professordorian-blog

[professordorian-blog]

Snape, Dumbledore, and Judgement. [Meta]

I’m sure this has been said by greater literary analysts than myself, but I deeply enjoy the inverse parallel of Snape and Dumbledore’s progressions in Harry’s regard.

Part of what draws us to these books is the journey through Harry’s maturing perspective. The early books sparkle with the naive gossamer of childhood, which slowly melts away as Harry ages. But this is not a story of the descent into cynicism. Rather, it’s about the bittersweet nuance of reality. Snape and Dumbledore are the equal and inverse literary tools that illustrate this concept.

Take Dumbledore: He begins the series as a saintly, fatherly archetype who can do no wrong in Harry’s eyes. He seems to embody everything that is good and selfless, and child-Harry attaches his loyalty to the man so completely that he’s able to summon Fawkes.

As the books progress, Harry finds his early assumptions challenged. He finds out that Dumbledore has left a trail of mistakes in his life. That his good intentions were sometimes executed with morally questionable methods, or were tainted by ulterior motives. Overall, Harry’s image of Dumbledore emerges as something complex. He sees that Dumbledore tried to do good in the world, but sometimes went about it in the wrong way; that he gave Harry a foundation of care and support, but failed him emotionally in other ways; that Dumbledore served the political ideals Harry fights for, but sometimes put ideology above people.

Then take Snape: He begins the series as a veritable Vaudeville villain in Harry’s eyes. All he needs to go with his bat-like wardrobe and sallow sneer is a well-greased mustache to twirl. Harry has hardly spent ten minutes in the same room as the man before Snape becomes Suspect #1 in his Scooby Gang shenanigans.

This viewpoint, too, is challenged later on. Harry discovers that once upon a time, Snape was the victim and his father the villain. Although Snape became the Death Eater that Harry always condemned him to be, Harry leans that Snape also experienced deep remorse and shifted his path to one of atonement. His image of Snape becomes one of a tortured man who struggled against his own mistakes. He sees that Snape took his pain out on others interpersonally, but also that Snape was putting his very life on the line for the same people he tormented. That Snape's apparent selflessness is complicated, though not invalidated, by obsession. That Snape lives the life of someone who cannot escape the fact that he has done unforgivable things, which both motivates him to be bravely self-sacrificial and degrades his empathy.

What both these evolutions in viewpoint have in common is that they arrive in the middle. Snape starts in the black, Dumbledore starts in the white, and they both arrive in the gray.

This is true maturation: a departure from the mindset where people are easily boxed into extremes. A departure from the illusion that there is such a thing as a "good person." Although neither mentor can live up to the "white" end of the spectrum, Harry concludes that he admires them both in the end, because he sees that their shades of gray are as good as it gets. They were imperfect actors, struggling to make a difference in a hostile, tricky world.

This ultimate maturation and revelation is embodied in the fact that Harry names his son Albus Severus Potter. This gesture shows that Harry has absorbed the lesson in its completeness: that the people we judge to be good are often flawed, and that the people we judge to be evil are often more sympathetic than we realize. That it is the bravery of people who try to do good despite their own demons that is worthy of our admiration. Not the flawless execution of the morally perfect, because those people do not exist.

I would add that this authorly appeal to the importance of nuance is the precise reason why Snape and Dumbledore are such uniquely divisive characters in the fandom. Strict criterion for good or evil, where a person is only allowed to occupy one definition or the other, is as old as time; it was not invented by this generation of progressive youths any more than it was by the generation of progressive youths before them. Nor before them. Nor them.

To a mind that can only oscillate between outright condemnation and idolizing admiration, Snape and Dumbledore would both fall firmly in the "black" category. Any attempt to discuss the complexity of their actions or motivations would seem a defense of their most unforgivable qualities and mistakes. To such a mind, the lesson of the Harry Potter books is not one of moderating one's reflex to judge, but one of disillusionment and cynicism. To such a mind, Harry's instinct to vilify was correct, and his instinct to admire was a regrettable naivety that had to be shattered.

I don't want to live in such a mind. I imagine it is a rather bleak place to be.

The last thing I will say is that Harry donned a note of compassion when discussing both Snape and Dumbledore, in the end. The quality of compassion is to human flaws as bravery is to fear. It is not an emotion to lock away behind a maze of superhuman criteria, but rather an emotion that exists to meet those who don't live up to our conceptions of what a perfect recipient "should" be. The ability to give it in spite of our own disappointment is what makes it compassion.

I hope more people in the fandom will absorb the underlying message of this narrative as they grow, mature, and evolve.

[professordorian-blog]

Stop.

J.K. Rowling and David Yates are trying to give us a poignant, complicated, and nuanced lovestory.

Let. It. Happen.

J.K. Rowling's past comments have already established that Gellert Grindelwand and Albus Dumbledore did not "get together" during their time in Godric's Hollow. The only thing we knew before the Yates interview was that they planned to take over the world together and that Dumbledore had romantic feelings for Grindelwald.

Here is David Yates' ACTUAL quote:

“Not explicitly. But I think all the fans are aware of that. He had a very intense relationship with Grindelwald when they were young men. They fell in love with each other's ideas, and ideology and each other."

This should be wonderful news for those who are invested in the lovestory between these characters, because it is the first time their love has been spoken of in mutual terms. Until this interview, we were left to wonder whether Dumbledore's feelings were tragically unrequited. Whether or not Grindelwald manipulates Dumbledore, Yates' interpretation is clear: their obsession was mutual.

Canonically, obsession and emotion is all there is to show during the flashbacks to their youth. That means there is nothing more "explicit" than that to show in the next installment, where these flashbacks will happen.

The final showdown between Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore does not happen until 1945.

The first Fantastic Beasts installment takes place in 1926.

This is a five-movie franchise.

We know what happened at Godric's Hollow. But 1926-1945? This is a time in the Harry Potter universe that we know next to nothing about. Anything can happen. The story is untold.

Or, in J.K. Rowling's own words:

“I can’t tell you everything I would like to say because this is obviously a five-part story so there’s lots to unpack in that relationship. You will see Dumbledore as a younger man and quite a troubled man — he wasn’t always the sage… We’ll see him at that formative period of his life. As far as his sexuality is concerned … watch this space.”

What we have here is two young men who were deeply enamored with one another as brash, idealistic youths, who must now grapple with standing on opposing sides of a war. Their romantic feelings for one another were not actualized in their teenage days, though they were quite literally ready to run away and conquer the world together. Do we make no allowance for why two young men at the turn of the twentieth century might not jump straight into bed together after only a three-month friendship?

Are we not curious what role sexual and romantic dispositions will play in their connection now that they are both older and more mature?

Do they regret not reaching out and touching when they were young? Were they unaware, at the time, that the intensity of their friendship indicated something more? Have they come to unpackage this with age and experience? Did they realize, at that age and time, that sexual touch between two young men was even an option? Were they too child-like, still, to engage their sexualities? How will that play out now that they are both wise to the ways of the world? Will the raw edge of attraction complicate the innocence of their nostalgia? Will Grindelwald try to seduce Dumbledore yet again? Will Dumbledore be tempted?

There are so many directions this tragic and delicate story can go. We only know the painful ending and the beautiful beginning.

So why--WHY--are we lampooning the creators for not giving us cheap, tokenized, immediate gratification?

Why is the ONLY satisfactory progression of this lovestory that Dumbledore and Grindelwald kiss on screen or profess their romantic love in the first of four feature-length films that the author has outlined to explore this relationship?

Four films. That is the amount of time J.K. Rowling is devoting to telling this story right.

And fans are angry that she isn't writing a kissing/sex/declaration scene in the first ten minutes, as though this were a smutfic.

This isn't smutfic. It's longfic.

We WILL see romantic feelings between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Mutual romantic feelings, no less. Yates has confirmed that. This is a time for EXCITEMENT, not disappointment.

And it's a time to lean back, take a deep breath, and settle into a lovestory that will be long, winding, and nuanced.

Let the creators do their thing.