Dumbledore’s Wisdom: Death and Choice

I’m presently taking an online Harry Potter class at a local community college, and I’m hoping it will give plenty of stuff to blog about. We are required to answer two questions per week, and I will begin posting the questions and my answers weekly. This first week centers on Book 1, and here is the first question and my answer. The caveat here is that we’re at a very, very basic level at this point, so this might be good introductory material for people just starting to think a bit more deeply about Harry.

Question: What is the single most important piece of wisdom that Dumbledore gives Harry? What is so important about it?

The quote about Lily’s love saving Harry already mentioned [by someone else in the class], I want to focus on another quote from the same conversation that is equally important and fills in the full meaning of Harry’s conversation at the end of Sorcerer’s Stone. Harry is baffled by the idea that Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel would be willing to give up the Stone and so give up their lives after they have lived more than 600 years. Dumbledore responds:

After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most humans would choose above all — the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them. (Stone 297)

Dumbledore here introduces two of the most important themes of the series: death and choice. Clearly Harry has to deal with the death of his parents as well as deaths in the subsequent books. Rowling has said that death is “possibly the most important theme” of the series. (“Harry Potter and Me”) Likewise, choice is incredibly important, and Chamber of Secrets will establish choice as the fundamental difference between Harry and Voldemort.

This first end-of-the-book conversation with Dumbledore is absolutely brilliant, introducing three of the most important themes: love, death, and choice. Many of the future events of the books are centered around these three themes and the relationship they have to each other. They become crucial to understanding Harry and Voldemort as the series continues.

Works Cited
“Harry Potter and Me” (BBC Christmas Special, British Version), BBC, 28 December 2001.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Scholastic, Inc. 1997.