I think perhaps I wasn’t clear enough: I’m not saying it makes sense, just that Dumbledore could plausibly think it does, and Lily could plausibly have reacted as she’s described to have done, even though that might not be very probable for most reference classes she might be part of in general.
If you’re certain he’s actually completely sane and just pretending to be mad, with a few layers in between, then yes, it would be absurd for him, too. But Eliezer made his behavior sufficiently ambiguous that, even given his successes ( # ) I’m still not sure that he’s not biased to wishful narrative thought, his (apparent) successes explained in part by being powerful enough and in part by luck(**) and not-yet-revealed high-level plots.
Note that several apparently rational and very competent characters—including Harry, Quirell, Amelia Bones and IIRC Moody—appear to believe or suspect this. I’m not saying it is so, but The Author seems to have made it really ambiguous on purpose. Note that we have no view into Dumbledore’s thoughts in any part of the text, so most of the evidence we have the other characters have, too.
(#: He’s an old and powerful wizard who survived at least two great Dark Lords. See Moody’s musings on how hard that is.)
(**: Given magic and that Felix potion, we can’t exclude that luck actually exists in MoR.)
I think perhaps I wasn’t clear enough: I’m not saying it makes sense, just that Dumbledore could plausibly think it does, and Lily could plausibly have reacted as she’s described to have done, even though that might not be very probable for most reference classes she might be part of in general.
If you’re certain he’s actually completely sane and just pretending to be mad, with a few layers in between, then yes, it would be absurd for him, too. But Eliezer made his behavior sufficiently ambiguous that, even given his successes ( # ) I’m still not sure that he’s not biased to wishful narrative thought, his (apparent) successes explained in part by being powerful enough and in part by luck(**) and not-yet-revealed high-level plots.
Note that several apparently rational and very competent characters—including Harry, Quirell, Amelia Bones and IIRC Moody—appear to believe or suspect this. I’m not saying it is so, but The Author seems to have made it really ambiguous on purpose. Note that we have no view into Dumbledore’s thoughts in any part of the text, so most of the evidence we have the other characters have, too.
(#: He’s an old and powerful wizard who survived at least two great Dark Lords. See Moody’s musings on how hard that is.)
(**: Given magic and that Felix potion, we can’t exclude that luck actually exists in MoR.)