A (14:38)

Hey, this is Sarah. Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling, Even kind of cheesy. But I like it. Sure you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all. So farewell oatmeal, so long, you strange soggy.

B (14:56)

Break up with bland breakfast and taste AM PM's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit made with K tree eggs, smoked bacon and melty cheese on a buttery biscuit. AM P M Too much Good stuff.

A (15:07)

What do you think makes the perfect snack?

B (15:09)

Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.

A (15:12)

Could you be more specific?

B (15:14)

When it's cravenient? Okay, like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter available right down the street at a.m. p.m. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at a.m. p.m.

A (15:23)

I'm seeing a pattern here.

B (15:24)

Well yeah, we're talking about what I.

A (15:26)

Crave, which is anything from AM pm.

B (15:28)

What more could you want? Stop by AMPM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience AM PM Too much. Good stuff.

A (15:38)

Hey, this is Sarah. Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling, even kind of cheesy. But I like it. Sure you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all. So farewell oatmeal, so long, you strange soggy.

B (15:56)

Break up with bland breakfast and taste AM PM's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit made with K tree egg, smoked bacon and melty cheese on a buttery biscuit. AM PM Too much good stuff.

C (16:18)

The next theme that came up in the post episode chat was one that really grapples with the question about Dumbledore's ethics in his leadership, his privilege and his power. Ishita wrote, for all of Dumbledore's genius, he strikes me as someone deeply lacking in self awareness at times, which people with immense privilege often seem to struggle with. In Half Blood Prince Dumbledore says to Harry, please do not suggest that I do not take the safety of my students seriously. Harry. And yet we see time and time again that Dumbledore does not act in ways that keeps his students safe. However, I think Dumbledore genuinely believes what he says to Harry is true. Dumbledore is the chess master who is so used to being right even when he's gambling with people's lives, he develops tunnel vision and justifies to himself that everything is for the greater good. I think he has so much faith in his own brilliance and magical ability that the reality that he is putting his students in constant danger doesn't even occur to him as a real possibility. Katharina wrote, just because you did things to help a society at war does not make you a good person. He helped save a society status quo, not change it to be better, but keep it the same while he was manipulating children and vulnerable adults. A good leader at war I think tends to mean the opposite of a good person. You are just very good at making tough decisions and looking past people's suffering. Rachel Schwartz Bard wrote, what was said about putting all your faith in one person is a setup designed for failure. Really made me think Dumbledore is such a legend to these students. Harry reveres him immediately, but all he's told is what Hagrid tells him and what he reads on the chocolate frog cards. In Hagrid's eyes, Dumbledore can do no wrong and the Chocolate Frog cards won't put anything controversial. Harry was young, impressionable and learning everything about the wizarding world. Harry's high opinion of Dumbledore was formed before he'd even met him. As readers, though, we meet Dumbledore when he's abandoning a baby on a doorstep of a house where he knows that baby will be neglected. And yet we are expected to hold him in the highest regard and believe he has a plan. And Amanda wrote, this is what the character comes down to for me and why he's controversial. And many people don't think he's a good person. It's the lack of transparency, like how in wizards chess they have to talk to Their chess pieces and the chess pieces have a chance to talk back and give their feedback about their moves and position. Had the chess master been open and honest with the pieces on the board, Harry, the order, teachers, people directly involved or affected and they were able to have agency over their own actions or inactions or means in, in terms of the quote unquote grand plan, the ends would have felt more justified and palatable by the fandom. I truly believe that. And Britt wrote, Dumbledore may not have had a lot of direct contact with the majority of the students, but given his celebrity and its mystique, as well as his position, authority and influence, him simply being at Hogwarts as a wartime general of sorts could have an influence on the student population and have an effect on the culture of the school and the conversations that are had. I'll stand 10 toes down that he didn't even need to be in Hogwarts. And his very presence along with Harry leads Hogwarts to be a target of Voldiva sooner than it otherwise would have. Additionally, his presence could have influenced kids to get involved with fighting a war by just him being there.

A (20:13)

It's me.

C (20:16)

We're gonna. We're workshopping. We're workshopping it. But anyways, I absolutely agree with the idea that Dumbledore fully believes that there is not an obstacle he cannot overcome, that there is not a problem he cannot solve if he just thinks hard enough about it. We talk a lot on social media about how people are exactly who they believe themselves to be. And I think that that is true of Dumbledore. He is someone who has built an identity around brilliance, improvisation and power. He believes in his capacity so deeply that the belief itself becomes part of the problem. Because, yes, as I talked about in the last episode, I do think Dumbledore's relationship to power undermines his ability to actually keep his students safe. I think he knows intellectually that he has the ability to do it, but I do not think he thinks through the process of actually doing it. I think he believes that he alone is enough, that he is the only security Hogwarts needs. And a lot of parents act like this too. This idea that because you love children or because you have authority or because you are smart, you can simply step in at the right moment and everything will be fine. Now, someone brought up the fact that during the sixth year we see an increase in security, right? That there are trolls, that the Aurors are there. And I think that all of that is true. However, simultaneously, concurrently. And we also See a lot of madness going on. We know that students are smuggling in love potions, right? We know that Draco is up to foolish and madness. We know all of these things are happening. And what's more, Dumbledore knows they're happening. Because we see in the Prince's tale that he tells Snape, hey, you need to watch Draco. And so all the while, students are dropping, Katie Bell is dropping, Ron dropping. And so while, yes, there is a formal increase in security, the question we have to ask ourselves is, what exactly is that security doing? And what is Dumbledore doing to enforce that security? Because at the end of the day, I think Dumbledore has drunk the Kool Aid about himself. I think he believes that even the limits of his knowledge or his foresight don't matter, because the minute he needs to figure something out, he will. And that is the exact point Cassie made earlier. He thinks he's omniscient. And the things he does not know, he believes he can learn quickly or deduce quickly or solve quickly. And part of me understands that type of confidence because I have places in my life where I feel it, too. For me, I have a great ear for music. If you play me a song twice, I'll learn the melody. If you can play it for me five times, I can perform it. I don't read music very well, but I have the skill that lets me bypass that particular hurdle. And because I know that I have that ability, I absolutely lean on it. I had to sing for a wedding this past weekend, and I got the song months and months and months ago, but I was like, well, I'll just learn it. And so on the flight, I listened to it a couple times, and I had it. I was ready to go. I rehearsed it before we landed, got on the ground. Turns out that the song was in a different key. It was higher than I thought it was gonna be, and I knew the melodic line. But now I had to change the way that I had to sing it. Because even though I have every faith in my ability to pull it off, and I did, by the way, the bride was very pleased. I know that I can do it. But there are also times where I completely misjudged the situation. Or, as in this case, the version that I had learned by ear was lower than the version that was in the sheet music. And I never even checked the sheet music because I was like, I don't even need it, Right? And so there are moments where my confidence could not make up for my lack of preparation. It couldn't make up for the fact that I was completely unprepared and had to kind of adjust very quickly to figure out how I was going to navigate the song. And I think that Dumbledore is the same, except his ability to do the thing. Well, the thing is magic. It's his intellect. It's his reputation. He knows that he is gifted. And because he knows it, he believes that if a crisis arrives, he will also rise to meet it. And that he believes that all of those things, all of the intellect, the reputation, the gifts, will always be enough. What he doesn't consider, though, is that there are crises that require preparation and not improvisation. And I think, again, this is a moment, and I talk about this moment all the time because it's one of my favorite moments in the book, right, With Scrymgeour and Cornelius Fudge, right? When the Muggle prime minister's like, what the hell? And they're like, yeah, but they can do magic, too. There are so many ways in which the magical world is outlandishly reactive. And there are so many moments where it becomes so clear that Albus Dumbledore is such a product of his environment, right? And that his brilliance leads him to be even more of this, of a product than other magical people that we see. And this is something I think he shares. He. What he shares with Voldemort. They both have such a profound faith in their power that they don't think through things. They both operate from a place of confidence in their magical acumen that allows them to overestimate what they can do and underestimate the complexities around them. They don't prepare. They respond. And that is fine when you are dealing with a chess match, but when you are dealing with children, a school, a war, a teenager marked by prophecy, reaction is not enough. One of the things I've learned as an adult, especially one with high anxiety, is that preparation is a kindness. Preparation is a practice of care. I am always, always, always imagining what might go wrong. Don't worry. I'm working on it with my therapist. I'm always preparing for the worst, running the scenarios. That's how my mind works. And I struggled for a long time with people who did not think this way, with people who just floated through life waiting for things to happen before they figured out how they were going to deal with them. And I've come to understand that there are proactive people and reactive people, and Dumbledore is a reactive person. His privilege has given him the room to be reactive. His brilliance has given him the space to be not have to think proactively. He has lived a life where responding at the last minute worked, where quick thinking and talent were enough. So he never developed the skills required to plan for the safety of others in a sustained, structured way. He literally took Harry after the fall of Voldemort and said his uncle and aunt will do. No thought, just reactions. He never thinks through these things. He's always solving the fire in front of him but never installing smoke alarms even though they probably wouldn't work in the magical world. It's why in the face of the rising threat of Voldemort, he does not prepare the institution until Voldiva is literally back. It is why he waits until Moldy Voldy has got the body done. What did. Was it Savannah who called Voldemort Miss New Booty in the post episode chat? Thank you for your service, Ms. New Booty. Ms. New Booty. I mean I can't get enough of it anyways. That was. That was. We're back, we're back, we're back. It's the fact that after Ms. New Booty gets her body done that he starts to send envoys to the werewolves, to the giants. It's why Hogwarts is vulnerable to threats that should have never made it through the front door. Quirrel with Voldiva on the back of his head before Ms. New Booty even got a new booty. It's why he misses Barty Crouch Jr. Cosplaying Moody for an entire school year. Dumbledore does not create safeguards because he believes he is the safeguard. He believes that when something happens, he will handle it. And the thing about children, especially children in danger, is that you cannot wait for the moment of danger to arrive. You have to protect them before that. You have to think ahead. You have to plan. When they go to the cave. Harry literally is like, I don't trust whatever's happening here. Take the Felix Felicis, spread it between yourselves. Save yourselves. Proactive. Proactive thinking. But Dumbledore is such a big picture person. He knows the stakes, he knows the trajectory, he knows his end game. What he does not know and what he does not try to know are the logistics, the steps, the contingency plans, the everyday mechanisms that keep a school safe when the headmaster is not physically present, which he is not a lot of the time because what do you mean that Quirrell got you by sending you a card and now all of a sudden you're jetting off to the Ministry while Quirrell tries to go and get the Sorcerer's Stone from the basement. Hello? He does not see these things as necessary because he himself is the solution. And that is why, when Dumbledore finally dies, everything falls apart. Because the institution, the Order Hogwarts, they were never built to function without him. The plan was never designed to be carried out by anyone else. There were no instructions, no full explanations, no strategies. Everything was in his head. And because he reacted instead of preparing, he left Harry and everyone else without the tools they needed when they needed him most. And that is what creates so much of the chaos, confusion and danger that we see at the beginning of Deathly Hallows. A world that was counting on a man who thought he could always rise to the occasion, but who never created a world that could rise without him.

A (31:11)

This is the story of the 1. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, all so that he can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

B (31:40)

This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger. Because when a drive belt gets damaged, Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs. And next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

C (32:20)

The last theme that we are going to be talking about is a conversation surrounding the idea of recklessness and Gryffindor House and how we understand the relationship between these things. Now, this is a throwback to a conversation that began when I, some might say flippantly, threw out the notion of recklessness in our episode about Gryffindor House. Well, it's back now. Okay. It's what we like to call in the biz, a callback. Okay. And Amanda wrote, I am so over the use of the term reckless. For the lions, reckless literally means action without care for consequences. Sorry, but most groups we meet are extremely caring people and do not wish harm on anyone. Impulsivity, however, denotes action without forethought. Now that feels more appropriate. Action without thinking about the consequences. There is a big difference between these two terms that I think is really important when describing Grifts. Nadia said, this is an important distinction. And on reflection, many of the Gryffindors who have been called reckless would be better described as impulsive. Sarah wrote, as a Gryffindor, this really resonates with me. Reckless never felt right. Now, I will also say that I addressed this in the Discord, but then the conversation that came out of that felt too important for us to not bring up in this episode. And so now we are back and I have to say that it feels important to me, and this was brought up in a past conversation as well, that we have to learn how to accept some of the more not positive things that are associated with our houses. And I think, and I said this before, so I'm not even talking behind anyone's back, that I think Gryffindors are conditioned to only really be seen in a positive light because they are our heroes. And as a result, we all see what they do through the lens of, like, heroism and we saved the world. And I think that there is a reason that that is like a justifiable understanding of who these people are. However, simultaneously, concurrently, and there is more to them than just that. And as Dumbledore, if any character embodies this particular dynamic, it is Dumbledore. All of those things can be true and still also be problematic. So when I was thinking about Amanda's comment about the notion of or the difference between recklessness and impulsivity, it was written that recklessness literally means action without care or consequence. And as soon as I read that, I thought, oh, wait. Because I think that Gryffindors actually embody that definition really well. But maybe not in the way that we are thinking about it, because I don't think that action without care for consequences means that Gryffindors don't care about people. I think it means that they don't care about what happens to themselves. There's a way that Gryffindors do reckless things precisely because they care so much about other people. Their recklessness is driven by compassion and urgency, moral clarity, even when the situation itself is muddy. If we take a look at Harry, he goes into the underground cavern of the Hogwarts. Of the Hogwarts. Hello. To get the sorcerer's Stone, Philosopher's Stone for our European friends. Without any real forethought about what the hell he is walking into. He's like, fluffy. Cool. Give me that. That flute Hagrid made me. Yeah, cool, cool, cool. We'll do that, and then we'll figure it out. Mind you, now he knows that there's more stuff down there and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. No worries. Let's go. He walks into the Chamber of Secrets knowing full well that there's a giant snake down there. And he's like, okay, well, we're just gonna go. He does not know how he's getting in to the Chamber of Secrets, but he knows he's gonna go. He doesn't even know if he's gonna survive, but he's gonna go. Before Sirius even pulls Ron into the Shrieking Shack, Harry has decided he's going to fight Sirius Black. He hasn't thought about the logistics, but the decision is made. And y', all, that's reckless. Yeah, and sometimes it's foolish. But the motivation isn't carelessness toward others, it's carelessness towards himself. In fact, in most of those situations, Harry is like, don't come with me. And Ron and Hermione are like, dude. I mean, the Horcrux hunt, in and of itself, right? There's a way in which, like, you have to get the job done. And again, this isn't a lack of concern for others. I think it's because of others that they are so reckless. Because the stakes are so high, we don't have time to plan. Recklessness is not the opposite of compassion. Sometimes recklessness is the product of it. And that, to me, is the difference between how we usually talk about Gryffindor behavior and what is actually happening. To me, it's their selflessness that begets their recklessness. They put themselves in danger because they cannot stomach what would happen if they don't do anything. Impulsivity, I think, is different. Amanda pointed out that impulsivity means action without forethought. And sure, there is plenty of that, too. But I think that these two traits are intertwined. Recklessness is about disregarding the consequences. Impulsivity, as far as I'm concerned, is about not thinking ahead. And I do not think that we need to splice those hairs so thinly that we lose the core truth. Gryffindors often sacrifice their own safety in order to protect someone else. And that comes with good and bad outcomes. I think about the moment where Harry is in the hospital wing after going down to the Cavern in the first book and he's talking to Dumbledore and he's like, well, you know what's? Gonna happen to Nicolas Flamel. And Dumbledore's like, wait a minute, you know about that? And Harry's like, well, who got the Stone? And Dumbledore is talking to him and he's like, hey, like, you almost died down there. Like, I had to. I literally was almost too late to save you. And Harry is completely nonplussed by this particular reality. He's so worried about whether or not Nicolas Flamel is gonna have enough elixir of life to survive. He's so worried about, did they get the Stone? He's not at all focused on what has transpired around, like him almost losing his life. We see the same thing in Chamber of Secrets, right? When he is there, he's fighting the basilisk. He gets bitten, and the venom is going through him. And he's kind of like, oh, take care of everyone else, right? Like, there's an impulsivity that leads him to go down into these places. But the recklessness of thinking that you can fight a basilisk, the recklessness of believing that you can take on a man with Voldiva on the back of his skull, like, the recklessness of these belief structures, I think is a hallmark of. Of a lot of Gryffindors. And I think. I think that many Gryffindors, and this isn't a read, it might feel like one, but just come with me on this journey. I think many Gryffindors are so used to only having positive things attributed to them that when they hear a word like reckless, they immediately jump to the negative without even thinking about for a moment, like, one, is it true? And the answer is yes. I've given many examples, and I've got many more to give. But also the beauty of that, and I think it was brought up in the discord, and I think it is true, right, that other Houses, particularly Slytherin. Okay, I said it. We've had to find the beauty in the things that people tend to use against us. And I feel like the privilege of being members of the House that is the most lauded in the series, as we read it, makes it more difficult to see things that might have negative, negative connotations as potential positives. Because here's the reality of the situation. It's important to recognize that some of these traits are not necessarily good or ideal or flattering, but they are representative of the humans who are in the Houses. And we as humans contain multitudes. It is all right that our heroes are problematically reckless. Sometimes it's all right that they rush in when they should probably slow down. And, yes, that can be dangerous, but it can also, and many times within this series is necessary because if Harry had not gone down into the cavern beneath the school or into the Chamber of Secrets or any of the things that he does. Voldiva's back. The story doesn't move. The danger doesn't get stopped. The people that he loves don't get saved. His recklessness serves a purpose, and we don't always like admitting that. And I think part of why this is so hard is because we want our heroes to be only good, only framed as brave and noble and courageous. And there was a time where I posted on social media that I thought that Gryffindor House has a very toxic definition of bravery and that it invites recklessness. And, baby, the way that those people came for me, and it got really bad and got, like, weirdly homophobic and aggressive and, like, misogynistic. But I think at the core of that is the belief that, like, heroes are brave and brave is good, and we don't ask any more questions about that. And I think we kind of have to recalibrate a little bit, and we have to accept that some of these things aren't always great and that that reality is true for every House, as we talked about in the House episodes. And I know that Gryffindors like to be the exception to the rule, but in this case, I don't think you are. I think that there is a way that recklessness is a beautiful part of who Gryffindors are, a necessary part. And I think that what we also see when we look at Dumbledore is his recklessness is not the same as Harry's all the time. Sometimes it is, right? Like the recklessness that he has in many situations is justified. But what is true for Dumbledore that is not true for Harry is that he puts other people at risk. He acts in ways that disregards the consequences for the children under his care, for the adults that are working beside him, and for the people that are in his orbit. That's not selflessness. That's something else entirely. And to me, it's that distinction that matters, especially when we think about how we interpret the same traits across different characters. So, yes, I think Gryffindors can be reckless. I think recklessness is a part of the fabric of their identity. But I also think that for them, it comes from a beautiful, deep, profound place of care rather than disregard. And I think that acknowledging these complexities makes all of the houses and everyone in them far more interesting than the simplified versions that we grew up with. We've now reached the point in the episode where I am going to reflect now. I've been thinking about this question a lot, and it's something that I've been thinking about, actually, for years. But it came up in the comments and I was like, this is my time. My moment has come. Just like that. It was a direct quote. Same melody, same vibe. And the question is, why did Dumbledore leave Harry at the Dursleys? What did he think was gonna happen there? And was any part of that choice about shaping Harry into something more malleable? Willing to sacrifice himself, more emotionally primed for a future that Dumbledore hadn't fully explained? I understand why people ask this. When we read the story backward, it's easy to assume every terrible thing Harry endured in that house was part of some long, calculated manipulation. But like I said before, I'm not convinced that all of the details were very clear to even Dumbledore at the moment when he decided to drop Harry off at number four Privet Drive. And I think that there is a way in which so much of what his decision was informed by is coming from something else. And, yes, Cannon offers us a neat explanation in the form of blood magic, the idea that Lily's protection had to be anchored in Petunia's home. But I'm gonna be honest with y'. All. That justification has always felt shaky to me. Convenient, unexamined. It sits on a foundation that is entirely Dumbledore's own interpretation of the magic and no one else ever confirms reads like a magical veneer over a much more human decision, one that's not rooted in strategy as far as I'm concerned. But, and this is my hypothesis, is rooted in Dumbledore's unresolved grief. Because so many of Dumbledore's decisions are fundamentally about himself, about his own story, about his own losses. This is a man who once had a loving family. A real one, a whole one, a safe one. He had parents who cherished him, a sister he adored and a brother who grew up right beside him. And then, through a constellation of trauma, shame, guilt and violence, it all fell apart. His father went to prison. His mother died. Ariana was killed in an accident he was a part of Aberforth turned away from him. His entire sense of family was shattered before he ever became the man that we know. And so when the question arises of where Harry should grow up, Dumbledore responds through the lens of that loss, McGonagall warns him that the Dursleys are cruel. She tells him plainly that Harry will not be loved there. She reminds him that family doesn't automatically mean safety. But Albee Dee ignores her. He insists they are the only family he has. And he says it with conviction. The conviction of someone not speaking about Harry at all but somehow about himself. About the version of his own family he wishes he could restore. The one that existed before Ariana was attacked. He's not thinking about Harry's needs. He's thinking about his own longing his own regrets his own fantasy that family, by virtue of being family, will rise to the occasion. But what makes this moment even more complicated is how deeply Dumbledore fails to see the parallels between himself and Petunia. The very person he entrusts Harry to. Petunia is Aberforth. She is the sibling overshadowed by the magical child. She is a sibling whose parents doted on the extraordinary one. She's a sibling whose resentment calcified into bitterness. And Dumbledore lived that story. He lived the consequences of sibling envy and resentment and the fractures it created the distance it imposed and the grief it produced. Yet somehow, he can't imagine Petunia might respond to Lily the way that Aberforth responded to him. He ignores the letter Petunia wrote begging to come to Hogwarts. He ignores the pain Lily's magic caused in their family. He ignores McGonagall's warning. He ignores his own lived experience. Because to acknowledge all of that would require him to confront the truth of his own story. And that is something that Dumbledore has never done easily. This is why the confrontation seen in the Half Blood Prince is so revealing. Dumbledore tells the Dursleys the best that can be said is that he, Harry, has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you. He recognizes that Petunia has shaped Dudley through her own wounds. That she spoiled him, indulged him and protected him to compensate for her own childhood pain. He sees clearly that she has parented Dudley through trauma rather than love. What he doesn't see is that he's doing the exact same thing to Harry. Petunia overcorrects by giving too much. Dumbledore overcorrects by withholding too much. But both are parenting through their own unhealed wounds. I was talking to a friend of mine and we were talking about the idea of being a parent and how difficult it is to have to disambiguate Your own experience, your own trauma. Because so much of your impulse is to try to fix the things that happened in your own life but in doing so, you might overlook your own child and their lives and their potential and what they're bringing to bear. Because you're so very much focused on your own thing the things that you're trying to fix from your own experience. The lens through which you're viewing your positionality as a parent is not through that of someone trying to guide someone through their own lives but rather trying to make sure that they don't relive your own. And she talked about how difficult this is because it requires a lot of self awareness. It requires you to deal with your own stuff so that you don't put that stuff on top of your child's stuff because undoubtedly your child is going to have stuff too. And I think when we look at this, when we look at Dumbledore, when we look at Petunia it's so clear to see the dangers of what happens when you can't set aside that reality of your own past, when you can't grapple with that. Petunia tries to erase her childhood jealousy by pouring everything into Dudley. Dumbledore tries to erase his childhood losses by forcing Harry into a family structure that exists only in his memory. They are opposite expressions of the same impulse. The belief that you can fix your past by shaping a child around your own pain. And this is where the Blood Magic explanation loses its even more credibility. For me, I'm saying that for me, I know that there's canonical explanation. I know that there's extra canonical explanations. I know. But for me, I'm skeptical. I'm dubious, as they say. Because if this decision were truly about Harry's protection it would have come with a plan. A check in, a reevaluation, some kind of monitoring to ensure Harry was actually safe. But Dumbledore doesn't follow up for years. He doesn't intervene. He just trusts the story he's told himself that the family will hold because family should hold. I simply can't believe that Lily would sacrifice her life for Harry only for him to end up in a place where, sure, he's safe from Dark wizards from Vl DVA but is experiencing abject abuse from her family. Why wouldn't the spell protect him from that? If the spell is a spell of protection, why does that not fall under its purview? Again, I say that Dumbledore trusts the story that he's told himself that family will do what family should do. But many of us know that family doesn't always do what Dumbledore hopes it does. Families are complicated. They can be messy. They can be problematic. They can be toxic. And Dumbledore leaves no room for that. Because in his idealized mind, he's convinced himself, some might even say deluded himself, into thinking that when presented with the opportunity to be a good family, people will always take it. But sometimes they don't. And he isn't ready to accept that particular reality. And part of Dumbledore's choice to leave Harry with the Dursleys is about power, too. Because after Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald and the seduction of ideology and ambition he spent the rest of his life trying to avoid recreating that path. He fears what power can do to a young, gifted child. He fears to praise the pedestal and the expectations because he once swallowed all of them whole. And it led him down a path that ultimately led to his sister's death. So he thinks that by keeping Harry away from the wizarding world, away from the environment that celebrated him, that he can protect Harry from that same temptation. He believes that deprivation will guard Harry from becoming Al B D Jr. But again, none of that, none of this is actually about Harry. It's about Dumbledore. It's about what he fears and what he regrets and what he longs for. And that is not better. It's worse. Because it means that Harry's suffering wasn't strategic. It was collateral. It means his childhood wasn't designed, it was projected. And that his pain wasn't part of the plan. It was a byproduct of Dumbledore's inability to see beyond his own story. So when Dumbledore looks at Petunia and sees clearly how she harmed Dudley, he is seeing a reflection of himself without realizing it. Because in the same way that Petunia has ruined Dudley by trying to heal her childhood through him, Dumbledore has harmed Harry by trying to heal his own childhood through him. Petunia parents through resentment and Dumbledore parents through longing. But both end up raising a child inside the architecture of their own wounds. And in that sense, Dumbledore's decision to leave Harry at the Dursleys is, like so many of Dumbledore's decisions, less about Harry and more about himself. It was an attempt to reclaim something that he once had, something that he lost and could never rebuild. And because it wasn't rooted in Harry's reality, in Harry's needs or safety, the plan failed him completely. This has been another episode of Critical Magic Theory. I'm Professor Julian Womble and if you liked today's episode. First of all, thank you. Please feel free to like, rate, subscribe and do all the things that one does where pods are cast y' all. What an amazing conversation you all generated from your comments in the post episode chat. I am so grateful. Even though it was 300 and it was so much and I had so much work to do, it was a blast. I also have to say that reflection threw me for a loop. The Albus Petunia Aberforth parallels were not things that I had on my bingo card. But I'm so glad that we got to have that conversation and I can't wait to see what you all think about it in the post episode chat for this episode. Please feel free to join us for free if you have not already on patreon patreon.com criticalmagictheory y', all. We don't have a survey for a minute. How exciting. No homework, no nothing. I'm the only one that has to stress out. I cannot wait to be in conversation with you. Please remember if you are a deep diver or chronic overthinker, join us on the Discord. Until then, be critical and stay magical, my friends. Bye.