Dumbledore Deconstructed in Deathly Hallows

Ok, so this is a major post, or rather a post on a MAJOR question - the "deconstruction" of Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I am writing this partly in response to Andrzej's question on the matter in relation to the Christian meaning of the works, and partly because, especially with the major Dumbledore backstory given in DH, it is probably the single biggest and hottest discussion topic concerning DH and has to be addressed. I have put this one off to the end (I will likely not post as much following this ... I need to hit studying German like a ball from the powder for the month of August) because it is the most controversial topic. A while back Red Hen was deconstructing DD and making predictions that book 7 would contain major material revealing DD to be a crotchety manipulator, and Travis Prinzi at Sword of Gryffindor was disagreeing and since the release of DH he has been saying that he does not have any problem with the treatment of DD in DH and does not see it as confirming RH's original dire predictions about the late headmaster of Hogwarts (on which I agree with him ... I haven't really read much of his stuff since the first comment out of the gate the week after the release, but that was his opening remark). So, in order to do this, I will be considering Dumbledore under 3 headings of what I think he is (3 roles he performs as a character in the works) and 1 that I do not think he is meant to be or perform. The last of these is a "Christ Figure." That is to say that I do not think he is meant to be ubiquetously defined by being an allegory of Christ (but I will discuss, then, where in the scheme of his character certain Christ-like actions fit). The 3 roles that I do think that he performs: 1. "Pure Spirit" in the alchemical crucible/ the "angelic problem" 2. A human being other than Christ, but informed by Christ 3. Allegory of a Bishop Pure Spirit and the Angelic Problem In his first book on the Potter series, The Hidden Key to Harry Potter, John Granger revealed one of THE central roles of Albus Dumbledore - "the white" "pure spirit" element on the top of the alchemical crucible, supported by a lot of great exposition of literary alchemy and alchemical structure in English literature and lots of text support for how Rowling has structured the series and the books on alchemy. The opposite of the whit/spirit element, on the bottom side of the crucible, is the black of pure matter (Voldemort). On the horizontal axis, on the left you have the red of sulfur (which I take to be animal soul - Ron's fiery red-haired nature) and on the right you have the silver of mercury, which represents thought as such and which I would put under the heading of "intellectual soul" (Hermione Granger to a T ... loved how she was so "mobile" in DH, so much more prepared for flight than Ron and Harry, very much like Granger's descriptions of thought as untethered). Humanity contains all of these elements and the goal of alchemy is to produce, in the middle in the crucible itself, the golden soul (Harry). A lot of times in our current culture, particularly in our experience of our Christian faith, we tend to think, unwittingly often, in gnostic terms. We tend to think of pure spirit, to the exclusion of the material and the biological, as the ideal. To be sure, God is pure spirit ("and those who worship him must worship him in spirit" - Gospel of John Chapter 4), but then he is God isn't he? And it must be remembered that the second person of the eternal Trinity did not "remain only God, or only spirit" - he became a human being in space and time, and with a material body the way the rest of us have material bodies (again, entering into mystery that our language cannot describe adequately and sometimes it is healthy to take a step back and remember the wisdom of Eastern apophatic/negative theology ... speaking of the persons of the eternal Trinity in time-bound language of verbes with tenses, like the past tense "did not" and "remained," is, in a very large way, really quite an absurd thing to do ... but it is what we have to work with in our state in this life - so chalk it up to the mysterious absurdity of being human). Literature is about humanity and humans are both spirit and matter. I would say that in light of the Incarnation this is exactly what Christianity is about too. The object is never to attain some state of pure spirit (even in our understanding of the eshcaton and heaven, it will involve the body in some form we cannot imagine, but still the body, after the resurrection), but to reach the right balance in the marriage of the two in our piebald, bifurcated existence (always love that word "bifurcated" too ... especially because I am a fan of Tommy Lee Jones and of some of Jim Carey's work, and while the 3rd Batman movie was kind of campy, I did love their work together there, especially the line where the Riddler calls 2Face, "oh bifurcated one!" - humanity is always bifurcated, 2Face is an image of what happens when there is imbalance and improper relation of the 2 sides). The problem that created beings who are pure spirit (IE angels) have had is understanding the piebald creatures known as humans, at least according to the Christian Tradition on why "Lucifer" fell. As pure spirit, like God himself, the angel should be higher than the human, as the logic goes purely on the level of logic. So why are the angels being told to be of service in helping humanity, as if humanity is somehow higher than them or capable of some more unique union with God? I think that Dumbledore's history with Grindewald is meant to demonstrate what happens when a human being mistakenly leans to the side of gnosticism, becomes too wrapped up in pure spirit, too wrapped up in the magical side of humanity, to the exclusion, or at least suppression, of the muggle side. "Invincible masters of death, Grindewald and Dumbledore! Two months of insanity, of cruel dreams, and neglect of the only two members of my family left to me." (DH 717)." In a way, the Christian brand of alchemy is the Incrantional answer to/against such gnosticism. The end goal is for both pure matter and pure spirit to be married again, but in proper relation. In the end both Dumbledore and Voldemort are gone, and only Harry, Ron and Hermione remain. Both Dumbledore and Voldemort live on in their good parts in Harry. All that could be salvaged of Voldy, even with Harry's valiant efforts at the end to try to get Voldy to try remorse, is the original good parts of the Slytherin element. Matter is by nature lower than spirit - not necessarily "wrong" where spirit is "right" - but there is a natural hierarchy. Therefore what remains of Dumbledore is himself, the whole person talking to Harry in King's Cross station. Voldy was spirit, was whole person, but forfeited it, and what remains, and all that can remain, is the basics of matter (but we can see the goodness taht remains in the Slytherin element in Harry's words to his son Albus Severus Potter ... I like that name, don't know if it was intentional on her part, but well could have been, since Rowling has shown disposition before towards thinking of names in their initials form, like RAB, and the initials that are used in labeling prophecies in the hall of prophecy, but the initials of Albus Severus Potter are ASP - a word for a snake, actually for venomous snakes, but we have seen in Slughorn's comments on Acromantula venom that even venom can be put to a good use through magic :) ... actually I think a son of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasely would be a good dose in house Slytherin to help it stay on the right track). But created pure spirit has its own pitfalls to watch out for, and I think Albus Dumbldore's story is a healthy reminder of that. Albus Dumbledore: "Regular Guy" Sorry, couldn't resist doing that subheading like a campaign slogan :) The point here is that one that I said about not being an allegory of Christ, but being the "stand in" (as is Harry and really just about everybody in the works) for the "everyman" of the medieval "everyman plays" - that is, all us human beings who are not Christ. ... but can be informed by Christ. Thus certain things that Albus Dumbledore does are very Christlike - including, since this is literature and literature uses symbols and images, on the symbolic/image level. Thus just before officially laying down his life (both relinquishing it in simple humility, a human being accepting the fate of our race, but also a human hero who sees an opportunity to effect some greater good by using his wits to time the place and manner of his actual exit ... but, as we have noted here before, there is a nice image of "being lifted" in death from the Christian tradition), he "drinks of the cup" of pain, from the basin of potion in the cave that voldy designed to be a tomb for any who entered, but of course DD does not stay in the tomb (as Christ did not, and as Christian Tradition teaches that we all will not eventually). But Dumbledore does not occupy this role exclusively, as he would were he an allegory of Christ. He shares the role with Harry and many others. Likewise he also shares their ability to make mistakes, to have foibles ... in short to be fallen humans in need of redemption. Bishop Dumbledore But I would not say Albus occupies no allegorical role whatsoever. Even Tolkien, who notoriously disliked mechanical allegory, admitted he had some of it in the Lord of the Rings (this comes from the edition of his letters edited by Humphrey Carpenter, I believe ... the book is at home so I can't be 100 percent on Carpenter being the editor, but I think he is ... and I am too lazy to hop on amazon right now :) ). Tolkien pretty much straight up admits that Tom Bombadil is an allegory of pre-lapsarian (before the fall) nature (that is why he always speaks in verse - verse is closer to a wholistic pure human expression). My reading of the matter would be that allegory itself is not bad in its proper place ... which is NOT being the defining characteristic of a character (at least a major character, and Bombadil is not really major to Lord of the Rings, albeit I love the character ... you basically find out that the reason he is not affected by the ring is the same reason he would not be the one to trust to get rid of it in the fires of Mount Doom, he would forget about it for the same reason he is not controlled by it - and his role is pretty much done except for a little bit of help getting out of the barrow wight's mound). Even here I would not call Dumbledore an "allegory" because it is simply that the allegorical element plays a role in the symbolism filled by a wholistic character. But on the "allegorical" level I would say that Dumbledore is a bishop in the Church, if you view the "institutions" of the wizarding world sort of like dioceses or patriarchates. I actually got this from Pauli a long while ago, in his comments about the different color robes Dumbledore wears and how the way Rowling describes them come off sounding like descriptions/details of episcopal vestments (indeed, with all the teachers and even parents, the way Rowling just sort of matter-of-factly rattles off robe color details sounds much like you would describe priests - wearing the green for ordinary time, red for martyrs' feasts etc). Actually the model of Bishop Dumbledore fits is more (tipping my hat to Andrzej here) Eastern than Western (and I am not sure Rowling would recognize and do this intentionally, but she might ... as I have always said she is a very intelligent woman ... and if a historian writing about Byzantine Christianity could wind up using a quote from Charles Williams' Arthurian poetry do describe the Eastern concept of the emperor in relation to the Bishop [the chapter detailing Eastern Orthodoxy in a well respected book we used for one class began with a quote from Williams' poetry on the procession of the people of the kingdom of Logres], the flow could work the other way too). In the West, in the Latin Rite, there is the Pope and the Pope has universal jurisdiction. In the Eastern conception there is not a single Bishop who is jurisdictionally the universal bishop. At leas in the early days (and I have never heard that it was officially revoked, but things got considerably tense between East and West, especially when certain "side events" of the crusades considerably weakened Constantinople, to put it euphemistically, and left the city very vulnerable when the Muslim Turks came through and thus the fall of the city into Muslim hands) the Eastern line was that, as a title of honor, Rome was "first among equals" - meaning jurisdictional equals in that each of the 5 ancient Patriarchates (Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople, Antioch and Jerusalem ... although I am not sure of the order below Rome, but it changed in a council or two's lists, which fact itself caused no small amount of tension ... now the Russian Patriach is considered among them but I am not sure of all of the history of the matter) were seen by the East as maintaining jurisdictional independence. The Eastern concept was more focussed solely on "collgegiality" - not that the West does not hold to the authority of the college of Bishops in council, but in the East it is the primary model, with a unified singular jurisdictional head existing only on the level of a patriarchate, not the universally. I would not call any of the ministers of magic we have seen "good bishops" and I think the bishop imagery is much less there with the minister position, but DD never seems to see himself as over-ruling the minister ... but he definitely does not place himself under his jurisdiction in the matter of how Hogwart's is run and in certain cases, especially where no crime has been actually committed (what was that that Fudge was actually going to charge him with anyway? ... simply building an army/group of underage wizards does not necessarily prove any plans to take force action against the ministry) he does not even personally remain under the minister's jurisdiction (something like "ahhh, I thought we might hit that little snag ... you are under the impression I am going to, what is the saying, 'come quietly?'"). And the Wizengamot and International Confederation are definitely more collegial images. But one of the primary ways that DD is Bishop-like is sort of universal to East and West ... he is a teacher ... and while he is correct in his teaching, he is not incapable of mistakes and sins in his actions. Notice that everything Dumbledore says about the horcruxes, about both the nature and the particulars of the magic that has gone on between Harry and Voldy is 100 percent dead on. When we get to the scar-crux material he states it boldly and matter-of-factly ... and he has it all nailed down. I'm still not sure about his reading that his dying without having the wand taken from him would do the trick to undo the Elder wand's power in the world ... the text remains unclear on that (the situation is one that never really exists, so cannot be confirmed or denied I guess) ... but everything else he is pretty much "infallible" on ... at least when it comes to magic (which is what he is "authorized" to teach). Matters such as predicting the volitional actions of human beings such as Draco disarming him or Voldy killing Snape are a different story though. He obviously makes some mistakes and miscalculations there - "infallibility" in the office of Bishop in the college of Bishops (or in this case, the collection of magical tradition) does not ensure total savvy or prudence (Dumbledore is rock-solid on how magic works and can predict what certain things will yield, even in unprecedented matters, but as far as historical facts like what Voldy did or didn't do, what magical actions he did in fact take, there "I could be as woefully wrong as Horace Belcher, who believed that the time was ripe for a cheese cauldron") ... and it does not ensure impeccability. The Last Enemy This brings me to one of the main things I want to say about "Christianity in literature." This relates to the semi-allegorical roles like Dumbledore as bishop, of which I have been talking just now, as well as Christ symbols and Christ-like action, and most particularly to that line of St Paul's on Harry's parents' headstone. In a certain way I see good Christian literature as a pointed "non-sequitur" - or rather a non-sequitur that points beyond itself. As I think could be demonstrated, there are no "Christ figures" in Harry Potter - Christ symbols; Christ-like virtuous action ... but no figures who fill out the role (Rowling saw to that in the wonderful epilogue: Christ had no earthly wife and family [unless DB's high-foreheaded, money-grubbing "fiction" is to be taken seriously in any fashion, as EITHER fact OR fiction, which I highly recommend against ... he did not write of a family, a husband and wife and kids working out their daily life together trying to be charitable, nor did he write even of gods - his "creations" are more like sickly little humans-turned-demigogues - truly "mediocre to the last degree"], and Harry has no ascension into heaven, or beyond the veil or whatever, but rather sticks around to marry Ginny and have kids with her). So there is no singular character within a story like this that fills out the whole role in a unified way. But there are plenty of things that we Christians believe require Grace ... virtuous action, not just normal virtue but self-sacrificial love and explication of it that relies on models developed throughout the Christian story of Christ. I think the role of such literature is as morality tale, mainly to examine what virtue excercized looks like. But this points beyond to some source of that virtue, some transcendent Grace. In these books we even get, I think, a lot of pictures of some of the interworkings of Grace itself in the way magic works (that is to say, from my perspective at least, that the images show a sacramental quality in the magic) ... but the source is conspicuously absent. Actually, the source was simply covered in a different book, and some great works of literature, like Rowlings', footnote the other book. Actually a lot of books footnote it through standard Christ symbols and the like, distinctive ways of speaking of self-sacrificial love etc. This one by Rowling though has a really nice footnote that is, I think, very clever in that it addresses the very matter of Christian literature. Harry finds two verses from the New Testament, one from the Gospels and one from St Paul on the headstones, respectively, of Dumbledore's family and of his own. In a world where religion operates regularly among muggles and right in the shadow of a church, though, Harry can't figure out what it means ... but they seem to him to be obviously very important. He racks his brain over them, and he even comes back to the St Paul passage in trying to convince Ron and Hermione that the deathly hallows are real ... but that is it. No more mention of them; no more tying out their meaning to the main plot action. Yet still they are there, and prominently. I think that what this relates to, or rather conveys, is the connection of the story, and stories of this kind, with the Christian faith. They are informed by the Christian faith and ultimately have to seek the source of their "magic" beyond their own bounds - in that ultimate story. But to have "direct" connections like actual allegorical Christ figures (as opposed to just symbols and plot elements and character actions that notedly specifically build on Christ images) lessens the story. I'm not going to touch Lewis' Aslan because I see some straight up allegory as all right, but I also think of the Narnia Chronicles as more of children's stories. Don't get me wrong, I love the Chronicles and I definitely think there are some VERY rich images there (and I also think that we listen to children FAR FAR less than we should "unless you become like one of these little ones ..." ... in fact a kid's voice was what got me to give Harry Potter a chance), but the images in the Narnia books I tend to think the richest and most striking are those not as easily tied out to the Bible or the Christian story by way of allegory (for instance, the Christian Tradition has much about the concept of God's eternity in relation to the world of space and time, such as the image of light and explications of how light is the closest thing we know [and also the most mysterious, as in is it particle or wave? etc] to complete rest and complete motion ... as something approaches the speed of light it will elongate in all directions of physical extension to fill all available space, like light does - thus ultimate rest through ultimate motion, and I have always loved Lewis' image of the human participation in that in the "further up and further in" chapter of The Last Battle, when they keep climbing the hill and hedges into ever newer interior gardens or whatever it is, completely fulfilled in the excitement of the ever-deeper movement of going in). I don't think it would be natural to have a complete Christ figure in such Christian literature any more than it would be natural for Harry or any wizard to completely get the source, meaning and role of the Bible verses on the headstones ... it would be sort of like looking at yourself through the other side of a mirror. It is what he is about but in a religious way that includes the world of factual history of which he is the flipside. Both are truth, fact and fiction, but flipsides of each other ... and the Faith itself, Christ, is the "side beyond the flipsides" ... as Lewis put it in his one essay, "Myth become Fact." To have the Christianity of the works tied out too tightly in something like a full Christ figure would spoil the character of the work as literature with a Christian quality to it. In truth, my respect for Rowling got even deeper with Deathly Hallows. Not only does she have a nice inclusion of this aspect in it (which I think is a lot wrapped up in, and in some way resolution of, what it seems to me Rowling would be talking about when she has said in interviews that the works have been very much about her working out her own questions about her faith and the Faith), but it includes a nice tip of insight on truth, fact and legend. "Whether they met Death on a lonely road ... I think it more likely that the Peverell brothers were simply gifted, dangerous wizards who succeeded in creating those powerful objects. The story of them being death's own Hallows seems to me the sort of legend that might have sprung up around such creations." (DH 714). This is not, I think, just a throw away line saying "well, you know how it is with superstitious primitive cultures and peoples who make up non-scientific, and thus 'false,' aetsiological tales to explain certain thing with a bit more voodoo excitement." Death, like the Peverells, is a dangerous character. In the end death is an enemy that will be defeated. On the natural level death is an objective evil, for soul and body created together to be separated. Yet on the mystical level of self-giving ... it is like that invisibility cloak that Dumbledore and Grindewald saw no real value in outside of completing the hallows (and Dumbledore's unrealistic idea of hiding Ariana in it ... but that at least is the beginning of wisdom, noticing that the uniqueness of the cloak is the ability to share with others) and that Jo2 and I were talking about a while ago as a very interesting and mysterious image that might fit the soul rather well (having the qualities of both fabric and liquid) - it is like Tolkien's idea of mortality as a gift to the second children. Death is both dangerous and mysterious, like the incredible magical giftedness of those mortals "who succeeded in creating those powerful objects"; so is it really "superstition" to make the connection between death and that kind of mysterious and dangerous giftedness ... or is it insight into deeper reality? I think Rowling is the type who understands that truth is not restricted to the realm of "fact" - that "the truth is stranger than fiction" but sometimes fiction is truer than "fact." The Final Note In the end I think the best, and most succinct comment (definitely more cogent than all of my rambling on on the matter here :) ) was that of Jo from Australia ... that despite the "deconstruction" provided by the backstory, the real proof in the pudding is in that conversation in King's Cross where DD asks Harry's opinion and advise - and most of all shows remorse - that human though he may be, with human foibles and all (his particular ones being, as I said, towards gnostic thinking), Albus Dumbledore is a human being capable, and indeed desirous, of redemption. The difference between Albus Dumbledore and Tom Riddle is not that one was an angel and the other not (I use that old label of somebody "being such a little angel" there intentionally ironically ... Dumbledore was "pure spirit" but kept to the truth in the end by repenting of the "angelic problem" - Voldy is really pure matter but as a wizard latches on to pure spirit and tries to master death and winds up the fulfillment of the "angelic problem" as a Satan figure ... this is of course on the symbolic level, and I still hold to my interpretation of voldy as personality disorder on the levels of "psycholgical realism" and "supra-individual/communal culpability") - the difference is that one yielded to remorse and repentance and actually tried to amend his ways and one did not. To be human, in the Christian scheme, is not to iradicate radically all possibility of doing wrong - it is to try to avoid evil but to be able to repent when one makes mistakes (I always loved that theme in Terminator 3, that the point was not to stop judgment day, but to survive it ... which is not to say that judgment day is good [in the movie, the machines taking over, created and given the ability to do so by misguided humans], but that it cannot destroy the ability to be human ... in Christianity we believe, though, that only way really to be able to repent and survive is through Christ ... but that gets back to those "Christ moments" and Christ symbols we were talking about, that are the place where the Christian element informs the Potter books) PS On the "everyman" quality in the books ... It is hard for one to say that everything one sees is something Rowling would think of ... not everyone has the same tastes in music or art or any number of things that inform such choices an author makes. But I love that Harry calls Albus Severus "Al" because it reminds me of Paul Simon's "everyman" song, "Call Me Al" (my friend Dom has a great theory that Simon has it for Dante ALiegheri and "Betty" for Beatrice, based on the line "he sees angels in the architecure, spinning in infinity" and the illustration of the "mystical rose" from the Paradiso in the set of very famous illustrations by ... whoever that guy was [any copy of the Divine Comedy - if it is black and white wood carving illustrations, that is him]). Simon has been very into the common human theme, with lines such as "who says 'hard times? I'm used to them. The speeding planet burns? I'm used to that ... my life so common it disappears. And sometimes even music cannot subsitute for tears.'" in The Cool Cool River ... but another line from "Call Me Al" that particularly relates here in this post is "I want a shot at redemption."