posted
This is sort of an aside, but does the Catholic church actually have a doctrinal position on witchcraft? That is, do they believe that is such thing as a real witch who can cast spells, summon demons and such?
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thanks, Dagonee, that slipped past me. Or rather I scanned/interpreted "last month" as meaning the same as "this past month".
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I asked my kids if they had heard this this morning. In the course of the ensuing conversation, my daughter asked why Dumbledore didn't use a time turner and avoid the fight wherein his sister was killed. I said either he didn't have one, or maybe time turners can't avert death. What do you all think?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm pretty sure that time turners only give you a window of a few hours. Still, that doesn't explain why they wouldn't use a time turner to avoid almost every other major death mentioned in the series.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wouldn't that go against the theme of the story? Death, accepting death, not being a wuss about dying like Voldermort, plus in book three they talkeda bout the importance of not messing around with time.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
In fiction, everyone talks about the importance of not messing around with time. And then they always mess around with time, except when it would make the most sense.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Star Trek, especially TNG, has that problem in spades. A full third of each episode is wasted explaining why in this unique situation they cannot user their magical technology.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
While Firefly generally drew its drama from setting up situations where someone was going to do something they typically wouldn't. I think it would have eventually gotten old, at which point they could have just had some romantic tension break now and then.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
This is part of why I liked Babylon 5. There was exactly *one* time travel event, framed in such a way that it would be very difficult to repeat. However, that one event ended up showing up in three episodes two years apart, and had repercussions years ahead and thousands of years back which remained pretty much consistent. Given the pressures and time constraints of TV production, I thought that was truly remarkable.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem with "messing around with time," is that if you can travel into the past and change anything you want, then that makes you able to change everything bad in the universe, so you become morally responsible for anything bad you do not change. Being morally responsbile for everything bad in the universe is too heavy a burden. You would spend all the rest of your life trying to cease being a villain.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: The problem with "messing around with time," is that if you can travel into the past and change anything you want, then that makes you able to change everything bad in the universe, so you become morally responsible for anything bad you do not change. Being morally responsbile for everything bad in the universe is too heavy a burden. You would spend all the rest of your life trying to cease being a villain.
There's all the butterfly effect problems too. Go back and kill Hitler and some other wacko with less ego and greater skills actually pulls off what Hitler failed to accomplish.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Besides, time turners only work if you actually use them, it seems to me. Once a bad thing has happened, you already haven't used the Time Turner to go back and fix it, so you can't use a Time Turner to go back and fix it.
At least that is the vibe I get.
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Fyfe, the way I look at it, in order to travel back in time, you first have to step outside of time, thus disconnecting you from the cause and effect that used to define your life. So you could kill your grandfather before he sired any children, and it would have no effect on you; you have become your own cause and effect. You could also go out and back in and try to fix something bad as many times as needed. The fact that you hold the Time Turner in your hand is the only cause and effect that matters.
What I like about this theory is that it allows a vast number of time travel stories to be possible. And you don't have to worry about a recursive plot. (I never did like recursive logic; it can be a real pain in C programming.)
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's amazing (though not surprising) that this thread has 5 pages. If JKR had mentioned Dumbledore's sexuality in the last book, this is how much debate and argument there would have been. Therefore, it's definitely better that she didn't. Too bad we live in a world where the idea of homosexuality makes people so prickly and defensive that we have to concentrate on it for such an incredible amount of time.
Maybe what JKR should have done was to have Rita Skeeter come out with a rumor that Dumbledore had been in love with Grindelwald, so that when she (Rowling) revealed later that it was in fact true, it wouldn't have been so shocking to some people... Though this too probably would have caused undue amounts of argument when readers should instead have been concentrating on Harry's problems.
Posts: 930 | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote: She added that, in her mind, Dumbledore had an unrequited love affair with Gellert Grindelwald, Voldemort's predecessor who appears in the seventh book.
Is anybody else wondering how exactly a love AFFAIR can be unrequited? I mean, it creates a lot of funny mental images of a voyeur Dumbledore, but I don't think that's what Rowling meant.
Tara: Well, if I'm not mistaken, Skeeter DOES make comments about Dumbledore's "inappropriate" relationship with Harry. Maybe it was a hint.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Rowling has made more recent remarks on the matter (posted down the page over at Mugglenet.com) ...apparently she -does- feel Dumbledore's support of Grindlewald was largely influenced by his unrequited infatuation.
Somehow, that disappoints me.
I find a Dumbledore tempted to do evil "for the greater good" far more interesting than "crushin' like crazy" Albus. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, we have the author herself saying (in her view) that it was very much the latter. She goes on to say that children will understand it was just a great friendship, but that she hopes "perceptive" adults will get the infatuation clues.
See, I didn't notice the "crush" clues until she said they were clues. I'm not perceptive! Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
You know, this sort of announcement makes me question the politics involved. Perhaps I'm illustrating a bias on my part, but it reminds me somewhat of Ultimate X-Men, where the writers made Colossus homosexual. I wasn't surprised that they included a gay character-statistically speaking, chances are in a very liberal culture (such as a progressive mutant school), at least one member would be openly homosexual. The part that was strange was that it was Colossus. The biggest, strongest, manliest man perhaps aside from Wolverine was made gay.
I couldn't help but wonder if they weren't trying to send a message of some sort (particularly later when one of the only openly religious figures in X-Men to my knowledge, Nightcrawler, was made into a disgusting homophobe).
This revelation by Rowling makes me wonder the same thing, mostly because it's so very abrupt and most particularly not in the story at all. I also question it because, instead of writing it into a later story focused on Dumbledore, she tells us now, outside of her writings entirely.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I haven't read this thread through, so forgive me if i'm repeating.
I feel that this... proclamation, is 1. Insignificant to the story and 2. Just a ploy to sell more books and encourage an eternity of English teachers to egg their students on the easter egg hunt to find allusions to D's homosexuality while they read the Harry Potter books.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I was referring to his original background, Puffy, the one where he's a devout Catholic.
Well, the Ultimate characters are often divergent from their mainstream counterparts in some fairly radical ways.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm dissapointed to find that Dumbledore was such a fool. Grindlewald is the Hitler of the Harry Potter world.
Lily was perceptive enough to regretfully cut ties with Snape when he was falling into the dark side. Dumbledore apparently had so little of a moral compass that he tossed aside, you know, all ethics and morality out of devotion to an unrequited crush.
His counterpart isn't Snape - it's Bellatrix Lestrange. That's pretty lame. I know that it's supposed to make him human instead of an all good figure, but that's pathetic.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Not really. Who doesn't make mistakes when it comes to charming people? It's not pathetic, it's something almost anyone could do, especially when they are young. I doubt he's as bad as Bellatrix, at least he realized Grindlewald was bad news and that he didn't really want to be evil and enslave muggles.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
In the Ultimate universe, Kitty is dating Spiderman.
The Ultimate Colossus, Storm, Rogue, Nightcrawler, and Beast have NOTHING at all in common with their normal Marvelverse analogs.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Dumbledore apparently had so little of a moral compass that he tossed aside, you know, all ethics and morality out of devotion to an unrequited crush.
It's not just the crush, though. It's also that these ideas they're discussing seem like the solution to all his problems. I have to say, it seems really sad to me, because think how happy he must have been: He'd finally met someone who was his intellectual equal, for the first time ever, and it had begun to seem like all the things tying him down could be sorted out.
And I have to say, it was inevitable that he was going to realize what Grindelwald was, because Dumbledore's a good guy and he wasn't going to carry this whole Muggle-crushing thing out to the bitter end. It's just sad that it had to happen the way it did. And I don't think it's fair to compare him unfavorably with Lily, because she stayed friends with Snape for ages after she knew he was getting all wicked. Dumbledore only knew Grindelwald for what, two months?
And mercy, he was only seventeen. He was a kid.
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
When asked why Dumbledore didn't seem to have had a love life, Rowling answered that it was because of the "great tragedy" of his life was that he had an unrequited devotion to Grindlewald.
If it was limited to being 17 and young and stupid, that would be both in keeping with the behavior of the other characters and it would make sense. Considering people are still sorting out their sexuality and crushes on friends are very normal at that age, it wouldn't even necessarily mean he was gay.
However, if "Because of an unrequited devotion to Grindlewald" is the answer to the question of why didn't 30-year-old or 50-year-old Dumbledore have a love life, that's where it gets just sad, and not sad in a "great tragedy" way - more like sad in a pathetic way.
I understand how thrilling it can be to meet someone with whom it seems like all your dreams will come true AND they make the sun come out, but when it doesn't work out or ever even get started, healthy people get over it. Eventually.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I wasn't familiar with that particular stereotype, nope. And to be clear, I'm not suggesting that he was picked to be gay for political reasons. It's just, coupled with some of the other decisions being made by Marvel lately, I wonder.
-----------------
quote:Lily was perceptive enough to regretfully cut ties with Snape when he was falling into the dark side. Dumbledore apparently had so little of a moral compass that he tossed aside, you know, all ethics and morality out of devotion to an unrequited crush.
I hadn't thought of it that way. That does make things quite irritating. Not least because it means Dumbledore was full of crap when he was telling Harry about his background...and not least because, in all the rampant gossip-mongering Harry went through, no one gave a whiff of this.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm dissapointed to find that Dumbledore was such a fool. Grindlewald is the Hitler of the Harry Potter world.
Lily was perceptive enough to regretfully cut ties with Snape when he was falling into the dark side. Dumbledore apparently had so little of a moral compass that he tossed aside, you know, all ethics and morality out of devotion to an unrequited crush.
Would that really be that surprising? Keep in mind we are talking about a very young, just-out-of-school Dumbledore - not the man he would become many decades later.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
If it was kept to a teenage crush, not really. See my second post on this page, though - as an explanation for why Dumbledore NEVER had a love life, it isn't flattering to him. I'd think the same of anyone who pined for an unrequited teenage two-month crush. Snape's lifelong devotion to Lily is really kind of sad, but at least they were friends from childhood and it was shown to us how much she meant to him, how she was good (worthy), and how Snape was directly responsible for her death. None of the above applies to Grindlewald (except for the death, but that happened after Grindlewald opened concentration camps (!) ), and Dumbledore lived a whole lot longer.
I always figured Dumbledore was above the storm and drang of romantic relations - that's the price of being a great wizard. I am quite dissapointed to discover that he wasn't above it after all - he was just really, really bad at it.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't think it is that hard to be excited by a charismatic person with radical ideas, especially when you're young and full of yourself, certain you can change the world. But he didn't follow that path blindly, and was eventually the one who stopped him.
I really don't understand why this is a big deal. DD was not what you'd call a venal person, I think, regardless of orientation.
I would be very suspicious of the aged wisdom of anyone who had never made a mistake.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:I don't think it is that hard to be excited by a charismatic person with radical ideas, especially when you're young and full of yourself, certain you can change the world. But he didn't follow that path blindly, and was eventually the one who stopped him.
I really don't understand why this is a big deal. DD was not what you'd call a venal person, I think, regardless of orientation.
I would be very suspicious of the aged wisdom of anyone who had never made a mistake.
Really? Granted I haven't read it in awhile, but as I recall Dumbledore did follow that path quite blindly for quite awhile. It was only upon his sister's death that he finally wised up. And even then, when he stopped him, he waited a long time. Presumably lots of deaths can be laid at Dumbledore's doorstep.
But the thing that is irksome to me is that we already knew all of that, and that Dumbledore had very human and plausible explanations for it. Then, after the story is over, after he and Harry had a heart-to-heart in the train station of the afterlife, we find out that their heart-to-heart really wasn't, and that Dumbledore's talk of high misguided ideals was just a mask for a teenage crush.
Or if it wasn't, why keep it secret? Especially, y'know, in the afterlife?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
*laugh* I don't know what happened, but I logged out and logged back in and everything seems to be back to normal.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
"I'm dissapointed to find that Dumbledore was such a fool. Grindlewald is the Hitler of the Harry Potter world."
So? Hitler was so beloved by so many on this world that the French had to be overrun, the Brits had to be bombed&blockaded into poverty, and the Americans had to be attacked by (Hitler's ally) Japan and have Germany declare war on the US before Hitler became unpopular with the majority. Heck, the senior Bush borrowed "NewWorldOrder" from the dude.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Maybe the way things turned out was the result of a massive time turner event from the future in which Dumbledore and Grindewald were successful. And Dumbledore's sister is, like, Joan Collins.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
