Decisions and influences in Harry Potter

[kerravonsen]

This all started because I was pondering Dumbledore, and "What was he thinking?"
I still don't know what he was thinking, but it's been fun making this huge diagram about various people's decisions in HP. I love GraphViz.

http://www.katspace.org/fandom/harry_potter/Decisions/

What do y'all think? I know I haven't covered everything, but hey, it's something.

ETA: I've now split the big diagram into four separate diagrams. Hopefully that makes it easier to follow.

Comments

[innerslytherin]

I've often wondered myself what the heck Dumbledore was thinking, but I've never realized just how many disasters can be attributed to him. LOL

Not a Ddore fan here, particularly...

[kerravonsen]

I don't dislike Dumbledore, but he wasn't as wise as he appeared to be. He meant well, and he did good things, but he also made a number of mistakes. And unlike Snape, he didn't learn from his mistakes.

Oh, he regretted his sister's death enormously, and it did lead to him turning away from Grindelwald, which lead to Grindelwald's defeat, so he sort of learned from that error. But only partially. I say "only partially" because... it seems rather hypocritical for him to turn down being Minister of Magic because he felt he couldn't be trusted with power (because of his sister) and then turn around and accept the Headmastership of Hogwarts, a position of power over children, the very kind of person he let down originally. Albeit it was many years later, so he'd doubtless regained his confidence by then.

With his other mistakes, he either never acknowledges that it was a mistake in the first place, or he expresses mild regret over it many years later, but doesn't change his ways at all. He treated Tom Riddle badly, he treated Snape badly, he treated Harry half-badly and half-well.

I wonder... I wonder if his difficulty in dealing with "dark" young men stems from his involvement with Grindelwald, in that he couldn't trust his own judgement, and so overcompensated in one way and another. After all, both Grindelwald and Tom Riddle were charismatic and personable sorts who made it very easy to follow them, and very hard to see where they were wrong unless one's moral compass was very strong. And I'm not really sure about Dumbledore's moral compass. Oh, he talked about the power of love, but I suspect that he never really let go of his ideal "for the Greater Good"; that he still wanted to protect the poor Muggles for their own good; he had just changed the means rather than the ends. He also had the disadvantage that he himself was charismatic and gained very loyal followers who tended to be yes-men; the Order of the Phoenix suffered from Groupthink, which meant that Dumbledore didn't have anyone around him to challenge his way of thinking.

He meant well. That's why I dislike stories which take Dumbledore-bashing to the extreme that he didn't mean well: he did mean well, and it's character assassination to say that he didn't. But stories where he means well but does bad things for the sake of the "greater good", those seem plausible enough to me.

[innerslytherin]

I wonder if his difficulty in dealing with "dark" young men stems from his involvement with Grindelwald, in that he couldn't trust his own judgement, and so overcompensated in one way and another.

Yes - this makes perfect sense.

I definitely agree he meant well. But of course, good intentions pave the pathway to hell. Something that really bothered me in the books was the way Harry seemed to believe Dumbledore was good and wise and knew better than anyone else. Dumbledore did mean well, but he made as many mistakes as anyone else, and his mistakes had much worse (and far-reaching) consequences than the mistakes most people make.

But I agree, he wasn't out there manipulating people just for the fun of it.

[kerravonsen]

Something that really bothered me in the books was the way Harry seemed to believe Dumbledore was good and wise and knew better than anyone else.

How could he not, though? That was the image that Dumbledore projected. Plus the fact that Harry was hungry for a father-figure that he could trust, and he latched on to Dumbledore to fill that role.

[innerslytherin]

You're right, and I didn't articulate well what I meant. I think what made me angry was actually that Dumbledore let Harry feel that way, and even encouraged it. And not just Harry, for that matter. I guess that's a very human flaw, that Dumbledore wanted to be admired. Everyone does, I think. But I think that was what made me angriest at Dumbledore - not that he made mistakes, but that he projected that air of not having made mistakes, until he couldn't avoid telling his sordid past.

Of course, I'm also quite a few years removed from having read the last two books, and I never did reread book 7, I disliked it so much. I keep thinking one of these days I'll reread the series. I've been recovering a lot of my original love for the Wizarding world. :)

[kerravonsen]

not that he made mistakes, but that he projected that air of not having made mistakes
I'm not sure that it's solely because he wanted to be admired; I think part of it would be that he felt that as a leader, such an aura was required in order to inspire his followers, to give them confidence.

[watervole]

I have a feeling that site could be hellishly useful in helping me notate morris dances, but I haven't a clue where to start. If you feel like giving me a call sometime (happy to phone you back), then maybe you could talk me through it?

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Impressive! The only snag is that, without better eyesight and possibly a better monitor and graphics card, I can't use a screen resolution which would let it all fit into one screenful. And when you have to scroll right it's hard to keep track of everything.

[kerravonsen]

I don't think it could be helped. Other layout algorithms used by GraphViz ended up even less readable. And I wanted it all on one diagram, which means it's going to be big...

Hmmm.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sure that you're right that it couldn't be helped.

[kerravonsen]

I'm having a go at splitting it into more than one diagram; some parts can be split out, like the stuff with Albus and Grindelwald. I'll see how I go.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[kerravonsen]

It's now split into four diagrams; is that easier to decipher?

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's a lot better. The annotations inside the "bubbles" seem to be in very large type. Is it possible to reduce the font size, which would allow the diagrams to be more compact, or is it imposed by the application?

[kerravonsen]

I'll have to look into that; I don't know if it's possible to alter the font-size or not, or whether that would reduce the size of the graphs either. Stay tuned.

[kerravonsen]

Done! I also tweaked some of the labels so that they're on two lines instead of one. Now it should be more compact.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's much better.

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

Looks good. Your conclusion?:-)

[kerravonsen]

Dumbledore shouldn't have gone into teaching.