28 Years Later, Dumbledore's Greatest Harry Potter Line Can Finally Have Meaning Again

The decision to remake the Harry Potter movies into a book-faithful TV show is controversial, but it's hard to ignore the opportunities it presents. As beloved as these original films are, the world of book-to-screen adaptations was very different in the early 2000s. Harry Potter was far more book-accurate than many other movies based on children's and young adult literature of the age, and that's really saying something. Said and done, Warner Bros' film franchise only had time to scrape the surface of Harry's canon story.

This means that HBO's Harry Potter TV show is open to a whole new world of possibilities. Modern technology and an extended television format will allow these books and their characters to be brought to the screen as never before. All the nuanced details should be accounted for, which means many of the themes and parallels the movies ignored should be addressed. This is especially important when it comes to the character of Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore delivers many of the most poignant lines in the overarching Harry Potter series, almost all of which connect to a deeper truth within the narrative. While many of these made it to the movies, the full weight of their meaning is lost when later stories and significant moments get glossed over. So, when Dumbledore said, "It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices," in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, it was certainly magical. However, the movies never had a chance to fully dive into what it meant.

Dumbledore's Best Line Defines Harry's Story Throughout The Series

The version of the line that Richard Harris delivered in 2002's Chamber of Secrets is slightly changed from the book, though not by much. The moment comes in both instances when Harry expresses concern that he should have been placed in Slytherin. He told the Headmaster that the Sorting Hat only placed him in Gryffindor because he asked it to, and this immediately excites Dumbledore, because that's the whole point:

“It only put me in Gryffindor,” said Harry in a defeated voice, “because I asked not to go in Slytherin. ...”

“Exactly,” said Dumbledore, beaming once more. “Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned. “If you want proof, Harry, that you belong in Gryffindor, I suggest you look more closely at this.”

This is when Dumbledore reveals that the sword Harry used to kill the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets had belonged to none other than Godric Gryffindor. It's definitive proof that the only thing Harry had to do to be a true and worthy Gryffindor was make the choice. After all, that's precisely what courage is—choosing to be brave in the face of fear, again and again.

This comes across pretty well in the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets movie, but the future films in the franchise failed to bring that overarching lesson full circle as the books intended. Absolutely everything in the Harry Potter series is about choices. The narrative plays around with concepts of fate and destiny, such as with the Chosen One prophecy and the legend of the Deathly Hallows. The story implies that the future is already magically secured, but the most important lesson Dumbledore teaches Harry is that that is not the case.

HBO's Harry Potter Show Must Pull Back The Layers On Dumbledore's Wisdom

Just like the Chamber of Secrets movie, HBO's Harry Potter TV show must feature this line of Dumbledore's in season 2. However, unlike the movies, it can't leave it at that. Discussions of choice recur throughout the books, repeatedly returning to the understanding that Harry's life isn't a product of fate. Through each and every chapter, the Boy Who Lived continues to make the right choice rather than the easy one (another line of Dumbledore's), and come Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the headmaster finally drives the point home:

“But, sir,” said Harry, making valiant efforts not to sound argumentative, “it all comes to the same thing, doesn’t it? I’ve got to try and kill him, or — ”

“Got to?” said Dumbledore. “Of course you’ve got to! But not because of the prophecy! Because you, yourself, will never rest until you’ve tried! We both know it! Imagine, please, just for a moment, that you had never heard that prophecy! How would you feel about Voldemort now? Think!”

Harry watched Dumbledore striding up and down in front of him, and thought. He thought of his mother, his father, and Sirius. He thought of Cedric Diggory. He thought of all the terrible deeds he knew Lord Voldemort had done. A flame seemed to leap inside his chest, searing his throat.

“I’d want him finished,” said Harry quietly. “And I’d want to do it.”

“Of course you would!” cried Dumbledore. “You see, the prophecy does not mean you have to do anything! But the prophecy caused Lord Voldemort to mark you as his equal. ... In other words, you are free to choose your way, quite free to turn your back on the prophecy! But Voldemort continues to set store by the prophecy. He will continue to hunt you . . . which makes it certain, really, that — ”

“That one of us is going to end up killing the other,” said Harry. “Yes.”

This is the moment in the Harry Potter books that the truth regarding Harry's fate comes together—and it didn't even make it into the movies. Lord Voldemort chose to attack Harry when he heard the prophecy, and this is the only reason that the child became the Boy Who Lived. Harry, being the person he is, would choose to fight back. Harry Potter equates it with magic—prophecies and fortunes—when, really, Harry's journey is about understanding our own choices well enough to see where they will lead us and choose them anyway.

This fevered conversation between Harry and Dumbledore becomes imperative in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Harry learns for the first time that the man he idolized hadn't always made the right choices. It was a lesson in redemption, emphasized further by the even more complicated discussion of Severus Snape's morality (do his good choices make up for the bad ones?).

Finally, when the time came for Harry to choose whether he would seek out the Deathly Hallows or Voldemort's Horcruxes, he went with the latter, knowing that Dumbledore didn't want Harry to repeat his own (and Voldemort's) choices to pursue immortality. Even the Hallows turned out to be a lesson of choice, since, once Harry had them, he was only the Master of Death because he chose to use them to embrace death rather than escape from it. Dumbledore's Chamber of Secrets line came to mean so much in Harry Potter, but the impact was lost. HBO absolutely must replace it.