Why Dumbledore Is Far Worse Than You Remember⎮A Wizarding World Discussion

So....Dumbledore is the worst sort of wizard imaginable. Seriously for somebody that is so beloved by fans and by JK Rowling herself (pure of heart, don't make me laugh), he has a big old list of terrible things that really have lowered him in my esteem over the years... so I thought... why not rant about that for a little while? Enjoy!

[jimsullivan]

I totally agree that Dumbledore (the most powerful and knowledgeable wizard of the age) could’ve trained Harry himself from the very beginning without having to reveal the larger plan, instead of Harry barely surviving each event with the most dangerous dark wizard of all time.

[l.tc.]

My personal gripe with him is the house cup points stunt at the end of the first book/movie. While I agree that Harry Ron Hermione and Neville genuinely earned the points awarded to them they should have been given before the feast so the Slytherins don’t go in with false hope and have their win ripped out from under them. Very petty and hardly his worst deed but it’s bothered me since I was 12.

[brandiarmstrong]

"He was young, he didn't know what he was doing."

Harry is, in some ways, a better example of this. He was magical, but raised in a household of muggles. When he would use magic (before being enrolled in Hogwarts, mind you), he truly didn't know what was causing these bizzarre, abnormal things to happen. Dumbledore, however, knew about his magical heratige, and was likely aware enough as a child to attempt to "blend in" a bit so that no muggles would "get wise" to the fact that Albus and his family are somewhat more than strange.

[milanka]

I just thought of another group you didn't address though. He was okay with allowing Sirius Black to rot in Azkaban, knowing full well that he was innocent, and having the power through his connections etc to do something about his plight and he never did. That to me is absolutely disgusting.

[astrinymris]

I'd like to submit that dropping Harry on the Dursley's doorstep with a letter wasn't just negligent, it showed a profound disdain for the Dursleys themselves. They had been a basically happy family before. Yes, Dudley was being spoiled, but Petunia and Vernon loved him and each other. Minerva may have judged them "the worst sort of Muggles" (a phrase which itself reeks of anti-Muggle bigotry), but they weren't evil or even bad.

I even have a headcanon that Dumbledore cast spells on Petunia and Vernon to make them mistreat Harry. After all, if he didn't want Harry "spoiled" by living in a Wizarding World that revered him as the Boy Who Lived, it wouldn't want him spoiled by being raised by overly-indulgent parents, either. Also, it was crucial to Dumbledore's plans that Harry was willing to die to protect Hogwarts. For this reason, he wanted Harry to view Hogwarts as his real home. If Harry was happy at the Dursleys, he might not be so uncritically enamored with the Wizarding World. He might even realize that he was being manipulated. Remember, Dumbledore was getting regular reports from Arabella Figg, so he knew exactly how Harry was being treated by his relatives. If he was willing to condone such abuse, you have to conclude that the manipulative mastermind would be willing to engineer such abuse as well.

[AHufflepuffAndASwiftie]

THANK YOU for pointing out that Dumbledore FORCES Harry to live with people who literally NEGLECT him & mistreat him (although you technically forgot to mention that Mrs. Figg IS there to "check up on" Harry, although she literally does NOTHING to stop the abuse & neglect, either, expect maybe report it back to Dumbledore who also does NOTHING for YEARS, so . . . ) & for saying that Dumbledore's NOT pure of heart!! He IS NOT!!! It SHOULD have been Newt OR Jacob!! NOT Dumbledore!! THAT'S the biggest thing that bothered me about the last Fanatisic Beasts movie!! 😒😣 So THANK YOU!! 😊

[jenneacubero]

Speaking of Snape, Dumbledore did seem to et the Marauders get away with a lot. Even when Sirius nearly gets Snape killed and Lupin more traumatized than he already was, all Sirius got was dentention with Snape being tolld to keep his mouth shut.
Though, in defense of Dumbeldore, I get the feeling that, deep down, he regretted how cold he was with Tom. On the one hand, how can you love someone who lacks the abilitity to love? Yet, on the other, a little warmth could've gone a long way. So, out of his regret, he alllowed his wards/surrogate children to get away with bullying and mischief (i.e. Filch (?), Snape, the Marauders, maybe Draco, etc. In other words, Dumbledore may've overcompensated...

[ztyran]

8:01 This is the point I can give Dumbledore one break. At the time of Voldemort's years at Hogwarts, Dumbledore wasn't in charge. The Headmaster at the time was easily fooled by Riddle's charm and Hagrid's record for getting in trouble. Remember in book 2 Dumbledore guessed most of what had happened, as his not "who" but "how".

[cdmay]

Dude, even if you're sympathetic to snape, it was a dick move to force snape to teach him. How much trauma can we cause bingo much?

[matiasluukkanen]

Dumbledore is no Dark Lord or saint, but in his goodness and soft power he's much more manipulative and terrifying than Voldemort could ever hope to be.

This due to the fact that Dumbledore is capable of loving others, and thus understands far more deeply what makes people tick. And Dumbledore has also (some) humility that Voldemort will never possess, causing D to second-guess himself quite often.

Just think how both Dumbledore and Voldemort understood Snape, and how this understanding contributed for the Voldie's eventual end.

Voldemort had really no chance against manipulator of Dumbledore's calibre.

[michaelpyromaniacal]

Another example of him leaving kids in abusive households: Sirius and Regulus. I find it extremely hard to believe that no one realized how shitty their home life was. Even Molly Weasley, whose main personality trait is being a good mother to both her children and Harry, has sent a few Howlers in her time. If fucking MOLLY WEASLEY isn't above publicly telling her kids off like that, Walburga Black sure as hell wasn't. I sincerely doubt that when Sirius pissed his parents off, they made it easy for him to hide that. Dumbledore should have been well aware of Sirius's shitty home life and DONE something about it long before he had to run away himself. And even if he somehow didn't know before that point, he DEFINITELY would have known that one of his students was now under entirely different guardianship, and he should have asked why and realized that he should now be keeping an eye on REGULUS, who was still. fucking. there.

[mattman]

There’s a lot of things I can’t forgive about Dumbledore, but to be fair, it makes sense for him to hide the fact that Harry is actually a horcrux until the right moment. Confess at the wrong time and there’s a better chance of Voldemort winning.

[ladyloey]

I think the wizards should realize 2 things:
1) Wizards are just muggles with a longer lifespan and flashy sticks
2) We can destroy the entire Wizarding World in .2 seconds with a press of a button (Nukes. I mean nukes)
I think we'll be fine 🙃😁

[szatan]

I mean, iirc in the books it was said that whem Dumbledore's sister gpt killed *they didn't know which one of them hit her.* So all three of them were throwing around curses bad enough to kill someone. Even if it wasn't Albus who hit her it doesn't make it any better regardless of whether he started it or whether Grindelwald was fighting or not

[raelogan]

I knew something was up with him the moment he said he had a scar in his knee that's an accurate map of the entire London Underground in the opening chapters of the series, and that's why he thinks Harry's scar could be useful.

How and why does one get such a distinctive scar, and why SPECIFICALLY the subway trolley system??

And the fact that this NEVER became useful information later on. I waited my entire childhood reading those books as they released just to see if that particular tidbit would work for the plot, like, maybe he has knowledge of how to avoid Voldemort because gosh golly gee, why would You Know Who ever be on a Muggle train at some point, but nope, we never hear of it again and Dumbledore's been spouting nonsense since the beginning.

I bet he didn't even actually see himself holding socks in the Mirror of Erised. I bet he was lying about that too.

[js]

These types of old men annoy the most. Even just Dumbledore offering up lemon drops in a way which suggests he's not taking the situation as seriously as he perhaps ought to tells me all I need to know about Dumbledore: the man lacks much empathy, remorse and care and he's willing to use and manipulate people as his own soldiers, make them do things that would only make them worse off and use their weaknesses against them having already failed them previously. He didn't just fail Harry or Voldemort, he failed all of Slytherin since he'd become a teacher at Hogwarts, allowing the interhouse rivalry and segregation of groups of people based on their beliefs and values to continue breeding some of the most toxic and harmful qualities and ways of thinking and acting known to humanity. And by failing Slytherin he also failed all other houses. As one of the eldest and most revered wizards at Hogwarts, he should've had the power and know-how, and most importantly *care* to not go risking other people willy-nilly, not even "strategically". This man, at best, belongs to purgatory, not heaven.

[marijaglavasF]

I agree with what is said here but I believe the true behind all of this is that Rawling wasn't taking to much time thinking when she was writing and did it all superficially. No big theories or secrets behind HP books. Of course I could be wrong.

[katmaresparkles]

Albus Dumbledore is a light lord, exactly the same as a dark lord. The difference is he uses light magic instead of dark magic which makes him seem more benevolent and not evil. The problem with this is that the opposite is true. Because the evilness of his actions is hidden through manipulation and deception. Tom Riddle learnt to be like that from Albus Dumbledore when he was in school. However AD was the only one who TMR could not hide his true nature from. And eventually when TMR became LV he was being more open about his nature and desires. Just as his death eaters wore robes and masks to hide their identity, TMR used LV to hide his true identity.

However AD did more damage to wizarding society than either Grindelwald or Voldemort did. I have had others disagree with me about this of course, but I stand by my belief. We are told that AD turned down the minister for magic position because he was afraid of what he would do with that kind of power. I do not believe this is the real reason. As he already held 3 powerful full time positions at the same time (headmaster of hogwarts, chief warlock of the wizengamot, supreme mugwump of the international confederation of wizards), thus giving him more power over the entire wizarding world than he would ever have as prime minister of magical Britain. And to take up the post of prime minister, he would have to leave all of the other positions, thus decreasing his power.

Wizards lack of common sense meant that no one stood up to say this isn't right. And because of this wizarding society suffered, as AD couldn't give his full attention to just one position. The same can also be said of Minerva McGonagall, as she also had 3 full time positions (Deputy Headmistress, Head of Gryffindor and Transfiguration Professor). AD pushed most of his work as headmaster onto MM so he could deal with his other positions. As a result of this MM was not able to do her job as Deputy Headmistress properly, nor was she available to be a dedicated head of house to the Gryffindor students.

[Andrea-cqeg]

I dunno, there's probably something wrong with me... But if you survived a school in Eastern Europe, Snape's "bullying" feels like a tender caress

[JamesMC]

If the Potters were thought to be safe under the Fidelius charm, why could the Weasleys not be under the Fidelius Charm, with one of them as Secret Keeper ? Dumbledore made an utter pig's ear of looking after Harry. Dumbles is utterly unscrupulous, extremely manipulative. He is arguably a greater villain than Voldy.