Prof Responds: If Not Him, Then Who? Dumbledore & the Pitfalls of Wartime Necessity

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Welcome to critical Magic Theory, where we deconstruct the wizarding
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world of Harry Potter because loving something doesn't mean we
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can't be critical of it. I'm Professor Julian Womble, and
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today is our second pro response episode in our series
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on the one and only our biz Dumbled Dumbled. It
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is not late. I'm recording this at a what a
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reasonable hour, However, simultaneously concurrently and many of you have
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given a voice to the fact that you like my
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late night antics, and so I'm going to try to
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give those to you. Some of you have requested vocals,
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you might get some, all right. I can't make any promises,
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but what I can promise is that this episode is
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going to be good because your responses in the post
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episode chat were so freaking good. And I'm so excited
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because it just it just makes me feel great that
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I cause enough chaos to get you all to run
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to the post episode chat to have to share your peace.
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Many of you were upset. Many of you were not
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pleased with me. Some of you accused me of being
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more generous to Snape. Some of you are saying I'm
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just not being fair enough to Dumbledore. Some of you
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are saying that I'm not acknowledging the context in which
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all of these things are happening. We're talking about all
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of it in this episode, and maybe you're right and
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maybe you're wrong. But that's the beauty of discussion and
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debate is that you get to decide what is your truth.
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My truth is that I'm never going to take my
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foot off of the neck of Albus Dumbledore because I
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feel like enough of us aren't doing it, and so
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I'm going to keep going. Now. I will acknowledge the
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things that are worthy of acknowledgment, but I will not
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cowtow to the powers that be that's you all, because
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you all want to have Granddaddy Dune d be lauded
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in the annals of Harry Potter history. I won't do it.
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He needs to pay for his crimes, and I'm going
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to see to it that he does, and you can
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hate it if you want to. I respect that. What
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I will not do is change that. So here we are.
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We're back, and some of you are ready to fight,
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and that's good because you're going to need that energy
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because some of the takes in this episode, well, you
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might want to give him back and that's okay, because
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I'm going to acknowledge your pain while I increase it.
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Totally joking, but before anything, before we get into any
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of that before that's such a problem. I wow, acknowledge
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your pain while I increase it. That was dark? Am
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I well? Diva? Am I dumby diva? Oh dumby Diva?
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I love that. Actually, anyways, we've got to get into
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this episode. Stop distracting me. Everyone, before we get into
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the episode that we have to bop. We have to
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beard Bob. I was trying to, you know, really fill
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so that you all could stretch your necks out, Okay,
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so that you guys can get yourselves together because the
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beard Bob is coming in three in two in one.
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Let's bop. Were I hope you danced. I hope you bopped.
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I hope you bipped and bopped with your beard. And
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if you don't have a beard, that's okay. Beards a
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social constructions. You can just pretend that you did. You see,
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That's how it works. That's science. Who've got to keep
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stem alive in America and in other principle. Yeah, I'm
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telling you, it's not late here. It is not even
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eight thirty but I'm feeling goofy and I'm doing this
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or you, so you're welcome in advance. What a time
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we're going to have. I have to say that I've
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heard and read the comments from dumbledore sympathizers, dumbledore lovers,
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and I'm sorry. I know that at the beginning of
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the episode I talked a lot of trash and I
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don't take any of it back, but I do say
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that I want to acknowledge that you all are feeling
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like your king is not getting his due and to
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remedy that. For those of you who are chronic overthinkers
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or deep divers, I've been given permission by Eric, who
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is Dumbledore's largest defender, to share his essay, and it
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is an essay on Dumbledore and it's in defense of him.
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So if you are looking for someone who appreciates how
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attacked you might be feeling on behalf of your king,
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just know that there is on the Patreon a document
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that exists that offers you the ability to find commonality,
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find community. And I did that. I'm joking, Eric did that.
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I just posted it. I also posted the survey responses
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so that you can read through some of the comments.
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If that is your vibe and maybe there you can
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find sola sense support. And so don't ever say I
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never gave you anything. It might not come from me,
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but it is coming from those in the community with you,
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and that feels more important to me. And so if
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you are a chronic overthinker or deep driver on Patreon,
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that is there for you, as well as the survey responses,
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you're welcome and I hope that you find what you're
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looking for there. If you have not joined us on Patreon,
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please feel free to do so. You can join for
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free and join in our post episode chat. You can
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all so join as an Outstanding Owl where you get
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AD free episodes. You can join as a deep diver
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where you get AD free episodes as well as bonus episodes,
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as well as access to things like the survey and
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essays from some of our listeners. And if you're a
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chronicle for Thinker, you get all of that plus monthly meetups.
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If you have not filled out the survey for the
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monthly meetup, do so because I'm going to be posting
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when we're meeting soon and I don't want to hear
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any of the antics because you forgot to fill out
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the survey. Okay, hashtag bars enough of that. It's time
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for us to get into this episode. It's time for
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us to discuss Albus Dumbledore. This prop is about to respond,
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So buckle up, friends, because it's going to be a
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bumpy ride. That is a quote from Harry Potter movie.
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I feel very proud of myself for that. You are welcome.
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You are welcome. Anyways, let's get into it. One of
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the things that came up a lot in the post
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episode chat was a conversation about the preventative measures that
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Dumbledore could have but did not take in terms of Voldemort's,
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Tommy Ridd's Voldeva's progression, and Nadia asked the question, what
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role did Dumbledore play in the creation of Voldeva? He
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recognized early signs of evil in young tom but failed
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to intervene decisively. Would his destruction have been necessary if
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Tommy Jay received the same level of care and attention
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as Dumbledore showed. Harry Finty said, I'm no Dumble's apologist,
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but I don't think it's fair to place all the
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blame for Voldeva on him. I can't see little Tommy Jay.
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That sounds like a rapper, little Tommy j I don't
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say it out too loud, y'all. Someone will take it
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and run with it, and then we'll just have a
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noseless wrapper running around here. We just can't risk it,
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so we'll keep this within our our community. Anyways. Findy writes,
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I can't see little Tommy Jay paying any attention to
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any restraint Brian or others might have wanted to put
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in place, and Mauris Lava wrote, people call Dumbledore a
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Muggle lover. There has to be a reason. Can we
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say he's done nothing besides maintaining the status quo. He's
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done more than most. He's only one person. It's might
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turn my voice is anyways, dule it's fine. I want
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to start by addressing what Muris Lava wrote, because I
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think it really stuck out to me, and also I
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think it's something that is true and we see as
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a defense for Dumbledore quite a bit. People call him
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a Muggle lover, and there has to be a reason. Listen, y'all,
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I hear it. I hear that. But I also think
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that we need to name something, very very very clearly,
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the bar for being labeled a Muggle lover in the
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Wizarding World. Is legitimately in BL's Abob's Layer. It's in
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the twelfth circle. In hell, are there even twelve? If
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there are, that's where it is. Because you don't even
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have to be marching in the streets for muggle rights
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to earn that title. The label isn't bestowed by the virtuous,
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it's hurled by bigots. It's a designation created by muggle haters,
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used against anyone who doesn't share their extremism. So it
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doesn't necessarily tell us anything about Dumbledore's moral compass or
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his relationship with non magical people. If anything, it tells
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us more about the people calling him that, then it
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tells us anything about him. And so yes, there is
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no denying that Dumbledore is not a death eater in
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terms of his perspective on non magical people. However, simultaneously,
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concurrently and I still maintain that there is issues with
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the way that he treats non magical people in particular.
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And again, if we think about the people who are
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calling him a muggle lover, and we think about their
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relationship with non magical people, it stands the reason that
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all it takes is you not wanting to see non
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magical people dead. To be considered one. So is that
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a compliment. I don't know that I would go that far.
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It does seem important, though, to highlight this particular reality.
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So I'm grateful for Miroslava's comment because I do think
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that what's going to come up for us a bit
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in this episode is our understanding of Dumbledore's politic and
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what conclusions we as readers are meant to draw based
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on his role in the war and his relationship with
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non magical people that we really don't get to see
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very much except for when he comes to see the Dursleys.
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And so I do think that this is a really
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important entrey in tray entre into our conversation because I
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do think that it shines an important light on a
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misconception about Dumbledore for some of us, as it pertains
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to what he fundamentally does believe. But before we get
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into that and really get into the weeds of it,
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we also need to discuss a really important part of
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the dynamic that we see between Dumbledore and Tom Riddle.
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And one of the things that really struck me about
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a lot of the conversations going on in the post
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episode chat was this conversation surrounding the dynamic between these
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two characters, and as I've said before, I always get
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them mixed up. And there's a lot of reasons why
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that's the case. But there's a moment that I do
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want us to talk about that I think is really important,
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and it's the moment after we've watched the memory where
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Dumbledore has gone back and he sees and meets Tom
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Riddle for the first time, and they come out of
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the pencive and Harry says, did you know then? Did
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I know that I had just met the most dangerous
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dark wizard of all time? Said Dumbledore. No, I had
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no idea. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I
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returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye on him,
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something I should have done, given that he was alone
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and friendless. And then he goes on to say, and
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this is the part that gets me every single time,
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the stories of using magic against people, to frighten, to punish,
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to control, the strangled rabbit, the young boy and girl
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he lured into the cave, they were the most suggestive, suggestive, sir,
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he was telling you he could hurt living beings whenever
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he felt like it. Let me be so clear. Dumbledore
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met an eleven year old exhibiting textbook signs of violent
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behavioral pathology what we would describe today as early markers
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of antisocial personality disorder, and he essentially said, well, let's
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just get him a wand and see where it goes.
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And I'm not saying that to be flippant. I'm saying
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it because this is the foundational question of this particular theme.
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How could he not know? How could Dumbledore witness all
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of that and still send Tom Riddle alone, unmonitored, unsupervised,
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into a magical marketplace full of tools he could use
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to amplify the cruelty he had already displayed and had
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no shame in giving voice to. And when Harry presses
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him on this, when Harry gives him an opportunity to
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sit in that reflection, Dumbledore basically punts, well, we don't
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have time to get into all of that. Well, guess
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who does have time, dumb d me. And this is
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where I want to bring in what Nadia wrote, because
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I think it's articulated the emotional core of the tension.
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Dumbledore claims to have recognized early signs of evil in
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young Tom Riddle, but failed to intervene decisively. Naughtiest's point
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is not that Dumbledore made Voldemort. To me, the point
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is that he saw something no one else in the
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magical world saw and then decided not to act on it,
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so much so that by the time Tom Riddle gets
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two Hogwarts, he's learned the skill that will become the
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hallmark of his evil. The veneer, the charm, the charisma,
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the cultivated pleasantness. But only Dumbledore knew what existed underneath
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all of that. And this is why Finty's comment resonates
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here too, the comment I can't see Tom Riddle paying
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attention to any constraint Brian or others may have wanted
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to put into place. And here's the thing. I'd absolutely
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agree with that. Maybe Tommy Ridds would not have obeyed
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any boundary put in front of him, But to me,
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that's also not the point. The point is is that
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no boundary was even attempted. No consistent supervision, no mentorship
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designed around his actual needs, no protection for other students
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who would be exposed to him, even after, at eleven
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years old, he told you he liked hurting people. I
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think it's one thing to say this child might ignore intervention.
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It's another thing entirely to say we will not intervene
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at all, because in some ways this is what Dumbledore's
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non intervention enabled. Tom's brilliant, his talent, his capacity for performance,
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goes completely unchecked, and the brilliance becomes the very thing
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that later allows him to recruit followers, manipulate peers, manipulate teachers,
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and eventually build an ideology around power, cruelty, and supremacy. Brilliance,
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unmonitored becomes a weapon. And what's wild to me is
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that Dumbledore, all people, knows this. It's the fact in
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the reality that he's been running from since grendel Wald
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disoperated after Ariana's death. And to be clear, and I
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want to be so clear about this because I know
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that some of you are already typing up these essays.
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Voldemort is responsible for Voldemort. Tom Riddle has so much agencies,
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so much autonomy. Some might say too much autonomy, and
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it matters. But the reality also is that agency does
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not negate environment children, which is what Tumbriddle was when
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when Dumbledore met him. They don't become monsters in a vacuum.
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And Dumbledore had unique access to the earliest signs the
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most honest, unfiltered, unfettered version of Tom Riddle that we
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ever see, and he left the Veneer form anyway. It
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actually matters that Dumbledore saw Tom express pleasure in violence
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and did nothing. It matters that he recognized Tom's isolation
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and did nothing. It matters that he knew that Tommy
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Ridds was dangerous and did nothing. And it matters because
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no one else, not a single soul in the magical world,
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had that information. He is the only one who went
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to visit him. He's the only one who was there
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to meet with this child and hear this child speak
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about what he thought was appropriate, what he thought his
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displays of power, mint what he thought he could use
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his power for. Dumbledore is the only person who could
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see that, who knew that, who experienced that. No one
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else did so, no one else had the power, knowledge,
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or foresight to intervene. This is one of these moments
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when we talk about information that's pertinent that Dumbledore doesn't share.
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This is one of those. As far as I'm concerned,
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and I'm going to own that from me. You may disagree.
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I welcome it. I can't wait to hear about it.
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Meet me in the post episode chat. But in this
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moment he knows things that are very important because Voldeva,
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Tommy Ridds, because he's not even Voldeve at this moment.
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Tommy Ridds was happy to hurt children. You are bringing
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him into your school, someone who has admittedly discussed hurting
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other children, and Dumbledore admits I should have kept an
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eye on him for other's sake as much as his.
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It's one of the rare moments in the series where
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Dumbledore acknowledges its failure, and even then we get it.
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It's a very fleeting thing. He retreats, he pulls away,
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he does not want to look at the monster because
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to me, I think it's also something of a reflection
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of him. So as I read through the comments of
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the conversation that was had in the post episode chat,
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to me, the question was not did Dumbledore create Voldemort?
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To me, the question is what would the magical world
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have looked like if the first adult Tumbridle ever encounter,
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the first magical adult he ever encountered, the first person
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with actual power over him, had taken the signs. Seriously,
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reality is we'll never know, but the fact that we
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can ask the question at all tells us that Dumbledore's
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failure was not a strategy, It was moral, and it
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shaped everything that came next. I am not saying that
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Dumbledore created Voldemort. I think Voldemort would have been Voldemort,
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but I think it would have been a lot harder
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for him to be Voldemort if people had taken seriously
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what he was telling them to their face, if Dumbledore
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had actually allowed himself to believe it was possible that
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this child could be dangerous, and he didn't, and lives
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were lost at school because Tom Riddle believed he could
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get away with anything. And why wouldn't he think that
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when he got away with looking a man dead in
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the eyes who was the head master of the school,
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and telling him the truth about who he was and
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what he was willing and able to do, and the
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man said, cool, see you at school a couple weeks.
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One of the lines that I often think about as
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it pertains the dumble Doore is when he says something
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to the effect of, you know, being cleverer than most,
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my mistakes are bigger, and I don't think there's a
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bigger mistake than this one right here. The next thing
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that we're going to Be discussing is one that focuses
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on the mythos of Albus Dumbledore. What did I say
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like that Albus Dumbledore anyways? Loser? Laurien wrote, if Harry's
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first introduction to the wizarding world wasn't Hagrid, do we
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think he'd still be inclined to fawn at the altar
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of Dumbe. Cassie wrote, Hagrid helped ingrain the idea that
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Grandpa Brian sent him there to quote unquote save Harry
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and that Dumbledore was basically God incarnate. Charlie wrote, everyone
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knows the Dursleys are horrible before meeting them. Does that
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make it about their stands toward Muggles or towards the
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Dursleys impossible to know? A feeling of JK. Rowlane. One
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of the things that stands out most to me when
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I think about Harry's relationship with Dumbledore is the sheer
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durability of it, the durability of his love for Dumbledore,
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the durability of his trust in Dumbledore. It survives things
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that honestly, I don't think they should have survived. It
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survives the entirety of Order of the Phoenix, an entire
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school year of Dumbledore's avoiding him, ignoring him and refusing
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to make eye contact with him, and refusing to explain
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anything to him. Even as Harry is being isolated, gas
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lit by the ministry, traumatized by visions, and ultimately possessed
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by Voldemort, it survives Sirius as death. And yet at
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the end of it all, when Dumbledore finally sits him
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down and gives him the explanation he should have given
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him months and months and months earlier, Harry just accepts it.
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He's heard and angry and confused, but ultimately he just
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accepts it, and more importantly, he doesn't ask anything more
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of Dumbledore than those words. And to me, that kind
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of forgiveness just doesn't seem logical. And maybe this is
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a thing that i'm that's my fault, it's my flaw.
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I'm working on it in therapy. Everyone, everyone, chill out, relax,
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it's all good. We're gonna get through this together. But
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to me, so much of this is based on the
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idea that Harry believes that Dumbledore and everything that he
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does is inherently good. All of the mythos surrounding Dumbledore
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suggests that this is the case, and I think in
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the world that Harry exists in where, especially at that
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moment where Voldeeva is living in them thoughts, he's looking
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through the eyes of snakes who are attacking his father's
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best friend and his own surrogate dad. He needs that,
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he needs to have faith in something that feels solid
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and sure and together. And we also can't discount the
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power dynamic here. Dumbledore doesn't interact with Harry consistently. He
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oscillates between roles depending on what he needs from Harry
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in the moment. Sometimes Harry's a kid, sometimes he's an adult.
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Sometimes he's a student, Sometimes he's a soldier. Sometimes he's
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all of those things. Plus he's a chosen one. And Harry,
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because of his trauma, just goes with it. He doesn't
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have the emotional grounding what the self protective instincts to say, actually, no,
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you don't get to treat me like this. Harry is
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not good at accountability. He is good at anger and frustration,
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and reasonably so, but he doesn't hold people to the
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fire when they wrong him. He doesn't do it to Ron.
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Sometimes he does it to Hermione, which is a whole
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other conversation to be had and he doesn't do it
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with Dumbledore, not even close. He gets hurt, but he
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doesn't withhold love, which is like a beautiful, beautiful thing,
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but also some post abuse attachment work. He has learned
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his whole life that if he pushes back too hard,
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he might lose the people that mattered to him, and
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so he doesn't push at all. And Dumbledore, more than anyone,
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is the person that Harry cannot afford to lose, because
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Dumbledore represents safety and meaning and belonging and identity in
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the Wizarding World. Dumbledore is the narrative anchor that gives
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Harry's life coherence. He's the adult who actually saw Harry
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for who he was, even if the ways he saw
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him were deeply flawed. And so Harry lets him get
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away with things that would shatter any other relationship. He
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lets him leave with that without explanation. He lets him
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withhold world changing information, He lets him introduce danger into
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his life without fully preparing him for it. And what's
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fascinating is that we see the same dynamic reservice in
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the Hathloot Prince. After everything that happened at the Ministry,
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after the betrayal, abandonment, silence. When Dumbledore sends that letter
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saying that he's going to show up a private drive
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in the dead of night, Harry is excited. He's relieved.
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The attachment is immediate and intact, with so little, if
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any lingering resentment. There's no negotiation. It's just like, thank goodness.
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And when we want to understand that the post episode
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chats brought a discussion about myth making starts to fall
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in the place. Because Harry doesn't just admire Dumbledore. He
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needs him to be who the world says he is
400
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because and I think that this is also true for
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many of us who read Dumbledore as children and who
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have such a strong attachment to him now as adults.
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If Dumbledore isn't the person who the Wizarding World says
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he is, then the whole architecture of how we understand
405
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the Wizarding World and Harry's life, why he survived, why
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he's suffering, why he matters at all, it all begins
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to crumble. There's a moment in Deathly Hallows when he
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confronts Aberfourth with the truth, and Aberfourth is like, let
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me tell you something about who this man was, and
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essentially says, you've been worshiping an idea, a figment of
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the imagination of the populace. He was not who you
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think he was. Harry has the same thought when he
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finally reads the Lies in Life, the Life and Lies
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of Albus Dumbledore, and he still says, well, I knew
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someone else, and that's the one that I'm choosing to
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believe in. That's the one who I'm allowing to guide
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me to my sudden death, my certain death. That is
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a myth, that is not a biography. That is love
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rooted in necessity, That is trauma bonding disguises loyalty. Harry
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believes Dumbledore because believing Dumbledore is safer than asking questions
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of him, because Harry can't emotionally survive the idea that
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the man he trusted with his life might have failed him.
423
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Because Harry's entire sense of place in the Wizarding World
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depends on the idea that someone powerful like Dumbledore wanted
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him to be there, not just as a weapon, but
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as a person. And so I think the conversation in
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the post episode chat is right. The Wizarding World builds
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Dumbledore's myth, but Harry is the one who lives inside it,
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and he stays inside it long past the point where
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it is sustainable, because the alternative of stepping outside the
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myth and seeing this flawed, incredibly and incredibly gifted but
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messy man would mean confronting a truth about himself that
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Harry wasn't ready to face, and that, to me is
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the heartbreak of it all. Harry doesn't love Dumbledore blindly.
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He loves him desperately, and desperation turns myth into memory
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and memory into truth long after truth has crumbled, if
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it was there at all. And I think that that
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is also true of us. So many of us glombed
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00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:11.799
onto Dumbledore because he was so steadfast in his purported omniscience.
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He always had the answer. And when you are a
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preteen teenager, you think you have the answers, but when
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00:31:20.680 --> 00:31:22.680
you get it wrong, all you want to do is
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go to someone who won't blame you for the mistakes
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that you've made, but will say, here, here's the path ahead,
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here's how you get there, here's where you made mistakes.
446
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And so much of Dumbledore's pedagogy, if that's what we
447
00:31:39.759 --> 00:31:42.839
want to call it, that might be too generous. Is
448
00:31:42.920 --> 00:31:48.599
doing that is a helpful, but not blaming hand to
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guide Harry in a direction. It's the direction that Dumbledore
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wants him to go, but Harry doesn't know that. We
451
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didn't know that. And so many of us love these
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00:31:59.720 --> 00:32:02.160
book because there were moments in our lives where we
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00:32:02.279 --> 00:32:08.000
felt very, very, very lost, and love it or hate it,
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Dumbledore was a solid foundation to stand on in the
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midst of the swirling sea. That is the hormonal reality
456
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of what it means to be anywhere in the age
457
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range of these books eleven to seventeen, a charibdis of
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chaos and disaster, and like Dumbledore did during the attack
459
00:32:32.359 --> 00:32:35.440
of the Infury in that cave where he's standing there,
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he's falling apart internally, but he is strong enough to
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use and wield that fire to protect Harry. I think
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that that's the guy that so many of us are protecting,
463
00:32:50.039 --> 00:33:22.599
and I get it, and I don't blame you. The
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next theme that came up was one that discussed the
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order of the Phoenix and tackled the question that I posed.
466
00:33:30.119 --> 00:33:31.799
Or maybe it wasn't even a question, or it was
467
00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:34.000
more of a statement. I think no, I think it
468
00:33:34.039 --> 00:33:36.799
was a question. Actually, if I think about it hard enough,
469
00:33:36.839 --> 00:33:38.920
maybe it's a revision of history. But go with me.
470
00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:43.559
It's my podcast. What I say goes. Dictatorship has come
471
00:33:43.599 --> 00:33:48.720
to the pod. Wow, it never takes too long, does it.
472
00:33:48.720 --> 00:33:52.000
It was a comment question concern who's to say about
473
00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:56.160
whether or not the Order of the Phoenix was a cult,
474
00:33:57.359 --> 00:34:02.279
and many of you had some thoughts on this, and Eric,
475
00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:08.280
our chief Dumbledore defender, had this to say, I don't
476
00:34:08.280 --> 00:34:11.760
think they're a military oracult. I think the Order is aspiring.
477
00:34:12.079 --> 00:34:16.159
They operate in silos, They need a central leader to
478
00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:21.559
move information. They need leverage. Matt wrote, the Order gets
479
00:34:21.599 --> 00:34:25.800
beaten by death eaters pretty consistently. These kids with inconsistent
480
00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:29.119
defense against the dark arts education are more talented and
481
00:34:29.239 --> 00:34:33.679
powerful than the Order, and Jazz wrote Dumbledore couldn't fully
482
00:34:33.719 --> 00:34:37.039
give himself to one role or the other. Maybe he
483
00:34:37.039 --> 00:34:40.360
should have let many take charge of the castle during
484
00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:44.679
the war years. Reading the comments about the Order of
485
00:34:44.719 --> 00:34:47.360
the Phoenix and all of the different thoughts that you
486
00:34:47.400 --> 00:34:50.000
all had, one thing kept coming up for me personally,
487
00:34:50.039 --> 00:34:54.800
and I kept thinking, like, what is the point of
488
00:34:54.840 --> 00:34:57.800
the Order of the Phoenix and why does it function
489
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:01.920
the way that it does. One of the biggest challenges
490
00:35:01.960 --> 00:35:04.239
in assessing Dumbledore as a leader of the Order of
491
00:35:04.280 --> 00:35:06.760
the Phoenix is that we still have very little idea
492
00:35:06.760 --> 00:35:10.760
about what the Order actually is, and the post episode
493
00:35:10.840 --> 00:35:14.719
chat conversation this week made that clearer to me than ever.
494
00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:17.519
We can't figure out whether he's a good leader because
495
00:35:17.559 --> 00:35:24.599
the organization he's leading is at its core undefined. Eric's
496
00:35:24.599 --> 00:35:27.840
suggestion that the Order is aspiring makes a certain kind
497
00:35:27.880 --> 00:35:30.440
of sense, but then you start to list what the
498
00:35:30.519 --> 00:35:34.199
Order actually does. Snape is the only true spy. Kingsley
499
00:35:34.239 --> 00:35:36.719
and Arthur are embedded in the ministry. Haggard and Lupan
500
00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:40.119
are out doing diplomatic community building with Giants and will
501
00:35:41.639 --> 00:35:46.480
were Wolves, respectively. Bill is bringing in technical expertise from Gringotts,
502
00:35:46.519 --> 00:35:52.480
Mandungas is stealing, Molly is running grimmeld Place, and the
503
00:35:52.519 --> 00:35:56.639
others are doing guardships, transport duty, communication, networks, household management.
504
00:35:58.599 --> 00:36:02.760
Eric is right. It's not a military, it's not a paramilitary.
505
00:36:02.800 --> 00:36:05.440
It's not a resistance cell or an intelligence agency. It's
506
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:08.159
not even a clear political organization, and I'm not sure
507
00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:14.000
whether or not it's aspiring. It seems to be everything
508
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:18.440
and nothing at the same time, which means it's ultimately
509
00:36:18.519 --> 00:36:25.960
organized around one single gravitational center ALBD, the Order becomes
510
00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:28.840
what he needs to be at any given moment because
511
00:36:28.840 --> 00:36:31.159
he never defines what it's supposed to be in the
512
00:36:31.199 --> 00:36:35.440
first place. And that's exactly why Matt's point hits so hard.
513
00:36:35.480 --> 00:36:39.480
The Order simply isn't good at what it's doing. They're
514
00:36:39.519 --> 00:36:43.760
not trained or coordinated, and they are constantly outmatched by
515
00:36:43.800 --> 00:36:46.599
the Death Eaters, a group that, on paper, should be
516
00:36:46.679 --> 00:36:51.039
far less organized, and Jazz points out one of the
517
00:36:51.079 --> 00:37:01.000
major reasons why Dumbledore is stretched impossibly thin. He's teaching headmastering, politicing, strategizing, mentoring, hiding,
518
00:37:01.400 --> 00:37:04.719
and trying to prevent the world ending prophecy from detonating
519
00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:09.480
all at once, which then leads to the fundamental question
520
00:37:09.519 --> 00:37:13.480
of what is the Order's actual goal? Is it stopping Voldemort?
521
00:37:14.199 --> 00:37:17.400
They can't do it without Harry protecting the public. They
522
00:37:17.440 --> 00:37:21.159
don't have the size, or the infrastructure or the ideology. Honestly,
523
00:37:22.280 --> 00:37:26.760
is it slowing down Voldemort? Maybe, but that seems like
524
00:37:26.840 --> 00:37:28.920
less of a mission and more of a stall tactic.
525
00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:33.519
And when you contrast the Order with the Death Eaters,
526
00:37:33.840 --> 00:37:39.000
the difference is laughable. The Death Eaters know exactly who
527
00:37:39.039 --> 00:37:42.920
they are. They have a clear ideological center, hate and violence.
528
00:37:44.079 --> 00:37:49.639
But they are unified. They have a clear, articulated hierarchy,
529
00:37:50.079 --> 00:37:52.159
They have a shared sense of purpose. They have a
530
00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:55.480
leader who only cares about one thing and is entirely
531
00:37:55.519 --> 00:38:00.920
consumed by it. Voldemort has one obsession. Dumbledore also has
532
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:03.199
one obsession, but like thirty different ways to try to
533
00:38:03.239 --> 00:38:07.800
address it. And that matters because an organization always reflects
534
00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:11.360
its leader. And this is where I actually think. You
535
00:38:11.360 --> 00:38:16.159
know as a political scientist that political medicapors become unavoidable
536
00:38:17.719 --> 00:38:21.559
because we know what unfocused leadership looks like, and we
537
00:38:21.639 --> 00:38:23.960
know what it looks like when one political party in
538
00:38:24.039 --> 00:38:28.800
our world tries to hold complexity, idealism, institutional ethics, while
539
00:38:28.800 --> 00:38:33.039
the other party operates on raw, distilled conviction, even if
540
00:38:33.039 --> 00:38:37.280
that conviction is rooted in fear, resentment, and authoritarianism. We
541
00:38:37.400 --> 00:38:39.280
know what it looks like when one side is trying
542
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:41.480
to govern and the other side is trying to dominate,
543
00:38:43.039 --> 00:38:45.920
When one side is juggling twenty priorities and the other
544
00:38:46.079 --> 00:38:50.119
side is laser focused on a single, hideous, ugly one.
545
00:38:51.840 --> 00:38:54.719
When one side wants to save everyone and the other
546
00:38:54.800 --> 00:38:59.239
side wants to punish anyone who disagrees and if I'm
547
00:38:59.280 --> 00:39:02.920
being honestly, order feels a lot like the Democratic Party
548
00:39:03.239 --> 00:39:07.480
in the United States at its most frustrating, earnest, overextended,
549
00:39:07.760 --> 00:39:10.599
trying to do everything the quote unquote right way, playing
550
00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:13.960
respectability politics in the middle of a fire, convinced that
551
00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:18.679
the moral clarity alone can hold a fractured coalition together.
552
00:39:21.199 --> 00:39:24.400
And the death eaters they're the Republican Party in the
553
00:39:24.480 --> 00:39:28.639
United States at its most dangerous, unified around grievance that
554
00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:34.079
is fictional, centralized around a figurehead, willing to use whatever
555
00:39:34.119 --> 00:39:39.000
tools of intimidation fear dominance are available, and terrifyingly effective
556
00:39:39.119 --> 00:39:45.079
because of that cohesion. This isn't about false equivalency. It's
557
00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:49.639
about structural comparison. It's about understanding why one group moves
558
00:39:49.679 --> 00:39:52.320
as a blunt force instrument and the other one moves
559
00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:57.280
like a disorganized committee meeting. And once you see the parallel,
560
00:39:57.320 --> 00:40:02.159
the order makes perfect sense. The lack of cohesion isn't incidental,
561
00:40:02.800 --> 00:40:07.599
it's baked in. It's chaos isn't accidental. It's a reflection
562
00:40:08.639 --> 00:40:10.960
its confusion. Isn't a flaw of the group, it's a
563
00:40:10.960 --> 00:40:14.800
flaw of its leadership model. Because Dumbledore is not focused
564
00:40:14.800 --> 00:40:17.000
on one thing. He's trying to hold the school together,
565
00:40:17.119 --> 00:40:21.480
a war, a prophecy, a child, an international diplomatic position,
566
00:40:21.800 --> 00:40:24.679
a moral compass, and his own fear becoming the man
567
00:40:24.760 --> 00:40:29.239
he once loved and then had to destroy. Ugh just
568
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:31.679
reading that was too much for me, let alone trying
569
00:40:31.679 --> 00:40:34.960
to embody it and live at the same time. He
570
00:40:35.079 --> 00:40:38.039
is leading from guilt, from caution, from idealism, and from
571
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:42.719
a deep, deep emotional fragment, and the Order reflects that
572
00:40:42.760 --> 00:40:47.519
fragmentation back to us. So maybe the real question isn't
573
00:40:47.599 --> 00:40:50.480
whether Dumbledore was a bad leader of the Order or
574
00:40:50.519 --> 00:40:53.599
a good one. Maybe the question is whether the Order
575
00:40:53.639 --> 00:40:56.719
itself was ever built to succeed, or whether it was
576
00:40:56.760 --> 00:41:01.119
built to orbit one man whose internal conflict and being
577
00:41:01.159 --> 00:41:03.880
pulled in many different directions because of the brilliance and
578
00:41:03.960 --> 00:41:08.119
the myth thoughs that he's allowed to flourish made coherence impossible,
579
00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:14.320
because the moment he dies, the Order collapses, not because
580
00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:17.159
the mission was over, but because the mission was never
581
00:41:17.239 --> 00:41:41.079
clearly defined in the first place. The next theme that
582
00:41:41.119 --> 00:41:44.440
we are going to be talking about is one that
583
00:41:44.719 --> 00:41:50.079
comes from my commentary on Dumbledore's relationship with power and
584
00:41:50.159 --> 00:41:54.679
how we are made to understand it. Rachel p wrote,
585
00:41:55.159 --> 00:41:58.320
what is the legacy? Most people in the Wizarding world
586
00:41:58.360 --> 00:42:01.440
see him as a hero readers, we start to question
587
00:42:01.519 --> 00:42:05.960
whether he actually is. K mets Full wrote, if Dumbledore
588
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:09.039
truly had all this power as Hogwarts teacher Slash had
589
00:42:09.039 --> 00:42:12.440
master over generations, why don't we see that in the ministry?
590
00:42:12.679 --> 00:42:16.239
Why don't we see more fairness? It's time for us
591
00:42:16.239 --> 00:42:19.400
to have that conversation. I really want to focus my
592
00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:23.519
energies on what kay mets Full wrote, because I think
593
00:42:23.559 --> 00:42:27.480
that it also ties into Rachel Pea's comment about the
594
00:42:27.599 --> 00:42:33.480
understanding of who Dumbledore actually is and how we then
595
00:42:33.760 --> 00:42:36.519
reconcile that with the legacy that has been kind of
596
00:42:36.559 --> 00:42:40.320
placed upon him. The question of why does the Wizarding
597
00:42:40.360 --> 00:42:43.039
world look the way that it does even after decades
598
00:42:43.079 --> 00:42:47.079
of Dumbledore seemingly shape shaping its brightest minds, and the
599
00:42:47.199 --> 00:42:51.440
question kind of cuts through all of the mystique and
600
00:42:51.559 --> 00:42:56.599
mythos of Dumbledore and really begs a larger question about
601
00:42:56.639 --> 00:43:02.280
the influence that he has over generations. Right if every
602
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:05.679
witch or wizard or magical person passed under his tutelage,
603
00:43:05.679 --> 00:43:11.880
then why is the wizarding world the same? So easily manipulated,
604
00:43:12.320 --> 00:43:14.920
and when you sit with that question long enough, the
605
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:21.079
answer becomes painfully and frustratingly clear, because being anti Voldemort
606
00:43:21.519 --> 00:43:25.719
doesn't mean that you're anti pure blood supremacy. This is
607
00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:28.920
a refrain that I've had many many times throughout our
608
00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:31.639
time together on the podcast, and I think it bears
609
00:43:31.679 --> 00:43:37.920
repeating here, even for Grandpa Brian, right, being against one
610
00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:40.800
dark wizard does not mean being against the systems that
611
00:43:40.920 --> 00:43:45.440
produce dark wizards, especially when you are the leader of
612
00:43:45.519 --> 00:43:50.760
one of those systems, one of those institutions, And being
613
00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:54.119
tolerant of muggles in private doesn't make you an anti
614
00:43:54.119 --> 00:43:59.199
supremacist in public. I think the reality that we have
615
00:43:59.320 --> 00:44:02.800
to accept, or at least that I'm going to accept.
616
00:44:02.840 --> 00:44:04.760
I won't tell you what to do. I know that
617
00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:07.960
I was giving a bit of you know, dictator before,
618
00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:10.320
but I'm back now. I'm not going to tell you
619
00:44:10.400 --> 00:44:13.320
what to do. But for me, I think the reality
620
00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:16.000
and the answer to this question is is that Dumbledore
621
00:44:16.039 --> 00:44:19.320
is not a system changer, and I don't think he
622
00:44:19.360 --> 00:44:23.199
ever tries to be. Yes, he calls out prejudice when
623
00:44:23.199 --> 00:44:25.559
it's overt, when it's loud, when it's embodied in a
624
00:44:25.599 --> 00:44:29.360
single individual. But he does not interrogate the institution that
625
00:44:29.400 --> 00:44:33.119
makes the prejudice possible. He hasn't challenged the structure. He
626
00:44:33.119 --> 00:44:37.360
doesn't challenged the economic systems, the cultural myths, the political arrangements,
627
00:44:37.639 --> 00:44:42.000
the foundational hierarchies of wizarding life. He sees the problem
628
00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:47.000
as the people, not the systems. Hestia Jones says it plainly,
629
00:44:47.440 --> 00:44:50.320
the Order of the Phoenix and everything that is being
630
00:44:50.400 --> 00:44:53.480
worked on that Dumbledore's at the helm of is the
631
00:44:53.599 --> 00:44:59.280
anti Voldemort movement. And that's exactly right. That is all
632
00:44:59.400 --> 00:45:04.320
Dumbledore's after. He wants Voldemort gone. Almost did it again, geez,
633
00:45:04.639 --> 00:45:08.679
He wants Voldemort gone. He does not want the world
634
00:45:08.840 --> 00:45:14.119
that produced Voldemort to change. We see it everywhere. This
635
00:45:14.239 --> 00:45:16.760
is the same Dumbledore who is perfectly comfortable with the
636
00:45:16.840 --> 00:45:20.840
enslavement of house elves. Yes, he pays Dobby because Dobby
637
00:45:20.880 --> 00:45:23.079
requests to be paid, but the reality that the situation
638
00:45:23.320 --> 00:45:26.440
is is that his contentment with having house elves speaks
639
00:45:26.559 --> 00:45:30.480
volumes I. Also we also realize that he's content with
640
00:45:30.519 --> 00:45:33.239
Harry having one as well. This is the same Dumbledore
641
00:45:33.239 --> 00:45:35.920
who allows a ghost to teach history, despite the educational
642
00:45:35.960 --> 00:45:39.159
cost to every child who passes through the classroom. Binns
643
00:45:39.199 --> 00:45:42.199
has been teaching the same material for over one hundred years,
644
00:45:42.199 --> 00:45:45.920
and we've had absolutely no change whatsoever and no interrogation
645
00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:48.679
of that. This is the same Dumbledore who fills divination
646
00:45:48.760 --> 00:45:51.400
with someone he personally does not respect, not because he
647
00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:53.880
believes in explaining the curriculum, because he was getting ready
648
00:45:53.880 --> 00:45:56.119
to get rid of divination, but because he needs to
649
00:45:56.159 --> 00:45:59.719
protect the person who gave the prophecy that explains what's
650
00:45:59.719 --> 00:46:03.679
gonna happen. This is the same Dumbledore who watched Funge
651
00:46:03.840 --> 00:46:08.360
descend into paranoia, fear mongering a propaganda after Voldemort's first fall,
652
00:46:08.719 --> 00:46:10.880
and did nothing to reform the structure that allowed it
653
00:46:10.920 --> 00:46:15.159
to happen. In other words, Dumbledore accepts the system as
654
00:46:15.199 --> 00:46:18.760
it is, as long as the person perched at the
655
00:46:18.800 --> 00:46:23.440
top isn't someone like Grindewald or Voldemort. And that's the key,
656
00:46:24.840 --> 00:46:28.760
that's the uncomfortable truth behind the myth. Dumbledore is a
657
00:46:28.840 --> 00:46:31.480
one bad apple thinker in a world where the orchard
658
00:46:31.599 --> 00:46:35.039
is the problem. He believes a system can work if
659
00:46:35.079 --> 00:46:37.880
the right person is inside it. He believes that the
660
00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:41.239
ministry can function if the minister has integrity. He believes
661
00:46:41.239 --> 00:46:44.599
that Hogwarts is fine if someone like him is in charge.
662
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:48.280
He believes that the International Confederation of Wizards can provide
663
00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:51.760
order as long as there's someone he believes is doing
664
00:46:51.760 --> 00:46:55.320
a good job is doing the job. And this is
665
00:46:55.360 --> 00:47:00.079
where intent becomes irrelevant, because even if we take the
666
00:47:00.119 --> 00:47:03.719
most generous posture, even if we imagine Dumbledore declined the
667
00:47:03.760 --> 00:47:06.960
Ministry because he was afraid of his own flaws, afraid
668
00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:09.199
of what power might do to him, the outcome is
669
00:47:09.199 --> 00:47:16.679
the same stagnation. Nothing changes fundamentally, structurally, permanently. The people
670
00:47:16.800 --> 00:47:20.599
he teaches grow into adults who still carry the same prejudices,
671
00:47:20.639 --> 00:47:26.440
the same superiority complexes, and ignorance about non magical life.
672
00:47:26.639 --> 00:47:30.880
They fear what he fears. They also fight what he fights,
673
00:47:32.519 --> 00:47:36.920
but they do not see what he does not see.
674
00:47:37.559 --> 00:47:40.280
And what he does not see or refuses to see,
675
00:47:40.440 --> 00:47:45.880
are the institutional and structural problems that permeate the Wizarding World.
676
00:47:47.400 --> 00:47:51.920
Dumbledore solves for Voldemort, he does not solve for voldemort Ism.
677
00:47:52.360 --> 00:47:55.639
He defeated Grindelwald, and with in a generation, the Wizarding
678
00:47:55.679 --> 00:47:59.000
World produces another dark Lord, born from the same soil
679
00:47:59.039 --> 00:48:04.559
of blood, supremacy, fear, resentment, and institutional negligence. If anything,
680
00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:08.960
the fact that Grendewald's defeat led not to Reform but
681
00:48:09.079 --> 00:48:14.719
to Voldemort tells us everything. Dumbledore's legacy is not that
682
00:48:14.800 --> 00:48:18.559
he changed the Wizarding World. His legacy is that he
683
00:48:18.639 --> 00:48:21.960
preserved it. He kept it intact. And there's a way
684
00:48:21.960 --> 00:48:24.199
in which we could see how that particular thing could
685
00:48:24.239 --> 00:48:26.719
be warped into something good if you are blind to
686
00:48:26.760 --> 00:48:31.440
the realities of what it actually means. Dumbledore made sure
687
00:48:31.719 --> 00:48:35.559
that the structure could continue to function as it always
688
00:48:35.639 --> 00:48:40.159
had without destabilization of another charismatic tyrant at the center.
689
00:48:42.039 --> 00:48:44.559
And for Dumbledore, that seems to be enough. That seems
690
00:48:44.599 --> 00:48:49.119
to be the line. The world he lived in didn't
691
00:48:49.159 --> 00:48:52.800
need restructuring, It just needed to be protected. He wasn't
692
00:48:52.840 --> 00:48:57.199
trying to liberate anyone. He's trying to maintain an equilibrium.
693
00:48:59.079 --> 00:49:02.840
And that's why the Wizarding World doesn't fundamentally transform, even
694
00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:08.480
after decades of his influence, because Dumbledore doesn't believe it
695
00:49:08.559 --> 00:49:15.920
needs to. He's anti Voldemort, he's anti Grinda Wald, he
696
00:49:16.039 --> 00:49:19.800
is not anti pure blood supremacy, and so he leaves
697
00:49:19.800 --> 00:49:26.280
the system exactly how he found it, flawed, prejudiced, fragile
698
00:49:27.719 --> 00:49:50.920
and entirely unprepared for whatever comes next. One question hans
699
00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:54.800
and hurts too much, too much to mention was I
700
00:49:54.920 --> 00:49:59.599
really seeking good or just seeking attention? Is that all
701
00:49:59.639 --> 00:50:03.639
good when looked at with an ice cold ee that's
702
00:50:03.719 --> 00:50:06.960
my eye. My eye is ice cold. If that's all
703
00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:13.800
good deeds are, maybe that's the reason why no good
704
00:50:13.840 --> 00:50:19.239
deed goes unpunished. That is from Wicked. The vocal is
705
00:50:19.280 --> 00:50:22.519
from me, though I told people that I would do it,
706
00:50:22.559 --> 00:50:24.840
but I was afraid to show up Cynthia Revo. And
707
00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:27.199
now I have decided. And I don't care about that
708
00:50:27.440 --> 00:50:33.000
because it's impossible. But I think that this also sets
709
00:50:33.039 --> 00:50:35.280
us up really nicely. It wasn't just a moment of
710
00:50:35.320 --> 00:50:38.880
vocal vanity. It also serves a purpose, and that I
711
00:50:38.880 --> 00:50:41.280
think it sets us up for a really good conversation
712
00:50:42.239 --> 00:50:50.199
and my reflection on Dumbledore and why Dumbledore's good intentions
713
00:50:50.679 --> 00:50:53.280
may not have been enough. You see, no good deed
714
00:50:53.360 --> 00:50:58.440
good intentions. And before I go any further, I just
715
00:50:58.480 --> 00:51:01.760
want to say I want to start with some empathy.
716
00:51:03.320 --> 00:51:06.639
I realized that for some people, as I mentioned before,
717
00:51:06.719 --> 00:51:09.960
Dumbledore is a really, really, really meaningful and important character
718
00:51:10.400 --> 00:51:13.599
for a number of reasons. And I get that because
719
00:51:13.639 --> 00:51:18.199
when I was growing up, Dumbledore was my guy. He
720
00:51:18.360 --> 00:51:24.960
was the wise, wizend grandfather figure, the gentle mentor, the
721
00:51:24.960 --> 00:51:29.960
one adult who seemed to understand me Harry when nobody
722
00:51:29.960 --> 00:51:34.320
else did. He felt so safe and magical and like
723
00:51:34.360 --> 00:51:37.760
an adult so many of us wished we had, and
724
00:51:37.800 --> 00:51:41.079
I think that for so many listeners, he still holds
725
00:51:41.079 --> 00:51:47.079
that place. But loving something doesn't mean we can't be
726
00:51:47.159 --> 00:51:54.079
critical of it. And I don't critique Dumbledore because I
727
00:51:54.159 --> 00:51:58.119
never loved him. I think i'd critique him because I did,
728
00:51:59.079 --> 00:52:01.519
because it took me a really, really, really long time
729
00:52:01.599 --> 00:52:04.639
to kind of take the scales off of my eyes
730
00:52:04.719 --> 00:52:07.360
and really really lock in on who this person is.
731
00:52:09.079 --> 00:52:11.199
And I understand why people feel protective of him, and
732
00:52:11.239 --> 00:52:14.760
why they bristle out my criticism, and why they are
733
00:52:15.159 --> 00:52:18.119
calling me out for not being as generous to him
734
00:52:18.159 --> 00:52:20.400
as they would want me to be, and they are
735
00:52:20.440 --> 00:52:22.880
calling me in to recognize that he's a single person
736
00:52:22.920 --> 00:52:26.320
who can't do everything. I get all of that, I
737
00:52:26.400 --> 00:52:29.000
really really do, and to me, it's kind of the
738
00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:32.880
same reason why many people react so strongly to Molly Weasley.
739
00:52:33.840 --> 00:52:35.800
I know some of you may not have been here
740
00:52:35.840 --> 00:52:37.519
for our first episode, but I'm sure many of you
741
00:52:37.559 --> 00:52:39.639
have listened to it. And one of the things that
742
00:52:39.679 --> 00:52:43.400
always surprises me about that episode is how hard people
743
00:52:43.519 --> 00:52:47.679
are on Molly. My God, they are so hard on
744
00:52:47.719 --> 00:52:54.519
her and very difficult and very critical of her mothering,
745
00:52:54.679 --> 00:52:58.239
of her parenting, of just who she is as a person.
746
00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:02.239
And I think when we're young, Molly feels like the
747
00:53:02.280 --> 00:53:05.079
mother that we wanted in a lot of ways, for
748
00:53:05.199 --> 00:53:06.920
many of us, not all of us, right, And I
749
00:53:06.960 --> 00:53:09.440
think in that same way, Dumbledore feels or felt like
750
00:53:09.480 --> 00:53:12.960
the guardian that we needed. And it's only when you
751
00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:16.239
grow up, when you've lived and when you survive things,
752
00:53:16.960 --> 00:53:19.840
when and you can look back and see things for
753
00:53:20.079 --> 00:53:24.840
what they were, but you couldn't quite comprehend. And so
754
00:53:26.320 --> 00:53:29.280
if you're feeling defensive or unsettled or protective, I totally
755
00:53:29.280 --> 00:53:34.280
get it. I've been there. But again, loving a character
756
00:53:34.280 --> 00:53:37.920
doesn't mean we can't tell the truth about them, And
757
00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:41.320
Dumbledore is one of the most complicated characters in the series,
758
00:53:42.079 --> 00:53:46.360
not in spite of the seemingly like flat arc he has,
759
00:53:46.880 --> 00:53:50.159
but because of it. He seems simple when you're young
760
00:53:50.320 --> 00:53:54.079
because of the way we experience him and it's refracted
761
00:53:54.559 --> 00:54:00.360
through Harry's deep aching need for someone like him, And
762
00:54:00.400 --> 00:54:04.000
that brings me to the core of this reflection. War
763
00:54:04.199 --> 00:54:09.000
and accountability and the danger of treating necessity as absolution.
764
00:54:10.719 --> 00:54:13.000
One of the things that kept coming up over and
765
00:54:13.079 --> 00:54:16.079
over again in the post episode chat, both for the
766
00:54:16.159 --> 00:54:19.800
last episode but the episode's pasted is this idea that
767
00:54:19.920 --> 00:54:24.559
wartime morality is different, that some of the choices Dumbledore makes,
768
00:54:24.599 --> 00:54:28.360
the manipulation, the secrecy, the lack of transparency withholding of
769
00:54:28.400 --> 00:54:34.960
information are justified because it's war. And look, I get
770
00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:40.920
the logic. Voldemort is uniquely dangerous. His power is unprecedented,
771
00:54:41.320 --> 00:54:44.639
to be clear, This son of a son cheated death,
772
00:54:44.880 --> 00:54:48.800
came back, got his body done, and reke Taboc like
773
00:54:48.800 --> 00:54:54.519
he never left. His capacity for violence is extraordinary, and
774
00:54:54.599 --> 00:54:59.440
in the face of that war absolutely distorts the landscape
775
00:54:59.440 --> 00:55:04.320
of morality. But here, for me is the problem with
776
00:55:04.480 --> 00:55:09.639
using war as a justification. Dumbledore is never not fighting
777
00:55:09.679 --> 00:55:13.320
a war. He fights Grindewald as a teenager. He fights
778
00:55:13.320 --> 00:55:16.679
his own capacity for tyranny for decades. He fights Tom
779
00:55:16.760 --> 00:55:19.559
Riddle from the moment they meet. He fights the ministries
780
00:55:19.559 --> 00:55:22.880
and competence and fear. He fights Voldemort as a return threat.
781
00:55:22.920 --> 00:55:25.280
He fights the prophecy, He fights for the trauma of
782
00:55:25.320 --> 00:55:28.400
his past. He fights to keep Harry alive long enough
783
00:55:28.440 --> 00:55:32.679
to die at the right moment. He is always fighting.
784
00:55:34.960 --> 00:55:38.199
So if we say he had to do it was war,
785
00:55:39.719 --> 00:55:41.679
it seems to me that what we're really saying is
786
00:55:41.760 --> 00:55:46.519
Dumbledore never needs to be held accountable because he never
787
00:55:46.639 --> 00:55:51.800
leaves wartime conditions. That's not just justification, it's carte blanche,
788
00:55:52.719 --> 00:55:57.519
and historically we know what that leads to. Cassie, I
789
00:55:57.559 --> 00:55:59.920
believe is the one who brought up the hunger game
790
00:56:00.159 --> 00:56:03.519
is parallels between President's Now and President Coin. If you're
791
00:56:03.559 --> 00:56:06.119
not familiar with these characters, these are two leaders who
792
00:56:06.159 --> 00:56:09.440
are framed as opposites, but at a certain point it
793
00:56:09.480 --> 00:56:13.039
becomes very clear to the protagonists that they are horrifyingly similar.
794
00:56:13.800 --> 00:56:18.119
Both use war as a justification for appalling moral choices,
795
00:56:18.639 --> 00:56:21.599
though they are seemingly coming from different sides of the
796
00:56:21.599 --> 00:56:26.480
ideological spectrum. Both use fear to consolidate power, and both
797
00:56:26.559 --> 00:56:31.400
rely on the belief that harshness is necessary and in
798
00:56:31.440 --> 00:56:36.400
our world. In the United States, after nine to eleven,
799
00:56:36.679 --> 00:56:40.760
wartime gave us a Patriot Act. Wartime fear gave us
800
00:56:40.800 --> 00:56:44.320
the erosion of civil liberties. Wartime fear gave us torture
801
00:56:44.360 --> 00:56:48.559
programs and narratives about weapons of mass destruction, and an
802
00:56:48.719 --> 00:56:54.440
increase in Islamophobia and the belief of leaders all over
803
00:56:54.480 --> 00:57:00.119
the world having justified harm by leaning into necessity. And
804
00:57:00.159 --> 00:57:04.320
it's only in hindsight that people say, oh, wow, that
805
00:57:04.519 --> 00:57:08.280
was wrong, or oof, that was really really harmful. We
806
00:57:08.280 --> 00:57:12.679
shouldn't have let that happen. War justifies things in the
807
00:57:12.719 --> 00:57:16.559
moment that we regret for decades. So when we say, well,
808
00:57:16.679 --> 00:57:19.880
Dumbledore had to do it, we are participating in a
809
00:57:19.880 --> 00:57:24.199
well documented historical pattern of giving leaders moral immunity under
810
00:57:24.199 --> 00:57:29.039
the banner of crisis. And Dumbledore operates within that immunity fully,
811
00:57:29.639 --> 00:57:34.280
whether intentionally or not. And here's where things get even
812
00:57:34.280 --> 00:57:40.320
more complicated. Whose war is this and who knows that
813
00:57:40.360 --> 00:57:45.559
they're fighting it? Dumbledore sees danger earlier than everyone else.
814
00:57:46.280 --> 00:57:49.800
He recognizes Voldemort's return while others are still in denial.
815
00:57:50.440 --> 00:57:54.440
He sees institutional collapse before anyone else does. But the
816
00:57:54.480 --> 00:58:01.599
people he recruits, especially especially the children, don't know their soldiers.
817
00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:05.719
Harry doesn't know he's a soldier until years into this
818
00:58:06.440 --> 00:58:09.760
Hogwart students don't know until the school becomes a battlefield,
819
00:58:09.960 --> 00:58:12.719
and most members of the Order don't have the full picture.
820
00:58:13.480 --> 00:58:17.599
We talk a lot about what information people need. One
821
00:58:17.719 --> 00:58:20.639
thing that people might have wanted to know, by my estimation,
822
00:58:21.199 --> 00:58:27.159
is we are at war. Dumbledore fights a war long
823
00:58:27.239 --> 00:58:30.679
before anyone else realizes that they're in one, and that
824
00:58:30.840 --> 00:58:34.000
means he's making wartime decisions about people who think they're
825
00:58:34.039 --> 00:58:39.920
living in peacetime, and that, to me is where accountability
826
00:58:39.920 --> 00:58:45.079
becomes not optional but necessary. War explains things, but it
827
00:58:45.119 --> 00:58:49.280
does not erase the harm done to unwitting participants. This
828
00:58:49.360 --> 00:58:52.199
is a very similar conversation to what we had about Snape,
829
00:58:53.199 --> 00:58:56.320
about the fact that he was a person who was
830
00:58:56.400 --> 00:58:59.800
doing all of these things for reasons that were his own,
831
00:59:00.079 --> 00:59:02.840
but that were ultimately leading to good outcomes, but that
832
00:59:02.920 --> 00:59:10.320
doesn't undo the harm he caused. Same same thing here
833
00:59:12.679 --> 00:59:16.039
and nowhere is this particularly more obvious than with Harry.
834
00:59:17.119 --> 00:59:20.199
Harry's trauma is the clearest evidence that necessity does not
835
00:59:20.280 --> 00:59:26.639
erase consequence. He is neglected and unprepared, emotionally manipulated, set apart,
836
00:59:26.960 --> 00:59:30.559
burdened with knowledge that isolates him, but also burdened with
837
00:59:30.760 --> 00:59:35.960
ignorance that completely leaves him unprepared, constricted to a prophecy
838
00:59:36.880 --> 00:59:42.920
that he didn't choose, and ultimately trained to die. None
839
00:59:42.920 --> 00:59:45.679
of that harm goes away because Voldemort is dangerous, and
840
00:59:45.719 --> 00:59:50.000
it doesn't get erased because the stakes were high. Necessity
841
00:59:50.079 --> 00:59:53.599
doesn't heal wounds and it doesn't remove trauma, and it
842
00:59:53.679 --> 00:59:58.039
does not justify the use of children as weapons, especially
843
00:59:58.079 --> 01:00:00.880
when you are not asking for the they consent to
844
01:00:01.000 --> 01:00:05.199
do so, like I could. I can hear people saying,
845
01:00:05.199 --> 01:00:10.559
but Harry didn't have a choice. Okay, what about literally
846
01:00:10.639 --> 01:00:14.079
everyone else who ends up fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts. Yes,
847
01:00:14.119 --> 01:00:18.920
they could have left, but Hogwarts was their home. They've
848
01:00:19.000 --> 01:00:22.960
also all been conditioned to understand that this is just
849
01:00:23.039 --> 01:00:26.599
what you do because they've watched Harry do this every
850
01:00:26.719 --> 01:00:30.440
year since he arrived at Hogwarts, and he was rewarded
851
01:00:30.480 --> 01:00:34.960
for it. Remember that time I talked about how bravery
852
01:00:35.079 --> 01:00:40.480
was rewarded and recklessness was rewarded. Yes, sometimes those chickens
853
01:00:40.480 --> 01:00:44.239
come home to roost friends, and so I think we
854
01:00:44.360 --> 01:00:48.679
have to hold both crews at once. Dumbledore fought Evil
855
01:00:49.079 --> 01:00:55.920
and Harry paid the price for his strategy. And again
856
01:00:57.960 --> 01:01:03.360
it's important to reemphasize this idea. Dumbledore fights individuals, not institutions.
857
01:01:04.519 --> 01:01:07.760
He opposes dark wizards, not the world that creates them.
858
01:01:09.880 --> 01:01:15.559
He doesn't fight against magical exceptionalism. He's magically exceptional. He fights.
859
01:01:16.079 --> 01:01:18.800
He fights people, not for people, but he fights people
860
01:01:18.960 --> 01:01:26.519
who take that ideology too far. He never addresses the
861
01:01:26.599 --> 01:01:31.320
symptoms of the system. And it's not because he's heartless.
862
01:01:32.440 --> 01:01:35.920
It's because he's human. And it's also because he is
863
01:01:36.119 --> 01:01:42.519
one of the biggest beneficiaries of the system. We are
864
01:01:42.559 --> 01:01:45.199
talking about a man who does not want people to
865
01:01:45.280 --> 01:01:49.960
know his sworded past. We are talking about a man
866
01:01:50.039 --> 01:01:54.599
whose talent is so legendary that he is literally listed
867
01:01:54.639 --> 01:01:58.360
as a living person with people who are long dead,
868
01:01:59.199 --> 01:02:05.599
on cards, on all sorts of other memorabilia. And that
869
01:02:05.719 --> 01:02:11.199
benefits him because it means, like Voldemort, that he has
870
01:02:11.199 --> 01:02:13.719
of a knear that he can put up that keeps
871
01:02:14.159 --> 01:02:22.440
his sordid past behind it. That matters, because why would
872
01:02:22.480 --> 01:02:26.920
you dismantle that system? How could you even recognize the
873
01:02:27.000 --> 01:02:29.559
problems with it if you are the beneficiary of it.
874
01:02:29.639 --> 01:02:33.639
That's the thing about privilege. The system when it benefits you,
875
01:02:34.000 --> 01:02:36.800
make sure that you don't actually see the issues with it.
876
01:02:40.199 --> 01:02:43.400
Dumbledore's formative wound. The moment that shapes the rest of
877
01:02:43.440 --> 01:02:48.559
his life is Grindewald, not just the duel or the guilt,
878
01:02:48.920 --> 01:02:54.719
but the ideology of the greater good. In that moment,
879
01:02:54.760 --> 01:02:59.480
he believed in structural revolution passionately and dangerously, and that
880
01:02:59.559 --> 01:03:03.400
led to our Rianna's death. And if you believe in
881
01:03:03.480 --> 01:03:06.360
structures that way, then that also means that you have
882
01:03:06.440 --> 01:03:14.159
to internalize your role in the structure. No thanks, So
883
01:03:14.239 --> 01:03:17.880
he seemingly spends the rest of his life avoiding structural confrontation.
884
01:03:19.360 --> 01:03:22.280
One because I think it brings too much to bear
885
01:03:22.320 --> 01:03:24.880
on himself, which is something that I've maintained throughout these
886
01:03:24.960 --> 01:03:27.679
episodes we've been doing on him. But also because and
887
01:03:27.719 --> 01:03:30.440
I think this is a reality that many people who
888
01:03:30.559 --> 01:03:33.440
are grappling with the reality is a structural inequality you
889
01:03:33.480 --> 01:03:39.639
have to grapple with. Structural change is big. It feels insurmountable,
890
01:03:39.639 --> 01:03:43.880
it feels dangerous, and for Dumbledore, it feels too close
891
01:03:43.920 --> 01:03:46.320
to the things he wants wanted for the wrong reasons.
892
01:03:47.719 --> 01:03:51.760
He needs Evil to be embodied in one person. He
893
01:03:51.840 --> 01:03:56.199
needs Grendewald to be anomaloust. He needs Voldemort to be anomalous,
894
01:03:56.320 --> 01:03:59.960
because if evil is systematic. Then his failure with Grendewald
895
01:04:00.320 --> 01:04:05.519
wasn't an isolated mistake. It was evidence that he helped shape
896
01:04:05.599 --> 01:04:08.199
a world that is built on injustice. And I think
897
01:04:08.199 --> 01:04:11.440
that that's too painful for him to deal with. So
898
01:04:11.480 --> 01:04:15.079
he fights the man and not the machine, the villain
899
01:04:15.719 --> 01:04:20.519
and not the ideology that shaped it, the immediate threat,
900
01:04:20.840 --> 01:04:24.519
not the root cause. And this is why Dumbledore didn't
901
01:04:24.559 --> 01:04:27.360
change the world. He couldn't afford to believe that the
902
01:04:27.400 --> 01:04:35.199
world needed changing. He benefited from its dagnancy. And so
903
01:04:35.320 --> 01:04:38.400
here is the real problem with the If not him,
904
01:04:38.559 --> 01:04:43.320
then who question? It sounds like admiration, but it functions
905
01:04:43.360 --> 01:04:48.880
like absolution. It shuts down critique, It frames harm as inevitable,
906
01:04:49.039 --> 01:04:53.320
it excuses trauma as necessary, and it equates leadership with immunity.
907
01:04:53.599 --> 01:04:58.039
And it blurs the line between Dumbledore's autonomy and Voldemort's autonomy.
908
01:04:58.199 --> 01:05:02.320
Both men operate with complete freedom, Both answer to no one,
909
01:05:02.480 --> 01:05:06.280
Both believe their vision requires extraordinary measures. Both have followers
910
01:05:06.599 --> 01:05:11.239
who rarely question them. The difference here is meant to
911
01:05:11.280 --> 01:05:16.199
be their moral compass, but the structure of their power
912
01:05:16.400 --> 01:05:22.599
is the same. And that's why accountability matters, because it's
913
01:05:22.639 --> 01:05:26.639
the only thing that distinguishes ethical power from violent power.
914
01:05:29.800 --> 01:05:32.320
I want to be so clear. Dumbledore's flaw is not
915
01:05:32.360 --> 01:05:36.360
that he fought evil. His flaw is that he believed
916
01:05:36.360 --> 01:05:41.440
that evil lived in a single person. He believed that
917
01:05:41.480 --> 01:05:45.840
removing Voldemort would restore balance, that stopping Grindewald would be
918
01:05:45.920 --> 01:05:49.679
enough to prevent another dark Lord. He believed that defeating
919
01:05:49.679 --> 01:05:54.719
the villain ended the story. But the Wizarding World was
920
01:05:54.760 --> 01:05:59.679
broken long before Voldemort, before Grindwald, and it remained broken
921
01:05:59.760 --> 01:06:04.239
law after Dumbledore dies. And if we want to understand
922
01:06:04.320 --> 01:06:08.239
Dumbledore honestly, ethically and with a full range of his
923
01:06:08.360 --> 01:06:11.599
brilliance and his harm, then we must sit with this truth.
924
01:06:12.360 --> 01:06:16.599
He fought evil, but he never changed the world that
925
01:06:16.679 --> 01:06:20.880
allowed it to flourish. And if war was his permanent state,
926
01:06:21.280 --> 01:06:26.920
then accountability must be our permanent responsibility, because we cannot
927
01:06:27.039 --> 01:06:30.280
keep granting moral immunity to leaders simply because they were
928
01:06:30.320 --> 01:06:34.800
the only ones willing to act. Necessity is not absolution,
929
01:06:35.239 --> 01:06:38.519
Heroism is not immunity, and the greater good is not
930
01:06:38.920 --> 01:06:45.159
an excuse. Yes, Dumbledore helped save the world from Voldemort,
931
01:06:46.840 --> 01:06:49.119
but he did not build a world that could survive
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without him in it, and that distinction. That gap between
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victory and justice is where accountability lives. And my invitation
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for us is to try to hold these things in
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conversation with one another in full recognition that none of
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the good that does happen the fall of Voldemort is
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possible without Dumbledore. But Voldemort being vanquished is not the
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only thing that Dumbledore's responsible for, and some of that
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he needs to be held accountable for. This has been
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another episode of critical magic theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble,
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and if you like today's episode, First of all, thank you.
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Please look free to like, rate, subscribe, to do all
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01:07:57.320 --> 01:07:59.920
the things that one does where pods are cast. Y'all,
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01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:04.519
we thank you so much for pushing me in this
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01:08:04.599 --> 01:08:07.559
episode with your comments in the post episode chat. I
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01:08:07.599 --> 01:08:10.480
really had to dig deep here and I am always
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so grateful to be in conversation with you. I cannot
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wait to be in more conversation with you. In the
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01:08:15.119 --> 01:08:19.520
post episode chat, y'all, we only have two more episodes
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01:08:19.560 --> 01:08:23.600
on Dumbledore. What a time to be alive. I cannot
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01:08:23.600 --> 01:08:25.840
wait to continue this conversation with you. I know some
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01:08:25.920 --> 01:08:27.560
of these takes might have been a little bit spicy
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01:08:27.600 --> 01:08:29.079
and so I know that many of you will have
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01:08:29.119 --> 01:08:31.399
things to say. I cannot wait to hear what you
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01:08:31.520 --> 01:08:33.680
have to say. If you haven't joined us on Patreon,
956
01:08:33.720 --> 01:08:35.439
please free to do so at patreon dot com, slash
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01:08:35.479 --> 01:08:39.079
go to Coo Magic Theory. Until then, be critical and
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01:08:39.119 --> 01:08:46.479
stay magical, my friends. By