that job, and he's just a minor sub-department head. Wow, Albus.

So no, we have canon. Its called 'the whole fucking plot'.

Add: Shit, in addition to everything else we already have, let's look at book 2. Fudge throws Hagrid's ass into Azkaban on zero evidence and with no trial, right in front of Dumbledore, and Dumbledore -- who is still the Chief Warlock this year -- leaves him there for six months. Dumbledore doesn't start any investigation, or demand that Hagrid get a hearing, or anything. He's able to bust the case vs. Harry open in a day because Harry is actually somebody who matters to Dumbledore's plan. But Hagrid? Nah, never mind that he's an innocent man who's served me loyally for years, I have no skin in this game, let him sit there.

Feh. Way to go, Dumbledore. Whenever prompt action is needed, you're there on the spot to do... absolutely nothing.

When I have multiple books of sources and yuo focus on only one in-story newspaper article, it damn sure is.

Harry proves that a case can be taken to the entire Wizengamot anytime somebody senior in the government feels like, no matter how trivial the case is, so you're wrong yet again. Dumbledore could have handled that case, if he'd wanted to. But the entire criticism is "Dumbledore failed to take action when", and so, he didn't.

"The books. As in, all of them". 'Dumbledore is never actually seen doing much in any of his positions' is all through them. We never see him actually do any Chief Warlocking, his Headmaster duties seem to revolve around being the guy who presides at feasts (I mean, God knows it doesn't seem to involve reviewing the staff's in-class performance and correcting irregularities *coughSnapecough*, maintaining high standards of curriculum in all classes *coughTrelawneycough*, or hiring and firing quality staff members *coughBinnscough*, three things you'd think would be on a busy headmaster's to-do list) and occasionally intervening to give Harry house points, and the ICW is totally absent from the plot.

So if you want to show me Dumbledore actually putting in a full days' work at all of them, well, to quote you, 'citation pleaaaaaaaaaase!'

Citation pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaase!

'I'm not going to say it happened except I will totally base an argument on that's what happened.'

Wow, you really want to be able to claim whatever you want without proving it, don't you.

Irrelevant -- his only need is to destroy or steal the orb before Voldemort can (and leave a decoy behind), which means the only thing he needs to be is 'a guy who can do a B&E before the Death Eaters can'.

And if the Death Eaters can hack those alarms, Dumbledore definitely can -- he's better at magic than any of them. Or anyone.

There's also that for years before OotP begins, he had legitimate access to the Ministry building, and at least some amount of favors to trade.

Fuck, since his purpose, unlike the Death Eaters, is not harmful to Magical Britain, he could just ask the Unspeakables. Voldemort can't, he's the enemy. Dumbledore is not the enemy.

But no. He does none of this ever.

You do realize this is part of the point I'm making, right? Dumbledore cannot rationally expect to be able to guard the thing as it sits in the DoM, because his people have no legitimate access to the building. They're as much intruders as the DEs are.

So, Dumbledore is in a situation where the DEs only have to be successful burglars once, but Dumbledore's people have to successfully sneak into the place every single night.

That is not a sustainable situation and it gives all the advantage to the enemy. As was repeatedly proven every time they easily took out one of his sentries. Or at the end, when they walked right into the DoM past NO Order guard on the last night of the plot, because you'd think whoever was teh Order guard on duty that night would have said something about Harry being there! Apparently, Dumbledore withdrew all his people after Arthur Weasley went down.

Well, holy shit, Dumbledore's plan for the last lap of OotP was 'hey, let's just NOT guard it, and hope that Voldemort doesn't get it?'

... wow. Just wow. Every time I look more at Dumbledore's leadership and planning, it gets worse.

... just stop embarassing yourself.

Hint: If you find one enemy patrolling a particular place, and you know they haven't given up in the interim, you can reasonably expect to find another enemy there the next time you go there. So of COURSE you would be more on alert going back into there.

PS: If they think Dumbledore has changed his deployments, then that's only MORE reason for them to cast 'hominem revalio' on every single corner of the damn room, because they DON'T think they know where the new guy is. Won't they be surprised when they find out '... fuck, Dumbledore didn't even move him? Wow. Make it easy for us, why don't you Albus.'

Nobody's questioning Arthur's bravery... just the competence of the guy who put him out there. I mean, one of the tragedies of war is when brave and good men march to their deaths at the hands of idiot commanders who didn't even need to waste their efforts like that.

Yes, and remember that this is when Harry didn't know a silencing charm.

I don't need to experiment. I already have a canon example of an Invisibility Cloak ambush -- in OotP! The one Lucius and Bellatrix pull on Harry.

Didn't seem to hamper their style any. I guess Voldemort just trains his people better.

You do realize that you just proved my point, right? The DoM visibly is complacent about their security. Even after they get intruders, they don't make any new efforts.

So, if you can hack the existing door locks -- which Dumbledore can -- and if you're not worried about the shelf protections because you don't intend to actually use the orb, just smash it in place -- which Dumbledore would be -- then NOTHING stops you from doing whatever you feel like. Because they have no security beyond those and don't feel the need for any.

As YOU have just found the canon citation for. Thanks for the help!

Which security spells, the one on the door or the one on the shelf? Lucius can provably get himself, Bellatrix, and an entire team past the door, so Dumbledore can as well.

And the ones on the shelf doesn't stop you from just smashing an orb with a stray spell, because Bellatrix does that, on-camera, in OotP.

Since Dumbledore only needs to destroy the orb, not pick it up and listen to it, *boom*!

So, basically, even if there was this security measure, Dumbledore could get past it anyway, because the Death Eaters were able to and he's at least as good as any of them.

So, I'm right.

Exactly. Everything we've ever heard or seen her do in canon is consistent with honesty and shows no corruption. So, by your standards of proof that you use for yourself all the time, I've already done my job. For you to claim that she is secretly corrupt, you must have...

*drum roll*

Citation pleaaaaaaaaaase!

And you don't.

Gee, if only somebody had sent his Order people to guard her house too. Or given her a warning. Or, fuck, I dunno, invited her to join the Order. I mean, shit, she was at least as qualified as Molly Weasley was, right? And its not like Dumbledore had any problem recruiting senior Aurors before.

Harry is also in agony from his scar and not alert to his surroundings. Remember, just a few pages later he doesn't hear Voldemort disapparate either when he leaves, for exactly the same reason.

Irrelevant. I'm arguing 'was he good enough', and saying that he was king of the stupids is only conceding 'no he was not'. Being the least failed is still the same thing as not being a success.

Actually, my point is that the guy on watch inside the Ministry can't expect reinforcements to show up quickly and effectively, given how far out on a limb he is. So, thanks for agreeing with me.

Yeah. "Leaders". Dude, no plan has any guarantee of success. Being in charge means having to take risks, and calculate risks, and weigh risks vs. other risks. But there is only one way to guarantee defeat in war, and that's to do nothing.

Risk is unavoidable. If war was perfectly safe, we wouldn't call it war, we'd call it "peace".

Given that 'Dumbledore is afraid of power' is a character trait of his, I can entirely believe that he's so scared of maybe making a mistake that he never takes any risks and instead just sits and waits for things to happen to him. In fact, pretty much everything in the series supports this theory. Here's the thing -- this is bad leadership. Leaders who just sit and wait for the enemy to do all their moves first before they try and play catch-up are exercising 'command paralysis' and 'forfeiting the tactical initiative' and 'letting the enemy get inside their decision loop' and many other things, all of which add up to the same thing -- 'your leadership is failing'.

Why should she? Snape already knows where Voldemort is, and its not something she's going to be talking about out loud while visiting a Muggle village. Narcissa might not be a genius, but she's not an idiot.

Sure, she might have, but when you're a wanted fugitive you want to move around as little as you need to, y'know? Its not a strong possibility.

Did Fudge stop and grab a time-turner first? Because you just had him go from his office to Amelia's faster than a house-elf can teleport.

Also, I love how Fudge, the classic idiot Minister, suddenly morphed into a Littlefinger-esque master of political intrigue and clever traps. Seriously, what a fanfic!

Answer: "I used Legilimency to get it out of Morfin's brain and then put my own pensieve memory of doing so in the bowl."

Edit: re: 'huge stone bowl', now that I think about it, he could have put a memory in a vial and just carried it back to his office, yes. Of course, if you can pull pensieve memories out of someone's brain against their will like that, and have them put into the legal record, then you don't even need to use Legilimency in court to get evidence of someone's hidden thoughts into the record, which is all Dumbedore needs to do. So, different road, leads to the same destination, my point is made anyway.

Yes, because Dumbledore doesn't trust his other Order members with Harry's life? Wow, why did he assign them to guard Harry's house then?

Coherence, please.

"Citation pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase!"

The Ministry also thought that Sirius was Voldemort's lieutenant. Of course they think he knows Occlumency. Voldemort could have taught him. Note that Voldemort's real lieutenant, Bellatrix, actually DOES know Occlumency.

Records of political corruption are a very common thing, seeing as how pretty much every successful corruption investigation relies on finding them, so, yes, we can reasonably presume that she has records. For about the same reason we can reasonably presume that she eats food and goes to the bathroom.

He's also the greatest wizard alive and can do pretty much anything that's possible for magic to do, and make it look easy. 'Albus the humble schoolteacher' is a pose.

PS: Straw-man again. Nobody's talking about him falsifying evidence. Its real evidence -- the only thing he's lying about is exactly how he found out where the Minister was hiding it.

Plus, of course, in canon Dumbledore was totally willing to falsify evidence, or have his people to do so. And his people were able to do so, very competently. So I guess he IS a forger. Or at least, knows one.

Since that'll only be legal the day after they make it mandatory to give Veritaserum to witnesses, what's the worry?

Chuckg · Jan 13, 2015

Rising Dragon said:

As I recall the Hall of Magical Brethren does not have exterior windows, so, um, how exactly is he supposed to fly into there from outside?

Plus, in addition to everything else, can't experienced wizards like Albus (and Tom) Apparate very quietly? Its only n00b ones that make a huge bang out of it, right?

Yes, and Voldemort's defeat COULD actually have come from an invisible sniper on a grassy knoll, and everybody only thought it was his Killing Curse bouncing off of Harry. /sarcasm

Dude, you already know my opinion about making 'it could have been something totally unknown and unseen and never talked about in the books ever!' shit up.

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