Comments on: Oho! Reconsidering Dumbledore’s Death

By: Reyhan

Reyhan — Fri, 25 May 2007 03:18:49 +0000

riel, there has been a lot of debate and conjecture about Snape’s reasons for killing Dumbledore at this site. For the most recent discussion, check out the post:
Book Review: The Great Snape Debate (part 2).

By: riel

riel — Fri, 25 May 2007 02:50:29 +0000

dumbledore is really dead..that’s what i believe. maybe there’s a reason why he died..

look, try to scan the pages where hagrid narrated the argument of dumbledore and sanpe in harry potter 6..snape says “I couldn’t do that..” well, you know, i feel there’s something in it..i think albus ordered snape to kill him.

By: Mia

Mia — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:46:24 +0000

Well, Rowling has confirmed by now that Dumbledore is dead and that he wonâ€™t return. So maybe weâ€™ll be reading something about him in retrospect.

The slow fall: I think that Snape needed to put Dumbledoreâ€™s body out of the DEâ€™s reach, but he wanted him to arrive gently to the ground. Perhaps heâ€™s used some non-verbal spell to decelerate the fall.

By: Reyhan

Reyhan — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 03:54:32 +0000

There was a lot of mystery around Dumbledore’s death: what he said in the cave, what he said to Draco, the slow fall, the handling of his body, the phoenix, not to mention the wounded hand that wouldn’t heal, and the “Oho”.

I’m willing to put the slow fall and the “Oho” down to the author being too rushed to correct the manuscript, but not the rest.

There is obviously something else going on behind the scenes, which Snape and to a lesser extent Hagrid, are party to.

I don’t know what that is.

This is what I am certain of: Voldemort was at least partially inhabiting Dumbledore’s body near the end; Dumbledore had given Snape instructions that he – or his body -was to be killed at some point: when Snape saw him, he knew the moment had come; perhaps these two things are one and the same: Dumbledore told Snape that if Voldemort ever took over his body, Snape was to kill him.

I am also certain that Dumbledore is dead. My certainty is not based on any plot detail, it’s based on the deep logic of the story. Too many people, including Harry, grieved Dumbledore and too deeply, for him to return. I do believe that in HP7 Harry will visit the deathly hallows, and that Dumbledore may have joined that rank, but he will be visiting a spirit, and not the living man.

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:15:47 +0000

1. I believe Dumbledore is dead. Severus made Snape unbreakable vowes. If Dumbledore had not died Snape would have died. Dark lord would have noticed.

I think when Dumbledore was talking to Draco he was theching Harry the last lesson. It was not a speech of Slughorn. I do not think that Harry would be able to vanquished the Dark Lord without the help of Death Eaters.

Some people belive and so do I that the potion Dumbledore drank was a horcrux. When Snape killed Dumbledore, he destroyed 1/7 of Voldemort’s sole as well.

2. I trust Severus Snape. He was teaching Harry even when he was leaving Hogwarts.

“Blocked aganin, and again until you learn to keep your mounth shut and your mind closed, Potter!”

Do not forget that Setucmspectra is non-verbal spell.

3. Would you say Dedalus Diggle might have buried Harry’s parents?

By: Alice

Alice — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 02:23:13 +0000

There’s a theory going around that Dumbledore’s blackened wand hand may indicate that he had already been hit by a fatal spell before school starts and is being kept alive by a combination of Snape’s “stoppered deathâ€ potion and the last of the Elixor of Life.
So he was sort of dead already, when Snape finished him off.
That blackened hand is a real mystery for me. JKR makes a point of letting us see how nimble DD is with it at one point, at the Dursley’s, I think. And for some reason, DD won’t tell Harry how it happened.
Speaking of small details, the way DD sort of hung out in space for a minute after Snape fired off the AK reminded me of that wierdness after Katie Bell was exposed to the cursed locket.

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 19:29:43 +0000

Just noticed a small detail from when Harry and the teachers are gathered after D’s death. Harry proposes the funeral with students in attendance, but Slughor agrees “in a rather agitated voice”.

Why?

Sorry if this has already been mentioned.

By: Travis Prinzi

Travis Prinzi — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 16:58:07 +0000

Just for clarification, Rowling has been adamant that one of the rules of magic in her wizarding world is that once someone is truly dead, they can never come back. So our options are either (a) Dumbledore is dead and not coming back, or (b) Dumbledore is not dead, and we’ll see him in book 7 (though if this is the case, I think I agree with you – we’ll lose him again).

Stay tuned for an essay on the question of Dumbledore’s death…

By: phoenix_rises

phoenix_rises — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 16:19:39 +0000

I think Sluggy exists as a character to illuminate Snape’s and Riddle’s characters. He’s neither clever nor motivated enough to perform as a double agent, like Snape, for the DE. He’s Peter Pettigrew’s opposite number, conflicted, with the impulse to do right but imbued with a weak, cowed spirit.

I believe Dumbledore is the character who receives a reprieve from death. I think the word is significant. Dumbledore is really dead, Snape killed him (on Dumbledore’s orders), but Rowling’s work is steeped in archetype. He will receive a phoenix-like resurrection, but it is only a temporary reprieve. In the end, the mentor makes way for the hero to come into full maturity, often in a final act of self-sacrifice. Dumbledore’s death in the tower doesn’t fit the bill. He didn’t die directly to save the hero, destroy the villain, or even the cursed amulet. Rowling makes it abundantly clear that, at least as far as these objections, it was an unnecessary sacrifice. When Dumbledore leaves for good, it will be with his affairs in order, the fate of the world assured, and his protege come to maturity. I’m looking forward to how Rowling does it, but I’m afraid we’re going to get Dumbledore back only to lose him in the end. Sigh…

By: Travis Prinzi

Travis Prinzi — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:20:34 +0000

Dom, the “slow” fall would indicate that the person sort of levitated themselves slowly to the ground, rather than it being a dead fall. So in the theory, the person who fell wouldn’t have died.