Re: Dumbledore's Smiling Face, Part 2
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Thank you for bringing up The Trouble With The Dursleys!
I couldn't forgive Dumbledore after finding out that he deliberately placed Harry with the Dursleys, and giving no real reason for it when talking to Harry (that tearful "explanation" that he "loved" Harry is NOT a reason!) in the last parts of Book Four.
No given reason plus a load of emotional bollocks plus the way he's behaved toward both Snape and Harry: I put that book down convinced that Dumbledore had quite deliberately left Harry to the Dursleys' care because it set Harry up to trust only Dumbledore and to tie him very closely to the Wizarding World, thus making it easy to make him both Dumbledore's catspaw and unlikely to resist his "expected" position as Hero, even at the cost of self-sacrifice.
Think about it. If you spent eleven years without any form of love or recognition, and then someone took you to an amazing new place where everybody thought you were great, wouldn't you feel indebted to that person? Wouldn't you do anything to stay in that new place?
He even set Arabella Figg to watch Harry, doubtless reporting on him regularly; that way he could make sure the boy wouldn't form any lasting attachments to the Muggle world or find any parental role model/affection giver until Dumbledore decided to enter the picture and set himself up in that role.
I couldn't forgive Dumbledore after finding out that he deliberately placed Harry with the Dursleys, and giving no real reason for it when talking to Harry (that tearful "explanation" that he "loved" Harry is NOT a reason!) in the last parts of Book Four.
No given reason plus a load of emotional bollocks plus the way he's behaved toward both Snape and Harry: I put that book down convinced that Dumbledore had quite deliberately left Harry to the Dursleys' care because it set Harry up to trust only Dumbledore and to tie him very closely to the Wizarding World, thus making it easy to make him both Dumbledore's catspaw and unlikely to resist his "expected" position as Hero, even at the cost of self-sacrifice.
Think about it. If you spent eleven years without any form of love or recognition, and then someone took you to an amazing new place where everybody thought you were great, wouldn't you feel indebted to that person? Wouldn't you do anything to stay in that new place?
He even set Arabella Figg to watch Harry, doubtless reporting on him regularly; that way he could make sure the boy wouldn't form any lasting attachments to the Muggle world or find any parental role model/affection giver until Dumbledore decided to enter the picture and set himself up in that role.