[A]sked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love."
"Dumbledore is gay," [J.K. Rowling] responded to gasps and applause.
She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."
Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy…."
Rowling… also said that she regarded her Potter books as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority."
Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.
One more reason among many to adore the Harry Potter books.
One wonders, what startling revelations remain to be exposed....
Also relevant:
ReplyDeletehttp://thinkprogress.com/2007/10/22/dumbedore-falwell
I've never read the books, but I heard that there was nothing in them to particularly indicate Dumbledore's gayness. Which begs the question, "is it canon merely when the author reveals it during a public event?" Or does it have to be mentioned in the books themselves?
ReplyDelete"is it canon merely when the author reveals it during a public event?"
ReplyDeleteConsidering that the author invented the character(s), I figure that whatever she says about them is canon. And though I didn't see it (I'm not exactly Ms. Subtext), a fair number of people who read HP7 said that the whole Dumbledore/Grindelwald bit was positively dripping with subtext.
However, despite the fact that I think public revelations about fictional characters divulged outside the books themselves constitute canon in principle, I do think that if an author says something that directly contradicts a fact stated in a work (without a really, really good rationalization for it), then nobody needs to call it canon.
Case in point: Han shot first.
Via John C. Wright's blog
ReplyDelete(Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007
10:33am "Potter and Cupid")
http://johncwright.livejournal.com/ ,
a link to another blog
(Fabio Paolo Barbieri
2007-10-22 15:33:00
"It's not only the past that is
another country")
http://fpb.livejournal.com/260613.html?nc=19
containing the comment:
"I [once] described as an ignorant and jealous female
reaction to male friendship: hello, here are a bunch of
guys doing everything together – they must be having it off
in secret, since of course guys only ever think of one
thing, and it is inconceivable that they should have any
interest in anything except the one thing.
I detested and still detest that attitude. You may therefore
imagine my [dis]pleasure when I found that JKR had, not just declared
that Dumbledore was homosexual, but that he was homosexual
IN THAT, as a teen-ager – as a teen-ager, mind you – he had been
infatuated with the handsome and brilliant Grindelwald. Because,
you know, infatuation – especially in the case of a brilliant
intellect starved of intellectual companionship – has no proper
home except the crotch!"
Well, as a self-avowed gay man (who nevertheless falls
far **far** short of the accumulated sexual experience
assumed to be part of the "lifestyle" of a **proper**
homosexual -- hell, I might as well call myself an "incel":
http://incelsite.com/amiincel/amiincel.html ), I have to
protest that in my experience it's certainly not **primarily**
an "ignorant and jealous female reaction" to assume that
any infatuation of one male for another **must** have
sexual overtones.
**Anything** that smacks of "infatuation" between males in
our culture is a minefield -- both for the males involved
(whatever their actual sexual orientation) and for the
friends and observers in whom they might confide. **Everybody**
(including the principals) is likely to conclude that
some kind of "gay" thing **must** be going on, and anybody
who's going to be squicked out thereby will be squicked out
by any hint of "infatuation" as much as by blatant evidence
of the involvement of bodily fluids.
Hey, I've been there (many times); I know **all** about it.
If it's the same in the UK as it is in the US (_Brideshead
Revisited_ notwithstanding), then why **shouldn't** Rowling
just come out and call Dumbledore a fag on the basis of
his having fallen in love with another guy? All her
readers would be saying the same thing (far less nicely)
if all she did was to present evidence of the infatuation
without giving it a label.