this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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Dumbledore is the single most powerful wizard know, and the most influential in magical Britian. He runs a school where he is beloved by nearly everyone. If he wanted to change things, he easily could have done more. Especially since Fudge wasn't very powerful and had to deal with an entire bureaucracy. Direct change at the school itself would have been feasible.
And while the parents might have threatened to remove their students, they weren't really. Where else are they going to send their kids to get educated? There are other schools but the culture difference was so stark that seems unlikely.
Dumbledore got kicked out in Chamber of Secrets by the governors. If he started implementing more radical progressive changes, that would happen on an even quicker timeline.
That's like saying "Dumbledore had the biggest assault rifle of anyone, so he can do anything".
Sure he was a powerful duelist, but a group of others could take him down.
So, setting the "power" aside, he has 2 choices:
Operate within the system and bureaucracy to effect change via normal political motion
Use non combat magic to manipulate others, (time travel, invisibility, foresight) effectively hoping to be a benevolent authoritarian
If he goes with 1, he has to maintain favor. You can see how tenuous that is, with his favor slipping during the unrest. The parents wouldn't take their kids out of Hogwarts long term, they'd kick.dumbledore out instead.
For the most part it's feasible that he could have made more direct changes to the school, yes. Good point.
I didn't read that even slightly as if he was talking about magical power; I read it as he was talking about Dumbledore being extremely influential.
Except it's not, not even close. Having a gun is not the same as having authority and influence in an institution or government. He ran Hogwarts, for one thing, as you said. He could have very easily refused to have house elves at the school unless they were paid employees, and that alone would have made a very public statement, which would have meant a lot on a societal level coming from such an important, influential, public figure. There are other options for labour, so it's not like he had any excuse not to. He also had political influence and could have pushed for changes in legislation if he wanted. Part of why the ministry was so afraid of him was because of the influence he had. It wasn't because he was a string wizard and they thought he would come to the ministry one day and shoot up the place if he didn't get his way, Dumbledore could only do so much against an entire building full of powerful wizards, even he wouldn't be able to stand up to all of the ministry's aurors. He had friends, connections, a reputation, a history, control over one of the most influential schools in the world which produced a significant percentage of the world's licenced and trained Wizarding population, direct access to thousands of witches and wizards who could all potentially be the next minister of magic or the next Voldemort or hell the next Dumbledore. He absolutely could have leveraged that to change something societally but he only ever used it to maintain his own status quo when the ministry got too jumpy and tried to knock him down a few pegs.
You say that like it would be difficult. He was beloved by most of his students, many of which had influential parents or would become influential themselves. He had an untold number of connections from favours he'd provided over the years, people he'd helped, or even just friends in high places. He was close with many high ranking experts in their respective field including his professors and others outside of Hogwarts. He'd previously been the one to take down the first wizard Hitler, and had been instrumental in fighting the second wizard Hitler. Etc, etc. His favour only slipped with the ministry precisely because they were aware of the power he held politically and were afraid of him leveraging that, and thought his claims of Voldemort returning were part of a move to take over the ministry. That was the entire deal behind the Dumbledore's army conspiracy. Even when they managed to force him out of Hogwarts they had to basically play dirty and strong arm him out of the position because they knew they couldn't do it through any legitimate channels. Even then the school constantly pushed back against them taking over and it became a nightmare to deal with.
But it's not like he would have to stage a revolution to enact meaningful change. All he'd have to do is suggest a change in legislation to important figures who respected his opinion, openly advocate for said legislation to gain public support, y'know, regular everyday activism and political lobbying, and he'd undoubtedly get results.
Did you read the books? The limitations of Dumbledore's political (in the general sense) power, in and out of Hogwarts, is a recurring theme. He regularly tries to influence things, but encounters pushback from other politically powerful people. His methodical attempts to incept progress in a stubborn and prejudiced society steeped in traditionalism are a constant backdrop to thee books. His inability to just do whatever he wanted at Hogwarts and the limits of his societal influence are basically the whole plot of the 5th book.
Yes I did, I read and reread them many times as a kid and I never saw enough evidence that he had enough limitations to prevent him from doing something like lobbying for legislation. The degree of influence he held in the Wizarding world was huge and none of the reasons given for why he would struggle with changing things convinced me that they were enough to combat the sheer volume of feats Dumbledore had achieved throughout his career, the number of friends he had in high places, or the fact that he, again, very publicly defeated Wizard Hitler 1.0. The 5th book actually showcased pretty strongly how far his influence had spread and how much it intimidated the ministry. He had inside men in both Voldemort's circle (Snape) and the ministry's circle (Kingsley), neither of which were ever suspected or discovered by the leaders of the organizations they'd infiltrated, and he even orchestrated an entire underground order of powerful and influential wizards and witches working in the shadows to fight against Voldemort right under the ministry's nose. It's not like Fudge was terrified of him aiming for Minister of Magic for no reason.
And despite all that, he was basically ousted from the school he supposedly had so much control over, for what again? Saying "Wizard Hitler bad, and maybe not actually dead, and we should probably consider doing something about that"? Seems like a fairly uncontroversial proposition, and yet look at the results.
Do you really think that highlighting the slavery supporting wizard society would have been better received? How many of the pure blood families would have left that move unchallenged? How many of his friends in high places would have backed him up? How much of that influence and political capital would he have used up just getting legislation drafted, much less passed?
You don't maintain influence by calling in favors frivolously, and there are bigger fish to fry than house elves. Wizard Hitler, for example.
I'm not gonna read all that you hardly formatted it.
First sentence refers to having a gun, and yeah , the person I replied to mentioned him being a powerful wizard. That's all I commented on there.
Further in my comment I discuss politics, choices, and influence.
Oh no two whole paragraphs longer than 3 sentences. I didn't mean to frighten you with words.
I already made my point and I don't care about.your fanfic
Yes, the two modes. Timid acceptance of the status quo with minor calls for change behind closed or full blown revolution and authoritarianism.
That's not what I wrote.
Did you not present binary options where the first option is what Dumbledore did in the books and the other option is him being authoritarian. Are there more numbers on your option list I didn't see?
The first is not being timid. You made that up. He is a prominent, popular member of the political class, with significant sway and influence.
At the end of the comment I acknowledged that he could probably have moved faster with changes at the school. Dunno if you read that far.
I'm essentially saying he can either be a rational, normal member of a society (albeit well positioned ), or resort to authoritarian options. Are you suggesting another, or did you just want to keep being annoying?
If he was against the use of house elves in the book he was extremely timid about it. At no point in the books does he present himself as a political player in the world.
Ok so timid is your thing, you made it sound like it was my thing.
And what? He's constantly working with the ministry, speaking to the council, running political errands
To prevent the world from being taken over by wizard Nazis. Not to save elves.
Sounds like 2 important topics that a leader should be concerned with. Maybe if the whole Voldemort thing never happened other topics could have been addressed but we have nothing on that
Correct. The book does not adress any other social issue than immediate threats of wizard nazism and it crops up once every 10-15 years because the schools won't even reform the evil school house where the evil people can socialize and be evil with each other.