Latest writing:
ETA 2018: I have taken the material below and used it as a starting point to write an entire book about Dumbledore, The Life and Lies of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, which was published by Story Spring Publishing. It was republished in 2021 by Media Lab Books as Dumbledore: The Life and Lies of Hogwarts's Renowned Headmaster. I am leaving this page (and the essays themselves) up, both for posterity, and so as not to interfere with anywhere the essays may have journeyed since being published. But please do keep in mind that the essays below are now essentially the first draft of a much more polished work.
No character in the Harry Potter series confuses and fascinated me as much as Albus Dumbledore. His death was the first time I ever cried while reading a book. And yet, it was revealed that he was quite Machiavellian in Book 7. I have spent a lot of time analyzing Dumbledore throughout the last three books - what his plans were and how they went wrong, what he knew and how he acted on it, everything that was going on in his brilliant head. I am more proud of these essays than any other I've written, so now I proudly present my Dumbledore Trilogy.
Part 1: Dumbledore's Decoy is an essay I wrote in March 2012. I examined why there was so much hoopla surrounding the prophecy in Order of the Phoenix, and what exactly Dumbledore was scheming throughout the book. What was Dumbledore's end game? Why did anyone care about the prophecy? And how far was Dumbledore willing to go to preserve his deceptions?
Part 2: What Did Dumbledore Know of Horcruxes? is the followup that I wrote in May 2012. I looked at what Dumbledore knew about Horcruxes at every point in the series. The timeline of memory retrieval and Horcrux hunting has always been a bit murky for me, so this essay attempts to sort it all out.
Part 3: Dumbledore's Deadly Plans is the conclusion that I wrote in June 2012. This is, without a doubt, my magnum opus as a Harry Potter writer. I look at all of Dumbledore's myriad plans in Deathly Hallows: what they were, how they intersected, the assumptions they relied on... and how, when, and why they went wrong. At the end of over 6000 words, I attempt to finally make a judgment that had eluded me for five years: do I love Dumbledore as the benign wizard from the first six books, or condemn him as the ruthless wizard that was revealed in Book 7?
I thought I would leave Dumbledore well enough alone after these three essays, but a year later I was rereading the series again, and realized I'd not yet uncovered all of Dumbledore's machinations. So...
Prequel: Albus Dumbledore and the Sorcerer's Stone goes through what Dumbledore orchestrated during the first book. It shows how carefully he orchestrated the obstacles surrounding the Sorcerer's Stone, and why, and how much of what happened in the book was down to him. Written in August 2013.
At the 2013 convention, MISTI-Con, I did an hour-long presentation on the first and third essays here. To keep things interesting, I even did most of it in character as Dumbledore! Here is video of the entire presentation.
That went so well, I did another 45-minute presentation about Dumbledore at MISTI-Con 2015. This was entirely about "Albus Dumbledore and the Sorcerer's Stone."