What AD&D alignment is Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series? *spoilers*

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There have been several debates on the subject of if Dumbledore is good or evil on various boards, and some have said neither, while others have basically said he's chaotic neutral.

Given the number of AD&D based games on these boards, I figure there is a higher percentage of people familiar with the nine alignments, even if the Infinity Engine games aren't the best introduction to that system.

So, what alignment is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore? Is he the good-aligned Leader of the Light, or the evil master manipulator? Is he lawful, neutral, or chaotic?

I'm curious what the majority thinks.

 

I'd say he's probably Neutral Good.

 

Same here.

Neutral Good.

 

Neutral Good.

Make that three.

 

Dumbledoor is the paladin of the wizarding world. He's benevolent and wants to do what is best for society as a whole -- he also believes individual sacrifices are required to ensure everyone is better protected.

In his younger days he was true neutral, but toward the end he was LG all the way (emphasis on good).

 

I agree with Good (of some sort for sure).

I don't know much about his early life so I don't know why T2 views his younger days as Neutral and am not in a good position to judge.

I agree with T2Bruno's point about how he feels sacrifices must be made for the social good-there are times when he expects people to sacrifice.

There are also times when he flouts the rules and/or knowingly allows others to bend or break them in order to accomplish something good (he is skilled at picking when not to be in the away even though it is implied that he knows more is going on than he lets anyone else know). If you think that overtakes T2Bruno's point on balance then maybe Chaotic Good. If not then T2Bruno does have an argument that he is a paladin of wizardry (perhaps a crafter than average one).

 

A Paladin who knowingly condemned an innocent child to "ten dark and difficult years" at the Dursleys where he was treated as a house-elf. Who orchestrated and conditioned said child to commit suicide in the name of the greater good. He is also basically responsible for letting Voldemort take over and commit the extermination of the muggleborns in the camps in order to preserve his outdated culture.

I'd have agreed with the comments on him being a Paladin up to and including the 4th book, but I started seeing him as more neutral in the 5th book when he admitted he knew about the abuse yet continued to send Harry back to the Dursleys. However, his confessions in the last book make me thing he was tending towards evil.

--edit--
Forgot to mention the other axis. I really don't know where to put him on the law-neutral-chaos axis following the last couple books. In the early books I thought he was chaotic good, but now I'm not so sure. I could make an argument for lawful evil, lawful neutral, true neutral or neutral evil.

 

You read different books than I did.

 

That was also the best place for Harry to be protected from evil. The protection placed on him required that he live with family in order for it to work, and without it, he would not have survived. Removing him from their care probably would have meant certain death for him.

I still say Lawful Good, because he does things that benefit society as a whole. Maybe more Lawful than Good sometimes. But definitely tending towards both Lawfulness and Good.

 

It depends on which portion of his life you are talking about. In Deathly Hollows you learned that he led Grindelwald in using dark magic, killing people that didn't fit into his plans then rationalized it by saying it was for the greater good. He was certainly neutral evil at that point.

By the time Harry Potter was born he had turned from dark magic, as far as you are told, but he was still very manipulative, treating everyone like pawns, and doing whatever he could to unite the Hollows. He obviously also knew how the Dursleys reated Harry - verbal abuse and neglect. Unless you think Harry wouldn't have been safe being personally protected by Dumbledore either at Hogwarts or under a Fidelius charm with Dumbledore as the Secret Keeper, the Dursleys weren't a number one option, no matter how you cut it.

Neutral evil gets my vote

 

I say true Neutral. Too manipulative to be truly good, yet too altruistic to be truly evil. Too methodical to be chaotic, too willing to bend rules to be lawful.

I could say some really obnoxious stuff, but I think I'll leave it at that.

 

Neutral Good - he strives for the greater good, and yet he can be reasoned with. He breaks the law when he feels it necessary but his actions are not based solely on whim. Dumbledore is manipulative, yes, but only because he has to be. And he has always tried to give his "pawns" a chance to think for themselves. He knew the Dursleys neglected and verbally abused Harry but he had always kept hoping that one day they would see him as family. The thing about Dumbledore is he believes that everyone deserves a second chance. In one of the books when he finally realizes that the Dursleys would never treat Harry as member of their family he was quite mad.
In the end for all his power Dumbledore is and accepts that he is only human, which is why like/unlike many D&D archetypes in fantasy stories he also makes human (ie misinformed, wrong) decisions.

I find it odd that people think being manipulative counts as being evil. It's not his fault he was born with twice other people's IQ, and with enough insight to know that would happen if he didn't "help" people out from the background. Knowing other people if Dumbledore didn't do anything they would probably have deemed him guilty via "evil by omission" anyway, ie not doing anything when he could have done something (since he knew about what was happening). And yet if he had tried to play a more direct role in the story people would probably call him a tyrant. In any case he refused to play a more direct role in the story since Dumbledore knows (more than anyone else) that he is vulnerable to the hallows, in the same way Gandalf knows he is vulnerable to the one ring. He also knows that he is far from perfect - he could (by some turn of fate) possibly end up being another Dark Lord, or he could end up being wrong about everything. Again for all his power Dumbledore is, and accepts the fact that he is, only human.

 

These are subjective alignments of the different characters in Harry Potter by an anonymous author for those interested:

http://easydamus.com/alignmenthpc.html.

By the way, this author places Dumbledore as Neutral Good just like most people in the forum did so far.

 

I personally disagree with several things on that list.
Hermione I feel went through a gradual alignment shift from Lawful Neutral in the first book to Neutral Good by the last, passing through Lawful Good on the way. I justify this by her learning to break rules.

The Weasley Twins were chaotic neutral. They could be called bullies with their pranks with the way they terrified Neville Longbottom. If they had just gone after the people that provoked them or other, I could call it chaotic good, but since they terrified innocents with their pranks even if they meant well I'd call them neutral. I'd normally call it evil, but they aren't being malicious.

Deloris Umbridge is more Neutral Evil. She uses the laws to her advantage, but has no problem breaking them when she can get away with it. Recall her attempt to murder Harry with the dementors.

Fudge is Lawful Evil. He's out for himself and his own personal power, but believes strongly in the rule of law aka The Ministry. There is no evidence that corruption is a crime in the wizarding world, so the bribes he takes from Malfoy may not be a problem.

Snape is evil. Just because he's not on Voldemort's side doesn't mean that he isn't evil. He holds a grudge against a dead man and takes it out on his son, abusing his position of power to make Harry's life as miserable as he can. The treatment he gives all the other Gryffindors and blatant favoritism he shows his own house is inexcusible. From what I understand, the main reason he switched sides is because Voldemort killed Lily, his crush/obsession and he wants Voldemort dead for that.
I'm not going to condemn him for that last one as many other people want Tom dead for similar reasons, but just because he's siding with his new enemy's enemy doesn't mean he's suddenly a good person or even neutral.

Rita Skeeter is also in the evil category. She doesn't care who she hurts just as long as she gets a good story that sells lots of papers. She doesn't even care if the story is true. She's willing to destroy innocent people's reputations with lies and slander just to make a buck.

 

Indeed.

The alignment is so subjective and the definitions are different depending on the book (not necessarily a core rulebook) you got them from. The author used v. 3.5 to determine the different alignments.

Remember that based on edition 3.5, law is not equal to obedience of rules at all.

Also remember that the author might have placed Severus Snape True Neutral because of his intentions behind his actions (based on personal allegience says the author). While your interpretation of the alignment may be based on actions.

It's difficult to argue the alignment if people have different definitions and ethical theories about it. It's better to settle the definitions down in my opinion in order to argue it.

 

What changes were made to the alignment system between my 2nd edition core rulebook and the 3.5 edition? I thought they kept things the same, but the only thing I have to go on for 3.5 edition alignment is Neverwinter Nights 2, and to be honest I skipped that section of the manual as I thought I was already familiar with it from my D&D days and old computer games.

 

2E and 1E are based most often on beliefs and attitudes that indicates a creature's character. So based on the attitudes a character may have, a True Neutral character may believe for example that neither law/chaos or good/evil takes ascendency over another. Less philosophical types of True Neutral would not be considered to have any character traits that corresponds to any axis (being self-serving without taking advantage of others purposely for example). 3E is mostly based on predefined categories of actions that makes a character the alignment he is (assuming the character is aware about the rightness and wrongness of his actions). So True Neutral in the case of 3E is most often considered the "undecided" alignment rather than the "balancer" alignment that can be found in 1E and 2E.

 

3.0/3.5 viewpoint

I voted Chaotic Good, though on second though, while between the two, Neutral Good is closer. Obviously the advance age helps, but he has no trouble leading decade-spaning agendas.
Obviously, there are quite a few conflicting decisions for Neutral Good, mostly concerning Harry, but in my mind that is simply twisting the character for plot purposes. She couldn't have an all-powerful benefactor being "away on urgent matters" every few weeks for years straight when Harry was in real danger.


I have trouble seeing Snape as True Neutral. No matter the reasons (being bullied himself) and being presented as the "bad" guy for harry to have an opponent out of his reach countering the "good" teachers, he just isn't the guy you'll go to because you know he'll do the right thing. Recall natural affinity and fascination with dark magic which is pretty much presented as evil by default.

 

Who the hell voted in this thread and bounced it back to the top of the forum?