But the plot reason was... umm, Dumbledore was a tool? No, he wanted to "protect" Harry and give him a few years of blissful ignorance, I guess. Good plan, Dumbles. It never seemed so off to me - with the small exception that it doesn't go so well with Dumbledore telling Harry in the cave that it's Voldemort's mistake to underestimate underage wizards. It seems Dumbledore's generally rather secretive. Perhaps he enjoyed being the only one to know, or perhaps the betrayal of Harry's parents by an order member made him more cautious about secrecy. Every person who knows might accidentally or deliberately let it slip in front of a Death Eater. And when he first arrived at school Harry was only 11 and knew nobody in the wizarding world. How could he be sure who was trustworthy and who wasn't, or expected to keep such important information to himself? ("Hey kid, there's this super powerful madman and you need to either kill him or die trying. Be good and don't tell anybody now.") I'm also getting the impression that there's a bit of a culture gap between Europe and America concerning how seriously adults take children. I consider it pretty normal for an adult, especially a teacher to assume that 'just a child' isn't ready to deal with an issue or shouldn't have to deal with it yet.
That said, Alexandra is American and your creation, so her story needs to make sense from an American and especially your perspective. (Besides a larger variety of reasons can only make the story more interesting.)
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Date: 2011-02-05 02:21 pm (UTC)It never seemed so off to me - with the small exception that it doesn't go so well with Dumbledore telling Harry in the cave that it's Voldemort's mistake to underestimate underage wizards.
It seems Dumbledore's generally rather secretive. Perhaps he enjoyed being the only one to know, or perhaps the betrayal of Harry's parents by an order member made him more cautious about secrecy. Every person who knows might accidentally or deliberately let it slip in front of a Death Eater. And when he first arrived at school Harry was only 11 and knew nobody in the wizarding world. How could he be sure who was trustworthy and who wasn't, or expected to keep such important information to himself? ("Hey kid, there's this super powerful madman and you need to either kill him or die trying. Be good and don't tell anybody now.")
I'm also getting the impression that there's a bit of a culture gap between Europe and America concerning how seriously adults take children. I consider it pretty normal for an adult, especially a teacher to assume that 'just a child' isn't ready to deal with an issue or shouldn't have to deal with it yet.
That said, Alexandra is American and your creation, so her story needs to make sense from an American and especially your perspective. (Besides a larger variety of reasons can only make the story more interesting.)