I don’t often
talk about my Harry Potter fandom. Though I’d been reading the books since
2001, it wasn’t until last summer that I sat down with J.K. Rowling’s seven
novel series and truly realized their depth and creativity. I could go on for
pages listing the heptalogy’s
qualities, but I don’t have the time and I imagine whoever is reading this
doesn’t have the patience. So for today I’m just going to focus on one of the
books’ strongest suits: characterization. Particularly, I’m interested in how
Rowling fleshes out Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, and how the depth she
gives to the character later on in the series significantly impacts Harry’s own
decisions in the final book.
For all of his
eccentricities and endearing witticisms, Dumbledore wasn’t even close to being
one of my favourite characters for a long while. I discovered The Lord of the Rings not too long after
reading the first HP novel, and anything I might have found appealing about
Rowling’s old wizard was supplanted by my discovery of Gandalf the Grey (later
the White). Both characters had the same, grandfatherly charm, but Gandalf was,
when called upon, a warrior, whereas Dumbledore was more often than not a
passive, expository figure, popping in near the end of each novel to provide
Harry with context and congratulations. On a more shallow level, there was also
the fact that, being old, grey and wise, Dumbledore seemed a knockoff of his
Middle-earth parallel, and therefore inferior (ignoring the influence that King
Arthur’s trusty mage, Merlyn, must have had on Tolkien). But there’s a lot more
to the wizard than the archetypal foundation he’s built on suggests.
