I had a wonderful time last night at a Camden County Librarary (Vorhees, NJ). The facility was beautiful, the crowd was friendly and knowledgeable, and we had a long talk about Deathly Hallows. I had just received a box of my new book, The Deathly Hallows Lectures, for Convention Alley 2008 and reviewers (really, uncorrected proofs) — and the folks there bought almost all we had on hand.
Today I’m packing up my things for the long drive to Ottawa tonight and finishing up my PowerPoint talks for those lectures. Travis Prinzi of the HogPro sister site, Hog’s Head.org, is a Featured Speaker at Convention Alley 2008 as well and has plans for a pod cast from Ottawa sometime this weekend. Please check in here and there for updates from the other side of the Great Lakes tomorrow and Saturday!
Congratulations on being chosen one of the Keynote speakers for Convention Alley 2008!
I know that you and Travis from ‘Hogs Head’ will be informative and an inspiration on the internal symbolism and meaning of ‘Deathly Hallows’ and the Harry Potter saga. Take another box (or two) of your new book,
‘Deathly Hallows Lectures’ with you John. I have a feeling their going sell as fast as ‘Defence against the Dark Arts’ books at Flourish & Blots!
Prayers for safe travels.
Knock ’em out in Ottawa John!
Just read about the title of your talk on Snape and Dante.
As the young now say:
Sick.
Dear John,
I am venturing from my hermitage to tell you how much I enjoyed your Snape and Dante talk last night. It was a pure delight (the part about the symbolism behind the Deathly Hallows alone was sheer bliss). I can hardly express what a blessing it was to hear your profound interpretation of the Potter novels. And, I agreed with you about the connection between the story and Dante. Snape saw paradise, indeed! How glorious.
I have added your website to the list of links on my own website. God bless you always. Do take care and rest.
Red Rocker, I’m puzzled. What do you mean saying John’s title “Snape’s Green-Eyed Girl” is “sick”? Had Severus made better decisions in his youth, Lily may very well have been his green-eyed girl. In his eyes she still was.
Are you making a joke?
The green-eyed kitties want to know…
The clue, Arabella, was Red Rocker’s “as the young now say.”
“Sick” now means “rad, cool, Excellent!” according to dictionaries of the vernacular, much as “wicked” years ago took on the meaning of “very good.”
Thucydides noted that a polis was about to collapse when words took on meanings opposite to their originals. Sick, indeed…
Well, decreptitude and lack of time to look up the current argot definition of “sick” showed my own lack of “sickitude,” didn’t it?
Thanks for clarifying, you “sick, sick, sick” Professor. I’m glad your address went so well.
The kitties are way sick, but in their case it means hairballs…
Sick as in awesome, brilliant, or in a really twisted use of the word, dope.
I meant not as much the talk itself – which I’m pretty sure was also all those things – but the title, which captures a fistful of concepts in three, well-chosen words.
Flash of pure genius.
The Snape-Dante talk itself was “sick.” Great stuff.
Convention Alley 2008 had three notable events that may make it worthy of note if anyone writes a history of Hogwarts scholarship.
First, all three Keynote Speakers quite deliberately tried to lay down markers about how to think most profitably and surely about the series. Dr. Karen Kebarle discussed the limits of an author’s authority, Travis Prinzi presented his thoughts on the Potter epic as political fairy tale, and I tried to explain both the five keys and the three layers of meaning in the series.
Second, to my surprise, I think all three of us hit our marks. Dr. Kebarle, quite against her expectations, found that textual analysis does not permit the reader to accept that Dumbledore was gay unless s/he reads the book as an intentionalist, i.e., someone who acknowledges the author as the sole arbiter of meaning even post-publication. Mr. Prinzi’s talk on Fabian elements in the series and Ms. Rowling’s libertarianism was the highlight of the conference for me because it threw so much light on the didactic quality of her book just below the story line. My talk, if it did what I hoped it would, established that in addition to her surface story and didactic meaning Ms. Rowling’s work has a transformative center and ambition that Ms. Rowling’s artistry in revealing the meaning of the “triangular eye” symbol points to.
Third, though this gathering was small and only for “Grown-Ups,” all of its keynote presentations were “text-only” and about the effect of the text’s artistry and meaning on the reader. It was an excellent model for academic conferences to come, sans Wizard Rock bands, movie marathons, or slash symposia.
Mr. Prinzi’s book will be out this fall, mine should be available next month (there are only a few copies left of the Convention Alley “uncorrected proof” edition Zossima Press printed), and Dr. Kebarle is looking for a publisher. The Convention Alley 2008 event was huge, in brief, in its contribution to understanding of these books post Deathly Hallows and its example about what a “serious reader” conference can be. I am very grateful for the opportunity they gave me to be there and to speak.
You write that Karen Kaberle
“found that textual analysis does not permit the reader to accept that Dumbledore was gay unless s/he reads the book as an intentionalist, i.e., someone who acknowledges the author as the sole arbiter of meaning even post-publication.”
Them’s fighting words.
Any chance of getting a written copy of her talk so we can take a look at it and weigh her arguments?
Forgive me for bringing up the language issue again one last time. John, you wrote “Thucydides noted that a polis was about to collapse when words took on meanings opposite to their originals. Sick, indeed…”
In the past couple days, I’ve been mulling over words turned on their heads, i.e., now meaning their opposite. I’m familiar with “bad,” “wicked” (used in Potter) and “dope.” “Sick” was obviously new to me.
I find slang colorful and interesting, and enjoy evolving language, even if some terms emerge from undesirable origins (most eventually lose that stigma). Certainly, language is now evolving more quickly than ever. But if the most basically understood “shared terms” language (especially that applying to moral/spiritual issues) becomes unstable, how do we meaningfully communicate? Language becomes shifting sand, its bedrock broken.
If no one had been able to explain “sick,” it would have remained a complete disconnect for me. With that rolling around my cranium, I came across the following quote yesterday. Amazing, the timing:
If language is not correct,
then what is said is not what is meant;
if what is said is not meant,
then what ought to be done remains undone;
if this remains undone,
then morals and art deteriorate;
if morals and art deteriorate,
justice will go astray;
if justice goes astray,
the people will stand about in helpless confusion.
Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said.
This matters above everything.
–Confucius
When the kitties say “meow,” they mean…well, who knows?
John said, “Dr. Kebarle, quite against her expectations, found that textual analysis does not permit the reader to accept that Dumbledore was gay unless s/he reads the book as an intentionalist, i.e., someone who acknowledges the author as the sole arbiter of meaning even post-publication.”
Ohh, that won’t sit well with some people. But hey, at least we’re still free to disagree on these matters. Any chance that any of these papers will be available from Convention Alley? I’d love to read all three.
In regard to Dr. Kebarle’s presentation, did she start off with a different hypothesis & then through examination disprove it or come to another conclusion? That’s the sense I’m taking from your statement, John, that “quite against her expectations” she found what she found.
John said, “Third, though this gathering was small and only for “Grown-Ups,” all of its keynote presentations were “text-only” and about the effect of the text’s artistry and meaning on the reader. It was an excellent model for academic conferences to come, sans Wizard Rock bands, movie marathons, or slash symposia.”
I quite agree with you, John. The more fanboyish qualities of the fandom will eventually wind down as we move further away from any continual stimulation from new material being released. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with Wizard Rock, fan fiction (although I don’t quite go for slash; I still think good fan fiction has to be based somewhat on reality & be congruent with the original text), & the movies. But I think it will become more muted while more scholarly analysis of the HP series will continue for a long time.
Arabella,
Great quote from Confucius! I think he’s on the right track. Language is meant to communicate & thus it needs to be clear what is being communicated. Because otherwise, as you note, we can either become uncertain of a word’s meaning or confused or deceived by it. This is why Lutheran are often seen as being too picky & kill joys when we always ask “what does this mean?” Because words mean things & to be clear on what’s being said & what’s being communicated we have to be clear on the words. Words & languages can change but we still have to be clear on definitions or else we risk losing the ability to communicate with each other.
BTW, from all I’ve read, “meow” is a learned behaviour on the part of cats, which is used specifically for interaction with humans.
Thank you, John. It sounds most interesting. I hope she can find a publisher for her work. Hopefully we can see some snippets of it beforehand, though. Thanks again.
In regard to Dr. Kebarle’s presentation, did she start off with a different hypothesis & then through examination disprove it or come to another conclusion? That’s the sense I’m taking from your statement, John, that “quite against her expectations” she found what she found.
My understanding was that she set out to demonstrate that the text revealed Dumbledore as a gay man but found that, instead, this possibility was suggested in the books only to a mind prepared or predisposed to this conclusion (as we all were after Ms. Rowling’s Carnegie Hall Q&A). I disagreed strongly with Dr. Kebarle’s interpretation of John Mark Reynold’s essays on the subject of her talk but I learned a great deal from her exposition of how to approach the problem and had to admire her conclusion — not only because I agree with it but because she came to it despite her “guiding idea” and distaste for others who had arrived at the same idea from what she thinks was the wrong direction. (She gets my nomination for this year’s ‘Nat Hentoff Award.’)
I think Travis Prinzi may have a copy of this talk and I know he was in better condition than I was to remember what Dr. Kebarle, her PhD from UC Berkeley, said and didn’t say. If I can get her permission, I will post the four approaches part of her talk that helped me understand the options we have as reader/interpreters: Intentionalism, Textualism, Psychoanalysis, and Reader-response. If I can’t, I hope Herr Prinzi will comment here or start a thread at http://www.theHogsHead.org on what he remembers of Dr. Kebarle’s talk.
“Because words mean things & to be clear on what’s being said & what’s being communicated we have to be clear on the words. Words & languages can change but we still have to be clear on definitions or else we risk losing the ability to communicate with each other.”
– Revgeorge
I completely agree, and that’s an issue which has been a recurring irritaion throughout my education. It’s alright to maintain that we should pronounce words clearly and use grammar, but the flip side of that coin
is that we need to keep up with the times. It’s been over a century, and yet words such as “ya’ll” and “ain’t” from my own area of the US are still not accepted by grammar teachers, even if they are by some dictionaries. Not only are most people quite aware of what they mean and how they are used, but ya’ll is a great improvement on english, as we do not have another second person plural. So, while it is good to try to maintain order in our language, there are definitely cases where we could stand to loosen up a bit.
It’s been longer than a century for the term “ain’t”, Gladius Terrae Novae. Wikipedia traces the usage back to the seventeenth century – it first appeared in print in 1685. Wikipedia goes on to say:
“Critics say frequent use of ain’t is a marker of basilectal — which is to say, “vulgate” or “common speech” . The same applies for using i’n’it (normally written as innit) instead of “isn’t it”. There is little justification for this judgment on etymological or grammatical grounds, but it remains a widespread belief that the word is “not a word” or “incorrect”.
But back to the need for clarity in language. Words have many meanings, which are often dependent on context. New meanings enter the language, old meanings become obsolete. Different sub-cultures introduce new usage. Here’s Michael Quinion on how words enter the Englsh language:
“In the world of today’s lexicography, usage is king. We are, in the language of the business, descriptive dictionary makers: we record, we collate, we analyse, and we describe what people actually say and write. If enough English speakers decide that some word or phrase has value, to the extent that those who encounter it are likely to need to consult the dictionary in search of its meaning, then it is put into new editions. Not always very quickly — there is merit in taking one’s time to build up a picture of usage and so avoid being misled by temporary enthusiasms and short-lived fashion. And if enough speakers decide that a word no longer means what the dictionaries say it means but something else entirely, then we have to note that, too. You may feel that such changes amount to misuse — and certainly terms do change because of ignorance or misunderstandings — but that’s largely irrelevant to the job of the dictionary maker….
No huddles of earnest scholars, debating the current crop of neologisms (like bonkbuster) and marking them with the tick of official acceptance or the cross of oblivion. Just a number of individual dictionary editors, trying to make sense of an inchoate mass of material thrown up by shifts in fashion, personal usage, inventive genius, new technologies, and a dozen other factors. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.”
Reminds me of an old Barney Miller episode where a professor of English is arrested for trying to destroy a fast food restaurant’s billboard because it has improper grammar & made up words on it.
I have great respect for those who go into a subject with an original supposition and, through meticulous research, find themselves at odds with it. I especialy admire those willing to admit their changed view and share their methodology with others, who can then apply it to their own research. So my hat’s off to Dr. Kebarle. I look forward to peeks at her paper.
The conference sounds as if it was wonderful, without fancon distractions. I agree that HP fandom is historically branching into scholarship and fanboy stuff, with scholarship the keenest legacy.
Yes, RevGeorge, feral cats don’t use verbal communication with each other; meowing is a result of human bonding. Our muggle tabby is incredibly chatty; wish I knew Catonese.
Gladius TN, you cite two interesting examples of usage–y’all and ain’t. Dictionaries list both words due to common usage, not because they’re grammatically proper. Just as they include socially unacceptable vulgar terms.
“Ya’ll” is a contraction by charming Southern drawl of “you all.” So I’d consider it an acceptable word in casual context. There are words for second person plural–you, everyone, everybody, folks, girls, guys, etc. In the loosening up department we have the ubiquitous, slangy “you guys” (irrespective of gender). However, the sometimes colorful “ain’t” isn’t a legitimate contraction for anything (no specific “are not” or “is not” in there).
Dudes! The kitties invite y’all to come over for some kitty meow therapy sometime…
“In regard to Dr. Kebarle’s presentation, did she start off with a different hypothesis & then through examination disprove it or come to another conclusion? That’s the sense I’m taking from your statement, John, that “quite against her expectations” she found what she found.”
Precisely. John is correct; she’s textualist by training, so she thought she’d take up John Mark Reynolds’ statement according to the text alone, apart from Rowling’s interpretation, Dumbledore is not gay, and prove him wrong from the text. She said she thought it would be “easy” to prove Dumbledore was gay from the text, and has changed her mind. She actually changed the name of her talk from “Dumbledore is Gay” to “Is Dumbledore Gay?” In fact, she’s giving the same talk at Portus in Dallas this July, and the proposal reads like this:
Dumbledore is Gay
Karen Kabarle
In October 2007, JK Rowling created uproar by saying in an interview that she always thought of Dumbledore as gay. While many fans cheered, some readers quickly said there was no textual evidence that the wizard was gay. John Mark Reynolds went farther, declaring, “Dumbledore is not gay.” He writes: “There is no evidence of it in the books, and the books (at this point) are all that matter.” In a second article, he argues that Dumbledore is not heterosexual either, that his sexuality is not mentioned in the books and is therefore irrelevant. In this presentation, Ms. Kabarle will take up Reynold’s challenge and goes to the texts. She specifically examines Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
She said she’s had to change her talk since writing this proposal, because the evidence that she thought was there wasn’t really as obvious as she had thought.
I comment briefly on the 4 ways of reading a text in my forthcoming podcast, which will be posted at The Hog’s Head later today. The 4 ways aren’t anything new to the Pub’s patrons, nor to the Hog-Pro All-Pros, I assume, but they were organized very well and in an understandable way. At The Hog’s Head, we went through all four of them, whether we realized it or not, in the days and weeks following the Carnegie Hall event.
I’ll try to post more at the pub when I have time.
Arabella of the Cantonese cat:
According to what I’ve read, “ain’t” is not gramatically unsound. It actually represents “am not” and has been used for hundreds of years. Wikipedia even says that it serves a very useful function at the beginning of a question. “Ain’t I the cat’s meow?” is more correct than “Aren’t I the cat’s meow?”, which you can see if you break both questions down: “Is it not true that I am the cat’s meow?” vs “Is it not true that I are the cat’s meow?”
Ain’t got it’s bad rep in the 19th century:
“During the nineteenth century, with the rise of prescriptivist usage writers, ain’t fell under attack. The attack came on two fronts: usage writers did not know or pretended not to know what ain’t was a contraction of, and its use was condemned as a vulgarism — a part of speech used by the lower classes.[6] . … Most prescriptive usage writers continue to condemn use of the word in an unselfconscious way.”
In an overdue blow against the prescriptivists of the 19th century, confident in our knowledge of correct usage, and without the smallest trace of selfconsciousness, I
propose that we rehabilitate the term.
I ain’t afraid to say I ain’t.
Red Rocker said, “In an overdue blow against the prescriptivists of the 19th century, confident in our knowledge of correct usage, and without the smallest trace of selfconsciousness, I
propose that we rehabilitate the term.
I ain’t afraid to say I ain’t.”
I agree. This unwarranted prejudice against “ain’t” cost me some points on a grammar quiz back in grade school when my teacher wouldn’t accept “ain’t” as a valid contraction. I’m still pretty steamed about it, even thirty years later. 😉
Of all the things that steam me, fairly high up are people who take satisfaction in pointing out to others that they are wrong. There are so many wrong motives for that act, and only one right one: the genuine wish to be of help.
But in an effort to rehabilitate ain’t, here are some of my all-time favorite lines from Springsteen:
Poor man wanna be rich,
rich man wanna be king
And a king ain’t satisfied
till he rules everything
Note however, he uses ain’t in the secondary sense of isn’t, which is how people started using ain’t in the 19th century in defiance of the prescriptivists.
I don’t know if your last comment referred to me, Red Rocker, but I had no arrogant “nanny” thoughts in my heart when I wrote about the term “ain’t.” Nor did I “take satisfaction” in “correcting” anyone. I simply expressed my own thoughts about these interesting and ubiquitous words. I’m a writer and think as a writer. I would use “ain’t” emphatically or in a colloquial way in an opinion column and probably have. But in writing serious copy, I wouldn’t. I don’t judge anyone who uses it and it can be used to great effect.
Ain’t gonna say no more and neither are the kitties…
Red Rocker, you wrote: “Of all the things that steam me, fairly high up are people who take satisfaction in pointing out to others that they are wrong. There are so many wrong motives for that act, and only one right one: the genuine wish to be of help.”
Could you elaborate, please? Online discussions being what they are: the written, visual thoughts displayed without the benefit of oral presentation and audio interpretation, your proclaimation quite literally jumps off the screen and hits between the eyes! I know I almost had to buy airfare for my eyebrows, they raised so high 🙂 Are you addressing a specific HogPro’s post, or was this a blanket thought intended to generally inform?
How easy for all of us to fall into the trap of generalization without qualification, only to discover our words have hit a mark not intended, and with dire consequence.
Arabella, I hope your silence is restricted to this thread only. I would miss your thoughtfully worded posts and feline facts! Please offer an extra bowl of kibble from me…
PJ
Oh dear,
I have a talent, I think, for giving offense when none was meant, through my use of sweeping overgeneralizations.
I was certainly not thinking of you – or anyone else on this or any other blog/website – when I made the comment about people who take satisfaction in correcting others. Rather, I was trying to express my sympathy for revgeorge and his childhood trauma by sharing my own pet beef.
Arabella of the Cats, you are a gentle soul – and a thoughtful commenter and writer – and only a truly rude person would ever accuse you of being judgemental or arrogant.
I didn’t mean to give that impression, and I’m sorry that I did.
Red Rocker said, “Rather, I was trying to express my sympathy for revgeorge and his childhood trauma by sharing my own pet beef.”
Thank you for the expression of sympathy, although it must not have been too traumatic since I hadn’t thought about it in such a long while & it only popped in my head when we stared a discussion of ‘ain’t.’ 🙂
I seem to remember at the time of the quiz in fourth or fifth grade, which would’ve been in the mid 70’s, I was racking my brains for one of the last proper contractions. Having recently read Tom Sawyer, I think I used the word, ’tain’t.’ Surely if an esteemed writer like Samuel Clemens would use a world like that, it must be proper! Ah well, maybe if I’d left off the t, “ain’t” would’ve been accepted. Probably not, though. 😉
Although our English teachers in school were very strict, especially in the use of the word (or actually not using it at all), I have never had a problem with someone using the word “ain’t” as long as the person was saying “I ain’t” because, as it was correctly pointed out in one of the above posts, it literally is the contraction of am not. However, those who use it incorrectly as in He ain’t or she ain’t or we ain’t, get corrected. Because of the strictness of my English teachers, I guess I am overly conscientious with grammar although I will be the first to admit that I mess it up every so often. For the most part, I never use that contraction, either.
Exiting soapbox mode…
Folks, this is Karen Kebarle. I wanted to comment on John’s description of my talk at Conventionalley, because he misread what I was saying.
John said in his June comments above: “Dr. Kebarle, quite against her expectations, found that textual analysis does not permit the reader to accept that Dumbledore was gay unless s/he reads the book as an intentionalist, i.e., someone who acknowledges the author as the sole arbiter of meaning even post-publication.”
This is not actually what I said. What I said is that I went in to the project sure I could prove, using the text alone, that Dumbledore was gay, and found that although there are many hints, many moments that could suggest he is gay, there is nothing rock solid that will convince everyone. I concede in my talk that there is no incontestable evidence, but I go on to say: “I see subtle moments in the text suggesting that he is (gay), and added to Rowling’s statements about her book, I believe that Dumbledore was infatuated with Grindelwald. I believe, at the very least, that the text leaves this possibility open.”
John’s formulation of what the text permits helped me rephrase my idea. Here it is: The text permits readers to see Dumbledore as gay and in love with Grindelwald, to read some of his words that way, but it also permits readers to see him as straight, and friends with Grindelwald I believe that Rowling meant him to be gay but meant the text to be ambiguous..she says in an interview that some “sensitive adult” readers would see it and some, especially children, would see just a friendship.
In contrast, while Rowling says Dumbledore got on board with Grindelwald’s Voldemort-like plan for muggle domination because he fell in love, I argue that the text says that it was due to his own power and ambition. I think that Rowling changed her mind between writing Deathly Hallows and giving these interviews. Why she did, I’m still working on.
Best wishes,
Karen.
Karen,
Your conclusion about the nature of Dumbledore’s attraction to Grindelwald is in line with mine, that the text allows us to interpret the relationship either way. She’s pretty good at that, our JKR, at having her cake and eating it too. It’s not the only time she does this, using words carefully selected to be capable of interpretation to mean two different things: Dumbledore is gay/not gay; King’s Cross happens in Harry’s head / happens in objective reality.
It doesn’t really bother me, this unwillingess to commit herself, we don’t lose anything by it, I think. It does say a lot about the author’s needs, however, that she won’t commit herself.
I’m interested in your second conclusion, that the text is clear that Dumbledore wanted to dominate Muggles for its own sake, and not because he fell in love. This is the passage I return to:
“Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution.”
If I were to read this without the extra-textual information, I’d say that Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald’s ideas. It sounds as if the ideas were welcome to him, because he was already predisposed to see himself as superman and Muggles as inferiors. Also, this would not only give him the power he felt was due to him but free him from taking care of hs sister. Thus Grindelwald’s ideas landed on fertile ground.
But the text does not suggest that left to his own Dumbledore would have acted on them. And in fact, Dumbledore never did act on those ideas.
I don’t think it’s possible to separate the man from his ideas. Or the ideas from the man. I think Dumbledore fell in love with the total package, subsequently fell out of love with the total package.
So to my mind, it’s not so much that JKR changed her mind, but that the distinction was not clearly made in the first place. JKR didn’t start out by saying: “Grindelwald offerred Dumbledore the dream of world domination he’d always wanted,” only to later change to: “Dumbledore wanted world domination because he fell in love with Grindelwald”. I think that she started out by saying: “Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald’s mad dreams of world domination” with the subtext: “along with Grindelwald himself”. And later changed to: “Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, along with his mad dreams of world domination”. No subtext. Very little difference between the two positions, I think.
Does this make sense?
Glad you got to read my take, RR, as our views are closer than you’d thought.
The key point for me is that JKR says it was love, ie love for G, that made Dumbledore lose his moral compass, go along with G’s ideas. She parallels his story to Bellatrix’s, and says they are both about the danger of love.
But I don’t think that’s the story the text tells. The text tells the story of the danger of power. Dumbledore is obsessed, not with Grindelwald, even if he loves him, but with the Deathly Hallows. The story never shows him going along with G’s evil plans out of love or fear of losing that love….whereas Bellatrix is quick to agree to murder Tonks, her relative, in order to please Voldemort and gain his favour.
P.S.: I like your point that Dumbledore fell for the ideas, and wouldn’t have had them on his own. Yes, the ideas inflamed him…the word “inflamed” creates such a powerful image of what happened to Dumbledore.
Karen K.
Very glad to hear from you, Karen. I think your delineation is fine work.
We must also remember why Dumbledore was so inflamed against Muggles. Muggles had attacked and permanently damaged his beloved sister. His father had been sent to Azkaban, where he died, because he nearly killed the Muggle kids. The family was uprooted from their home and dysfunction reigned.
Dumbledore’s lust for revenge must have been fierce, however he rationalized it as for the common good. Thus he would have certainly embraced the charismatic Grindelwald. And Albus’ enthusiam for Grindelwald’s companionable ideas could certainly have been projected to Grindelwald himself. As you and Red Rocker point out, and as Dumbledore himself tells Harry, it was the twisted idealism that consumed him. The death of his sister was his wake-up call. Gay or straight, this could play both ways.
Thank heavens kitties don’t have idealism, just ideas…
Well, Bella, for all her murderous proclivities, is a woman. And women are more likely than men to go along with someone they love, in order to preserve the relationships, even if it goes against their moral standards. There are very few female serial murderers, for example; of the few women who have been convicted of this, most were involved because they were helping a boy friend or a husband. However, I don’t know that we ever got evidence that Bella went against her own moral standards in doing what she did to please Voldemort. Like Dumbledore and Grindelwald, I suspect Voldemort’s teachings fell on fertile ground with Bella.
You’re right: the story doesn’t show Dumbeldore going along with Grindelwald’s evil plans out of love (or fear of losing that love). The ideas themselves “inflame” him. Or perhaps it’s the image of him and Grindelwald together “the glorious young leaders of the revolution”. Not “Dumbledore, the glorious young leader of the revolution”. I go back to my original point: it’s impossible to separate the influence of Grindelwald and his ideas in Dumbledore’s heart and mind.
This is really going into the realm of conjecture, but here is how I think about it: I don’t think that Dumbledore would have fallen for the ideas without the man embodying them. His vision was not of power and dominion, but of the two of them wielding power. Whether he would have fallen for the man without the ideas is more difficult to determine; I suspect not. I don’t think Dumbledore could love anyone who wasn’t his intellectual or moral equal or superior.
Which takes me to another point. I think that in some way, loving Harry was Dumbledore’s way of making up for loving Grindelwald. Grindelwald wanted power, used the Elder Wand, and killed and destroyed to get power. Harry didn’t want power, rejected the Elder Wand, and gave up his own life to save the world. Complete and clear opposites. I think that by loving Harry – and valuing Harry’s motives and actions – Dumbledore showed how much he himself has grown in maturity.
Red Rocker, I agree with what you say. Grindelwald was certainly the match to Dumbledore’s flame. In fact, he was a huge woodpile.
You write: ” I think that in some way, loving Harry was Dumbledore’s way of making up for loving Grindelwald….”
While there’s a lot to be said for this, and you make eloquent points, I think Dumbledore’s respecting, loving and protecting Muggles, as well as his defense and inclusion of outsiders (including Slytherins) and the despised, for the rest of his life, was his penance for Grindelwald.
But in Harry, he found a positive doppelganger–one whose decisions truly were for the good; one who might have been himself, had he been stronger. Perhaps DD’s brilliance stood in his own way; Harry, operating on heart, rather than brilliance, was able to achieve what DD couldn’t.
Now, cats are brilliant, as anyone who knows them can tell you. But they’re lovers, too…
Arabella, that’s exactly the term I was looking for: “positive doppelganger”.
I agree that Dumbledore’s redemption (which I prefer to penance) was larger than loving Harry. But loving Harry was symbolic of his recognition of what was truly important in life, even to a mighty wizard like him. I look at Grindelwald and Harry as book-ends to Dumbledore’s life. There is a statement, in OotP, which really brings this out for me. Sirius Black is dead. Harry and Dumbledore are in the study. Harry is angry. Dumbledore is making his half-cocked “confession”:
“What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have sucn a person on my hands.”
The first time he had “such a person” in his hands, Dumbledore almost went very, very bad because that person was bad. The second time, Dumbledore did good, because the person he loved was good, and made all the right choices.