DD's "goof-up": Dumbledore, Gandalf and Moses

I have many comments in the border of my copy of Order of the Phoenix alongside Dumbledore's standard "revelation" scene (pp 834 ff). Alongside the top of p 839 is written "beginning to show Gandalf's human failure" Before I write the rest of this I'll say that I do not think DD ever committed the failure particular to Gandalf and Moses. I do not think he ever acted out of anger, but I do think that just as Tolkien was trying to show that Gandalf was not omnipotent, even over his own actions, Rowling has been trying to show Dumbledore as not ALL wise. He is smart and clever beyond the scope of ordinary human beings, but his defining characteristic has always been charity. I suppose I should say that he is wise in the order of true wisdom (which dictates that charity is the foremost virtue ... Think of HBP 511: "You are protected, in short, by yoru ability to love!" said Dumbledore loudly.) And not necessarily " as wise as we once thought" in the order of what we called wisdom ... smartness and cleverness are only effects of true wisdom (very valuable effects to be sure) - true wisdom is of another order altogether. Tolkien: In the scene at the Western Door of Moria in the Lord of the Rings (the door which is shut with the spell "speak friend and enter") Gandalf gives in to anger. You do not really get this in Jackson's movie version (although there are other elements in his handling of this section that suggest to me that he did pick up on some of the numerological elements Tolkien used and left in one little "tip of the hat" for those in the audience who knew of them) but it is there in the book. In the movie Gandalf just puts his staff to the door and says a spell word, looking like maybe that's just the way wizards do things. But in the book it is more clearly marked that he strikes the door with his staff out of anger (Fellowship of the Ring 299). 40 miles later (Moria "cannot be less than 40 miles from West-door to East-gate in a direct line" - Fellowship 302) he must ironically repeat this action of stroking stone with staff (this time the bridge of Khazadum) in order to save the lives of his friends, but thus forfeits entrance into the "golden land." Tolkien has lifted this image almost directly from the book of Numbers chapter 20, verses 2-13. Here Israel complains about the lack of water, saying "Why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness, that we should die, both we and our cattle?" Israel is the first-born son of Yahweh (Exodus 4:22) just as Boromir is the first-born son of Denethor, Boromir who, like Israel, says "Then what was the use in bringing us to this accursed spot?" (Fellowship 297). In the context of 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses was angered and, when told to speak to the rock so it would bring forth water, struck the rock instead, and thus forfeited entrance into the promised land. Surrounding the 40 miles of the dark wilderness of Moria Gandalf is first told to speak to the rock ("speak friend and enter") but strikes it "in rising rath" and then, at the other end of the 40 miles, must repeat the action and forfeit his entrance into the golfen land. The connection Tolkien establishes is that, like Moses, Gandalf can make errors (even in the case of the hierarchy of the Catholic church, it is not impeccability that the Church teaches dogmatically, only infallibility in faith and morals.) Rowling Dumbledore is a Gandalf figure (Gandalf, and all the Istari, are, in turn, a certain type of Bishop figure ... and in a phone-conversation once Pauli was commenting to me on the Bishop-like appearance that DD's "vestments" give him). His origin is not well known to the constituents he serves (in LOTR the unknown origin is that Gandalf is a Maia who willingly forsook a large degree of his original power to become an Istari and a counselor of men - In HP, everyone knows DD is a regular human, although of the non-magically-challenged variety, but especially the kids do not seem to have a clear idea of his ancestry or even his real age) but he is foremost a counselor (in Gandalf's case this was the true role of wizards, Saruman forgot this and got caught up in power and in the end was replaced by Gandalf as the white wizard ... Albus [meaning white] is an instructor in wisdom, the true role of a teacher). The primary difference is that Gandalf actually does give in to doing something wrong, he gets angry and strikes the stone door. In the case of DD I think it is more that Rowling is trying to show us that we should not over-emphasize the "omniscience" we often mistakenly strictly identify as DD's wisdom. His wisdom is based in another power, the power to love. He is capable of making "mistakes" in the order of cleverness , or at least he believes himself capable of it, as is seen in those pages of Order of the Phoenix where he recounts the many times he thinks it might have been better to tell Harry of the prophecy. It is a picture with many subtleties; a very rich and sometimes confusing picture which it will take book 7 to really fill out. At the bottom of p. 838 in OotP I have written in the margin, "Evil's Cunning" right next to the line: "In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act." In the figure of DD ( as I think will be shown in book 7) Rowling shows fidelity to our experience and that life is very confusing, but also will show that, despite human frailty and inadequacy, adherence to the first and second great commandments ("Love the Lord your God with all your heart strength and mind ... and love your neighbor as yourself") will always prove the wisest counsel. We might speculate that maybe Dumbledore made the mistake of not paying as much attention to the first as he should have (that he should have been more concerned with "loving truth" and giving it all to Harry sooner) out of his feelings of concern for Harry's peace of mind ... but this is a far different thing than Voldemort's failing ... and I think it will be one of her points in book 7 to show this.