Deathly Hallows uberwank: Chapter 18, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
Having posted the last chapter, I realised I had made a grievous error. I had reported that we learn of Bathilda Bagshot's death, but I failed to mark this tragic event - the death of a random character we've never properly met before - in the appropriate manner. Please allow me to do so now, and I hope you will accept my apologies.
Originally, pretty much all I had to say about this chapter was, "Dumbledore and Grindelwald, they were totally shagging, y/y?" and that's not even funny any more, because they actually were, or near enough anyway. I mean, that's pretty cool, but it's left me with even less to say. All that Harry does in this one is go camping and read a book. Boring. In fact, he doesn't even go camping. He stays in what is nominally a tent, but which contains a proper kitchen and actual beds.
When I was 19 I spent a couple of months as a camp counsellor in Pennsylvania. (I would insert a comment here along the lines of the lyrics to the camp song or "Go Manatees!" or whatever, but I don't feel an awful lot of affection for the place so I won't.) Anyway, the "camping" that went on there was unlike any camping I've done before or since. We slept in large cabins with lockable doors, hot showers, bunkbeds, flushing toilets and mosquito-proof netting at the windows. Granted, the lockable doors made sense considering there were bears in the woods, but still.
Moreover, most of the kids had brought all manner of luxuries with them - stuff like Gameboys, polaroid cameras, CD walkmans - and many received at least one huge package from home during their stay, often containing sweets, books, toys, quilts, and things that could be traded with other kids in exchange for social standing (they were all really into lanyard the year I was there, which is plastic string that you braid into friendship bands and things, similar to that scoubidou stuff that UK kids were into a couple of years back).
Even the nicest of those kids would regularly make comments about how tough it was out here in the woods and how tiring it was living like that and how they were really roughing it and living the simple life and all that. This meant not having hired help to pick up after them.
Once or twice during the camp season, campers got taken on "all-nighters", which involved being driven a couple of miles up the road in a minibus, cooking their own food (which even then meant heating up ready-made sauce, boiling pasta, and sprinkling garlic powder on bread for toasting, for some reason), telling ghost stories, going on a moonlit walk, watching for bats, and finally sleeping in an actual tent. I have a vivid memory of one girl throwing a right wobbly because she couldn't bring her Gameboy with her on one of these excursions.
That's roughly the level of "roughing it" that Harry and Hermione are at here.
A couple of times, a bear came to camp. That was badass.
OK, so we might as well do the events of this chapter, I guess. We start with Harry angsting over the loss of his penis wand, which, you will recall, snapped in the last chapter. Srsly, the text bangs on about how Harry feels all naked and vulnerable and emasculated and stuff, and how he can just tell Hermione is going to try and make him feel better by pointing out it's what you do with it that counts or something. Finally, he pulls his wand out of his pocket and tucks it into Hagrid's magic pouch. I'll do what JKR wasn't strong enough to do, and resist making any dirty jokes. Fish in a barrel, my friends.
Harry then sets about providing the reader with His Thoughts On Dumbledore, reflecting that Dumbledore was a) mean and b) useless, specifically because he left our intrepid trio NO FUCKING CLUES WHATSOEVER. This continues until Hermione brings Harry some tea and a copy of Rita Skeeter's Dumbledore biography.
Now, my BA was in social psychology, but I took a module of clinical in my third year, and I remember reading about the dilemma facing therapists who treat OCD sufferers - because the therapist's role should be at least partly to reduce distress and suffering in the client, but the best way of doing this - say, in a person who obsessively checks the lights - is to show them the lights really have been switched off. The problem with this, of course, is that doing so ultimately underlines and reinforces their belief that the lights need to be checked and that doing so will make them feel better. And of course this goes for all the "recurring" parts of OCD, which in many sufferers includes ruminating or obsessing on a given topic. This can be extended out to other conditions, such as generalised anxiety, etc.
I think my point is, Hermione bringing Harry a book that slags off Dumbledore at a time like this is not going to help.
Harry reads it anyway. Of course, the main OMFG!!!!! that comes out of it is that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were best friends, and when we say "best friends" we mean "shagging". Hell yeah!
Actually, since I haven't got so much to say about the chapter, I suppose this is a good opportunity to revisit the whole Dumbledore is gay thing.
In many ways I don't see it as the massive cop-out some seem to, but mainly because I don't think there's a really good argument to support that. I don't buy any of the stuff about, oh, how convenient that this emerged after her final book had been released - because I don't see how she could have included Dumbledore being gay pre-book seven without either making it seem tokenish and irrelevant or giving away the whole Grindelwald subplot that emerges here. In many ways I really like this subplot, even if it is thrown into canon more or less to fill up space while they're camping, because I like the notion of Harry losing faith in his mentor. (Hey, it happened to Luke Skywalker, albeit on a smaller scale, in Return of the Jedi: "A certain point of view!?") And in some ways, I think if Dumbledore's sexuality had come out in this book, many of the same people would have made exactly the same criticism: "it's very convenient she released this in her final book!" and so on.
However, this doesn't mean I don't think it should have been included - I don't mind as much as some do that this came out (as it were) in an interview, but at the same time it's not hard to see a variety of ways in which it could have been made clearer (and I don't mean have Dumbledore call everyone "duckie" or something stupid like that). Take the letter from the young Albus Dumbledore that we see in this chapter:
Gellert -
Your point about wizard dominance being FOR THE MUGGLES' OWN GOOD - this, I think, is the crucial point. Yes, we have been given power and, yes, that power gives us the right to rule, but it also gives us responsibilities over the ruled. Hey, it's kind of like Spider-Man, great power and great responsibility and all that. LOL! Anyway, we should totally stress this point, especially when haters try to take us down an' shit. We seize control FOR THE GREATER GOOD. And from this it follows that where we meet resistance, we must use only the pwnage that is necessary and no more. (This was your mistake at Durmstrang, LOL! But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
Albus
If JKR had wanted to, she could have ended that letter like this:
... But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
Albus
x
Or like this:
... But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
I love you,
Albus
Or even like this:
... But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
By the way, when we meet tomorrow I shall fuck you senseless.
Albus
So it's not like it would have been impossible to include. But, ultimately, in some ways what JKR could have done isn't the issue. Because the main thing is this - yeah, JKR could have made Dumbledore's sexuality more obvious in the books, and I'd argue she should have. However - she also should have made Harry and Ginny's romantic relationship more natural and genuine; she should have made Dobby less kickable; she should have resolved loose ends properly rather than gloss over them or dismiss them with "a wizard did it"; she should have thought more carefully about the assumptions underlying the sorting ceremony or the implications of teaching particular subjects; I could go on. So the issue here is really that JKR's writing simply isn't as good as it needs to be to effectively convey the character-driven stuff she wants to be there, and that's the case whether we're talking about an issue like the portrayal of gay characters, which is guaranteed to cause a heated debate, or something minor like why Hermione wasn't put in Ravenclaw or whatever.
... Wow. Now that was a tangent and a half. So, back to the chapter, I guess. In that book Harry was reading, it's also revealed that Grindelwald was Bathilda Bagshot's great-nephew - which leads me right into another tangent where I go wait wait wait how old was she? Even if we go by the lowest possible canon age for Dumbledore and therefore Grindelwald (115, according to JKR's website), and even if we assumed that Bathilda and young Gellert were members of a family known for teenage pregnancies or that Bathilda was much younger than her sibling or sibling-in-law who was Gellert's parent - she'd still have to have been, what, 140, 150? And I doubt she was an especially young great-aunt, considering that in this chapter she refers to Albus and Gellert as "brilliant young boys", so she was clearly old enough to consider them "young boys" when they were in their late teens, and therefore not like 35 or something.
And yet, in a few chapters' time when we get to listen to that fucking godawful radio programme, they express shock and sadness that she's dead.
JKR blows at maths.
Uh... what else. Oh, man. This is so, so boring.
Right, finally, Harry finishes reading, and immediately goes into screensaver mode, i.e. wangsting. At one point the text actually says, "All was ashes". That's the sort of thing I used to put in my - ahem - "lyrics" when I was about 15 and be massively, massively proud of. (The next line would invariably be something like "And I'll ruminate on your bourgeois aesthetics". The thesaurus function in Word is very useful, isn't it.) Hermione tries to cheer Harry up by telling him that "for the greater good" was carved over the entrance to Grindelwald's wizard prison, which was called Nurmengard. Ha! mike_smith, who is doing something similar to the Uberwank only about a million times better and funnier, had it spot on when he said, "OK, I think we're laying on the World War II analogies a little thick. Nurmengard. What, does Adolf Saruman run the place?" I can't top that, frankly.
The chapter goes on for like another two pages, and Harry uses that space wisely, angsting so hard that at one point a flock of birds actually takes flight in fear of his angst. (No, really. Bottom of page 294.) Hermione tries to make him STFU by telling him Dumbledore loved him, but Harry recognises that Dumbledore probably loved Grindelwald way more than he loved Harry. Well, no shit. I don't think Harry realises they were having the sex and all that. I think he probably imagines that they spent their time the way he and Dumbledore always did, perhaps with Dumbledore sitting looking serenely over his fingertips as Grindelwald had a tantrum or stuck his dick in Ginny Weasley.
Source: here
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Click to viewOriginally, pretty much all I had to say about this chapter was, "Dumbledore and Grindelwald, they were totally shagging, y/y?" and that's not even funny any more, because they actually were, or near enough anyway. I mean, that's pretty cool, but it's left me with even less to say. All that Harry does in this one is go camping and read a book. Boring. In fact, he doesn't even go camping. He stays in what is nominally a tent, but which contains a proper kitchen and actual beds.
When I was 19 I spent a couple of months as a camp counsellor in Pennsylvania. (I would insert a comment here along the lines of the lyrics to the camp song or "Go Manatees!" or whatever, but I don't feel an awful lot of affection for the place so I won't.) Anyway, the "camping" that went on there was unlike any camping I've done before or since. We slept in large cabins with lockable doors, hot showers, bunkbeds, flushing toilets and mosquito-proof netting at the windows. Granted, the lockable doors made sense considering there were bears in the woods, but still.
Moreover, most of the kids had brought all manner of luxuries with them - stuff like Gameboys, polaroid cameras, CD walkmans - and many received at least one huge package from home during their stay, often containing sweets, books, toys, quilts, and things that could be traded with other kids in exchange for social standing (they were all really into lanyard the year I was there, which is plastic string that you braid into friendship bands and things, similar to that scoubidou stuff that UK kids were into a couple of years back).
Even the nicest of those kids would regularly make comments about how tough it was out here in the woods and how tiring it was living like that and how they were really roughing it and living the simple life and all that. This meant not having hired help to pick up after them.
Once or twice during the camp season, campers got taken on "all-nighters", which involved being driven a couple of miles up the road in a minibus, cooking their own food (which even then meant heating up ready-made sauce, boiling pasta, and sprinkling garlic powder on bread for toasting, for some reason), telling ghost stories, going on a moonlit walk, watching for bats, and finally sleeping in an actual tent. I have a vivid memory of one girl throwing a right wobbly because she couldn't bring her Gameboy with her on one of these excursions.
That's roughly the level of "roughing it" that Harry and Hermione are at here.
A couple of times, a bear came to camp. That was badass.
OK, so we might as well do the events of this chapter, I guess. We start with Harry angsting over the loss of his penis wand, which, you will recall, snapped in the last chapter. Srsly, the text bangs on about how Harry feels all naked and vulnerable and emasculated and stuff, and how he can just tell Hermione is going to try and make him feel better by pointing out it's what you do with it that counts or something. Finally, he pulls his wand out of his pocket and tucks it into Hagrid's magic pouch. I'll do what JKR wasn't strong enough to do, and resist making any dirty jokes. Fish in a barrel, my friends.
Harry then sets about providing the reader with His Thoughts On Dumbledore, reflecting that Dumbledore was a) mean and b) useless, specifically because he left our intrepid trio NO FUCKING CLUES WHATSOEVER. This continues until Hermione brings Harry some tea and a copy of Rita Skeeter's Dumbledore biography.
Now, my BA was in social psychology, but I took a module of clinical in my third year, and I remember reading about the dilemma facing therapists who treat OCD sufferers - because the therapist's role should be at least partly to reduce distress and suffering in the client, but the best way of doing this - say, in a person who obsessively checks the lights - is to show them the lights really have been switched off. The problem with this, of course, is that doing so ultimately underlines and reinforces their belief that the lights need to be checked and that doing so will make them feel better. And of course this goes for all the "recurring" parts of OCD, which in many sufferers includes ruminating or obsessing on a given topic. This can be extended out to other conditions, such as generalised anxiety, etc.
I think my point is, Hermione bringing Harry a book that slags off Dumbledore at a time like this is not going to help.
Harry reads it anyway. Of course, the main OMFG!!!!! that comes out of it is that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were best friends, and when we say "best friends" we mean "shagging". Hell yeah!
Actually, since I haven't got so much to say about the chapter, I suppose this is a good opportunity to revisit the whole Dumbledore is gay thing.
In many ways I don't see it as the massive cop-out some seem to, but mainly because I don't think there's a really good argument to support that. I don't buy any of the stuff about, oh, how convenient that this emerged after her final book had been released - because I don't see how she could have included Dumbledore being gay pre-book seven without either making it seem tokenish and irrelevant or giving away the whole Grindelwald subplot that emerges here. In many ways I really like this subplot, even if it is thrown into canon more or less to fill up space while they're camping, because I like the notion of Harry losing faith in his mentor. (Hey, it happened to Luke Skywalker, albeit on a smaller scale, in Return of the Jedi: "A certain point of view!?") And in some ways, I think if Dumbledore's sexuality had come out in this book, many of the same people would have made exactly the same criticism: "it's very convenient she released this in her final book!" and so on.
However, this doesn't mean I don't think it should have been included - I don't mind as much as some do that this came out (as it were) in an interview, but at the same time it's not hard to see a variety of ways in which it could have been made clearer (and I don't mean have Dumbledore call everyone "duckie" or something stupid like that). Take the letter from the young Albus Dumbledore that we see in this chapter:
Gellert -
Your point about wizard dominance being FOR THE MUGGLES' OWN GOOD - this, I think, is the crucial point. Yes, we have been given power and, yes, that power gives us the right to rule, but it also gives us responsibilities over the ruled. Hey, it's kind of like Spider-Man, great power and great responsibility and all that. LOL! Anyway, we should totally stress this point, especially when haters try to take us down an' shit. We seize control FOR THE GREATER GOOD. And from this it follows that where we meet resistance, we must use only the pwnage that is necessary and no more. (This was your mistake at Durmstrang, LOL! But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
Albus
If JKR had wanted to, she could have ended that letter like this:
... But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
Albus
x
Or like this:
... But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
I love you,
Albus
Or even like this:
... But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
By the way, when we meet tomorrow I shall fuck you senseless.
Albus
So it's not like it would have been impossible to include. But, ultimately, in some ways what JKR could have done isn't the issue. Because the main thing is this - yeah, JKR could have made Dumbledore's sexuality more obvious in the books, and I'd argue she should have. However - she also should have made Harry and Ginny's romantic relationship more natural and genuine; she should have made Dobby less kickable; she should have resolved loose ends properly rather than gloss over them or dismiss them with "a wizard did it"; she should have thought more carefully about the assumptions underlying the sorting ceremony or the implications of teaching particular subjects; I could go on. So the issue here is really that JKR's writing simply isn't as good as it needs to be to effectively convey the character-driven stuff she wants to be there, and that's the case whether we're talking about an issue like the portrayal of gay characters, which is guaranteed to cause a heated debate, or something minor like why Hermione wasn't put in Ravenclaw or whatever.
... Wow. Now that was a tangent and a half. So, back to the chapter, I guess. In that book Harry was reading, it's also revealed that Grindelwald was Bathilda Bagshot's great-nephew - which leads me right into another tangent where I go wait wait wait how old was she? Even if we go by the lowest possible canon age for Dumbledore and therefore Grindelwald (115, according to JKR's website), and even if we assumed that Bathilda and young Gellert were members of a family known for teenage pregnancies or that Bathilda was much younger than her sibling or sibling-in-law who was Gellert's parent - she'd still have to have been, what, 140, 150? And I doubt she was an especially young great-aunt, considering that in this chapter she refers to Albus and Gellert as "brilliant young boys", so she was clearly old enough to consider them "young boys" when they were in their late teens, and therefore not like 35 or something.
And yet, in a few chapters' time when we get to listen to that fucking godawful radio programme, they express shock and sadness that she's dead.
JKR blows at maths.
Uh... what else. Oh, man. This is so, so boring.
Right, finally, Harry finishes reading, and immediately goes into screensaver mode, i.e. wangsting. At one point the text actually says, "All was ashes". That's the sort of thing I used to put in my - ahem - "lyrics" when I was about 15 and be massively, massively proud of. (The next line would invariably be something like "And I'll ruminate on your bourgeois aesthetics". The thesaurus function in Word is very useful, isn't it.) Hermione tries to cheer Harry up by telling him that "for the greater good" was carved over the entrance to Grindelwald's wizard prison, which was called Nurmengard. Ha! mike_smith, who is doing something similar to the Uberwank only about a million times better and funnier, had it spot on when he said, "OK, I think we're laying on the World War II analogies a little thick. Nurmengard. What, does Adolf Saruman run the place?" I can't top that, frankly.
The chapter goes on for like another two pages, and Harry uses that space wisely, angsting so hard that at one point a flock of birds actually takes flight in fear of his angst. (No, really. Bottom of page 294.) Hermione tries to make him STFU by telling him Dumbledore loved him, but Harry recognises that Dumbledore probably loved Grindelwald way more than he loved Harry. Well, no shit. I don't think Harry realises they were having the sex and all that. I think he probably imagines that they spent their time the way he and Dumbledore always did, perhaps with Dumbledore sitting looking serenely over his fingertips as Grindelwald had a tantrum or stuck his dick in Ginny Weasley.
Source: here
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