Can Dumbledore REALLY Be Trusted? | Harry Potter Film Theory

is Dumbledore truly operating on behalf of the greater good hey brother okay everyone buckle up because today we are entering the Forbidden Waters of moral philosophy if you ever chat with me for very long at all you will quickly discover that this is a topic that I am personally endlessly fascinated with and I believe that the Wizarding World is just ripe with opportunities for discussion not the least of which is the realization by One S Snape that what Dumbledore has Essen been doing for all

of Harry's life is preparing him for death and even Snape who has seemingly despised Harry for his whole life so far takes this bit of information pretty hard you've kept him alive so that he can die at the proper moment you've been raising him like a pig for Slaughter so the function of today's discussion is to try to figure out the unique set of circumstances that Dumbledore is dealing with here it's questions of power eth ethics prophecies and above all else blood magic feel like I went reall

y heavy on blood and how all of these things though seem to fall under the in Universe nefarious Banner of for the greater good is Dumbledore Friend or Foe and let me assure you it's not always as straightforward as you may hope let's discuss Hey Brother okay so the greater good is a truly tricky and potentially dangerous phrase because anything is justifiable as long as you're operating on behalf of the greater good right the ends always justify the means as long as the means are ultimately the

betterment of everyone which sounds good unless the thing that you believe is good for everyone is you know snapping away half of all existence yeah but maybe we try some other things first right there Thanos is that okay can we all agree that like we went a little drastic a little quickly also when I say do other things first I also mean we're never doing your thing okay okay but on the other hand you know the one that's not wearing an Infinity Gauntlet the greater good is only really as dange

rous as the thing you are attempting to justify with it because really aren't most people just simply operating on behalf of the greater good all the time anyway someone is about to leave a comment being like that's optimistic Ben no but the major difference here is that you don't typically need to justify things as the greater good unless the thing that you're happen to be doing is otherwise regarded is bad and don't worry we'll get more into the complexities of this particular Mantra as we mov

e forward but now let's set the scene a little bit when we are first introduced to Dumbledore he is presented to us as an old wise and very talented individual a man who has committed his life to the instruction of children and the overall betterment of The Wizarding World he is both Whimsical and commanding at the same time and even seems to have a little bit of a soft spot for some light rule bending and or breaking you may not like him Minister but you can't deny dumbledor got style which I'v

e always personally felt like fits in with my own ideals like a little bit of light-hearted chaos is sort of part of the underlying Human Experience but Above All Else Dumbledore seems to come across as righteous and fair and this is pretty much true throughout the whole Saga all the way up until book seven and the Rel release of the life and lies of Albus Dumbledore written by the infamous Rita sker and this is the first time we ever get a glimpse at the overall bigger picture like what was Dum

bledore's life like before Harry was ever alive and what we find is a version of Dumbledore maybe before he truly became who he is or again at least the version of him that we the reader had always known this younger version of Dumbledore isn't any less talented although maybe a tick less humble and his overall aspect Iration seem to involve a lot more glory and a little less selflessness and overall to be fair here a lot of the people that we look up to out in the real world have achieved some

measure of Glory so to Aspire to that isn't necessarily in and of itself a bad thing however in his youth we learned that Dumbledore had a much narrower view of the world and with that came much more nefarious goals goals that involved a revolution over the non-magical population a repositioning of the pecking order and where Wizards fell inside of it where in this new world they would at least idealistically hold a gracious power over Muggles and this Mission would deeply root itself inside of

that mantra for the greater good it's best outlined in a letter from Dumbledore himself to Gill grald whose interpretation of Dumbledore's words are misguided at best and dangerous at worst your point about wizard dominance being for the Muggle own good this I think is the crucial Point yes we have been given power and yes that power gives us the right right to rule but it also gives us responsibilities over the ruled we must stress this point it will be the foundation stone upon which we build

where we are opposed as we surely will be this must be the basis for all of our counterarguments we seize control for the greater good now the important thing to remember here even though Dumbledore wrote these words he never actually follows through with this particular Mission and if anything you will eventually stand in opposition to it and we learned during Dumbledore's conversation with Harry inside of King's cross station that this was a moment in his life that he ultimately learned drasti

cally from and afterwards he committed his life to helping others and vowed to never accept significant power I meanwhile was offered the post of minister of magic not once but several times naturally I refused I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power but you'd have been better much better than fudge or scrim jow burst out Harry would I asked tumore heavily I am not so sure I had proven as a very young man that power was my weakness and my Temptation it is the Curious Thing Harry bu

t perhaps those who are are best suited to power are those who have never sought it now I specifically have taken the time to outline this portion of Dumbledore's life because I think it also demonstrates the significant growth that he underwent throughout his life but despite all of this learning and to bring the conversation back to Harry in particular I definitely think that there is an argument to be made over the fact that everything that Dumbledore does in regards to Harry in regards to pr

eparing him for what he must do in his fight against Voldemort also potentially falls under the banner of for the greater good so again as Snape of all people points out you've kept him alive so that he can die at the proper moment what this is suggesting is that the eventual and inevitable loss of Harry Potter's life is for the overall betterment of all wizard kind in simplest terms this idea can be compared to the very famous trolley problem it's a thought experiment that poses the following q

uestion there is a runaway trolley on a set of tracks you look ahead and realize that five people are somehow stuck stuck and if the train continues forward it will hit all five of them you however have the ability to divert the train down a different set of tracks but also notice that one person is stuck on the tracks in that direction an incredibly simple interpretation of the greater good with this example is that it is always worth saving five people versus saving one but then the experiment

can have a myriad of different emotional layers added to it as well say for example you maybe know the person who is on the diverted set of tracks or maybe the five people straight ahead are convicted velain or maybe you're the person on the diverted set of tracks it doesn't really matter what the modifications are it's just a question as to whether or not once your emotions are brought into the equation does it change the way in which you interpret the thought experiment because honestly on so

me level any hero versus villain story that you've ever watched or heard or read is basically a very obvious version of the trolley problem you the hero can do nothing and this one person will hurt lots of people or you the one person or the hero can do something and save lots of people if you'd like an example of what I'm trying to say here you can just watch any Marvel movie all of them work in general we probably don't spend very much time at all debating the ethics of whether or not our hero

should in fact defeat the villain but that's where the Harry Potter Saga makes things a bit more confusing because we know from the very beginning Dumbledore had a piece of information that nobody else had the prophecy the one with the power to Vanquish the dark lord of approaches it goes on but to read it all will kill my voice but what it means is that the chosen one is on their way as we speak and it can only be one of two people Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom realistically it probably s

hould have been Neville but Voldemort is a hypocrite and marks Harry as his equal so boom we've got ourselves a chosen one I'm the chosen one exactly Harry exactly but Dumbledore alone knows all of the information of the prophecy and basically immediately goes to work in raising Harry with one goal in mind to eventually defeat Voldemort but after Dumbledore learns that Harry himself is a horcrux and in order for Voldemort to be defeated Harry himself will also have to die Dumbledore is given a b

it of a unique version of the trolley problem he has to choose whether or not to direct the train in this case the Voldemort at Harry or the population of everyone every where shoot dang friends we'll let me pause right there to give a huge thank you to today's sponsor me unies talk about the greater good wearing more comfortable underwear literally makes your life better but the good news is guys that you can cozy up in maximum Comfort this fall season thanks to meundies y'all I have personally

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s feel like he necessarily gets enough credit for just how bad of a dude he really is but what this forces in Dumbledore is go back and revisit the question that he spent most of his life attempting to repair do I operate on behalf of the greater good in spoilers the answer to that question is that yes he will and does we've actually spent a huge amount of time going through and figuring out all of the various ways in which Dumbledore was like effectively training Harry for this very moment for

example have you ever find it kind of strange that there are like obstacles guarding the philosopher stone and each of those obstacles are uniquely capable of being solved by each of Harry's friends none of which even matters because the mirror in the final room itself is virtually unbeatable except of course unless you are Harry who was able to find the mirror of AAS said which happened to be on display in an empty classroom on the same week that Dumbledore himself gifted Harry an invisibility

cloak I'm invisible or then there's the fact that Dumbledore quite literally hires a I mean gildor lockart to teach his entire School defense against the dark arts for a year basically just to teach Harry the dangers of vanity and fame but I don't talk about that from the moment that Harry enters the castle Dumbledore is very carefully guiding him through all of the necessary steps required so that he can eventually defeat Voldemort or as Snape says it you've been raising him like a pig for Slau

ghter well it sure sounds bad when you describe it like that Snape geez read the room Man actually sometimes it very much does sound bad which is the very reason why we're making this video but the sentiment that Harry is being raised like a pig for Slaughter is a essentially true for more than half of the entire Series this is all the way up until Voldemort's ultimate Resurrection at the end of Goblet of Fire in the graveyard of little hangleton Harry's explaining to Dumbledore everything that

happened and gets the part where he specifically used Harry's blood instead of anybody else's to return He said my blood would make him stronger than if he used someone else's Harry told Dumbledore and for a fleeting instant Harry thought he saw a gleam of something like Triumph in Dumbledore's eyes and the real props go to Dumbledore inside of this moment for not like jumping out of his chair in just absolute Glee because that gleam of Triumph that Harry just witnessed was Dumbledore realizing

that Voldemort had inadvertently given Harry a way to survive his ultimate necessary demise we here at Super Carin Brothers have always very affectionately referred to this particular circumstance as a love Crux because Harry's own blood residing inside of Voldemort's veins in addition to Lily's sacrificial protection literally Lally anchors Harry to life However the fact that Dumbledore doesn't jump for Glee inside of this moment is absolutely essential because one of the key details necessary

for the whole plan to work is that eventually Harry is going to need to believe that he is truly sacrificing himself but I should have died I didn't defend myself I meant to let him kill me and that said Dumbledore will I think have made all the difference and so it does Harry is able to come back to life and Dumbledore mission is complete the greater good has been served or was it I mean yes Voldemort does die and Harry does survive like that's the greatest good but the bigger question is was t

hat how Dumbledore was operating the entire time would he sacrifice anything to defeat Voldemort the answer is no the loophole is the prophecy Dumbledore knows that Harry has the power to defeat Voldemort and believes that to be true and as a result for Harry's first 12 years of life there's really no issues at all raise Harry to defeat Voldemort easy that gets us through the end of Harry's first year at school but then in Harry's second year a new piece of information arises specifically the di

ary which Dumbledore is able to recognize as a horcrux the problem with this discovery is that it also comes with the realization that Harry himself is also a horcrux this is the moment when Dumbledore learns that what will be essential to defeat Voldemort is also the loss of Harry's own life because that's the only way for the horcrux living inside of Harry to be destroyed at this point Dumbledore is quite literally caught in the crosshairs of a paradox Harry is the only one who can defeat Vold

emort but if Harry is also a horcrux then he himself can't survive because otherwise the horcrux living inside of him will continue to Anchor Voldemort to life but then also if the prophecy says he can then there must be a way for this to work right it looks like he's going to have to resort back to this idea of the greater good philosophy that in order for Voldemort to be destroyed Harry will also have to die and yet he doesn't have to resort back to that philosophy Because he believes in the p

rophecy it's a prophecy philosophy a prop phcy some real highbrow entertainment happening over here right what this means for Dumbledore at this point in time though is that he is going to have to Fumble around in a kind of fog for some period of time and wait for a potential solution to present itself and just have faith that it eventually will and in the meantime he will continue to prepare Harry in what he believes is simply the best way and we see this in his third and fourth years up until

this point Harry's education in the realm of defense against the dark arts has largely been a joke hardly any of you remember that my favorite color is lilac after quirrel and lockart though we get Lupin and Moody and in the world of defense against the dark arts these guys are Heavy Hitters well to be fair one of them ends up being a total fraud and actually an enemy in Disguise but otherwise Dumbledore's intention was to give him the proper education which somehow he also does still seem to ge

t but then at the end of Goblet of Fire Dumbledore's patience pays off when he learns that Voldemort has taken Harry's blood into himself this is the way for Harry to truly defeat Voldemort a way to destroy the horcrux inside with Harry himself not dying but again Harry can't know that he has the ability to come back he must want to die so from this point forward what Dumbledore needs to do is create someone who is willing to accept that fate which again he does do so while at times it may have

come across like Dumbledore was simply raising Harry like a pig for Slaughter he maintains faith in the prophecy and Harry throughout the whole process even when he can't see the Finish Line the only greater good that Dumbledore is is still serving is his faith in the greatest good love big deal ironically it was also love as a teenager that was misguiding Dumbledore into the wrong interpretation of this same exact concept but with age experience and a prophecy Dumbledore gets there in the end H

arry's own relationship with the greater good and love itself is summed up rather beautifully in one of his final conversations just hours before his intended demise with aberforth you know the one who was most negatively impacted by Dumbledore's prior relationship with the concept of the greater good I don't believe it Dumbledore loved Harry said Hermione why didn't he tell him to hide then shot back AB forth why didn't he say to him take care of yourself here's how to survive because said Harr

y before Hermione could answer sometimes you've got to think about more than your own safety sometimes you've got to think about the greater good boom in the wrong hands it of course can be incredibly dangerous but is the greater good inherently a bad thing of course not and I think both Harry and Dumbledore got there in the [Music] end guys as always thank you so much for watching today's video be sure to like this video if you haven't already and subscribe so you don't miss any future Harry Po

tter action from us if you'd like to see our entire bookby book breakdown of Dumbledore's big plan how he was coaching Harry every single step of the way you can check out this video right over here but otherwise until next time bye hi