"Dumbledore is gay," states J.K. Rowling.

Winklewil

Winklewil

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Yes, this is real. I know this is the Internet, and everything, and we're all heartily accustomed to Rick-Rolls, meme-traps, and Caturday pics waiting for us at ever unexpected corner. I can only do my best to assure everyone: I am absolutely serious, and this does NOT seem to be a joke. I'm almost saddened by the fact that mere, boring homosexuality would STILL be such a likely setting for sheer ridicule in our world, but alas...

From the Leaky Cauldron Article:

First, the biggest revelation of the night came when Jo revealed to her audience the fact that Albus Dumbledore is gay and had fallen in love with fellow wizard and friend, Gellert Grindelwald. This elicited a huge reaction and prolonged ovation. So much so, it promoted Jo to say:


"If I had known this would have made you this happy, I would have told you years ago."
The question was: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself? JKR: My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. [ovation.] ...
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To be honest, I never really thought of Dumbledore as having a sexuality at all (he certainly wasn't included in the handful of slash fanfics I've seen) ... but now that I apply something so "human" to him, it does seem to fit. It's a a nifty little tidbit of the fictional universe, direct from its Creator, that I am happy to have.

Bravo, I say to Rowling. I'm sure the uber-Christians that tried so hard to get the books banned for witchcraft alone just went apoplectic. :spiteful:
 
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Winklewil said:
Bravo, I say to Rowling. I'm sure the uber-Christians that tried so hard to get the books banned for witchcraft alone just went apoplectic. :spiteful:
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Bravo? Not really. It would've been "bravo" if she'd actually indicated that in the books, where it might have affected her money. If this article is true, then she's turning Dumbledore into a safe and sexless old queen, a Larry Craig wannabe who couldn't even hit the bathrooms looking for sex because Moaning Myrtle would start crying.

She dealt with complex themes of life and death, order and chaos, rebellion and conformity, so I have a hard time believing she couldn't have found ways to work in age-appropriate suggestions that Dumbledore was gay.

I award her house a few points for saying it now, but have to deduct even more for being completely irrelevant to the work.
 
Is that why he took such a likening to Harry, and trusted Snape so much? ;p
 
Halifirien said:
I award her house a few points for saying it now, but have to deduct even more for being completely irrelevant to the work.
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Back the cynicism-truck up a bit, Hal, and consider the following:


1) Whether or not the series is complete, this revelation is still something that's pretty much out of left field. If she so chose, Dumbledore could have been aging, straight bachelor for as long as she lived. She could have just as easily remained silent about it for eternity, which I assure you, would STILL have saved her from some grief she'll catch for this ... even now. I'm talking about a level of fundementalism along the lines of death threats, here.


2) Rowling still stands to make millions upon millions of dollars from her little world. A great deal of future money is still out there, along with every reason to want to "protect" it. I find it unnecessarily cynical to assume that we hadn't heard about this until now simply to avoid hurting the success of the series, but even if you truly believe that ... she's not doing herself any financial favors by talking about this at any point of her being ALIVE, let alone while the dollars and pounds are still roaring in from motion pictures and book sales. Even faaarrr down the road, residuals, royalties, and all manner of future merchandising deals would've continued to line her pockets with gold.


3) Looking down on a "delayed outing" is the kind of reaction that one might expect if Dumbledore were a real person, a successful person, without the courage to come out until it no longer matters. He's not. He's fictional. It's pointless to direct any "safely-closeted" bitterness at him, as one might with a real-life big name. The simple truth is, the sorts of people he may have shared a bed with in his younger years were (as you've pointed out) utterly irrelevant to the course of the series ... the notion that it would've been easy to insert some sort of love interest (I can't see any other way to address Dumbledore's sexuality) for him doesn't materialize as clearly for me. I can't imagine seeing it as anything but a forced, awkward, political statement.

It's not as though she called together a press conference with the express intention of revealing that ol Dumby's a queen. It didn't come up at all until someone asked Rowling the question.


4) Larry Craig is a big name in the news right now, yes, and it may be hip to reference him. It's a bit of a stretch (well, a huge one), however, to put Dumbledore on the same level as him.

Do you honestly see Rowling's fictional wizard, as she created him, making a career in politics as an arch-conservative, blasting sexual impropriety and enemies to family values and "traditional marriage" at every corner? Do you honestly see him cruising an airport men's room, then categorically denying his sexuality in the media after being caught redhanded? The character, at least, wouldn't have felt any particular need to hide anything, and he seems liberal as they come.

They're nothing alike, even post-"l0lz he's gay"-announcement. I really fail to see how the revelation suddenly transformed him into a stodgy old queer in self-denial.



She didn't have to say anything about it, and she did. Even for someone who would've liked more from her, there isn't a practical reason for actually criticizing her over it -- she's already done a lot more with the character than she ever had to. She gave an inch. Is it really necessary to insist on the mile?
 
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ibt dumbledore/grindelwald slash

god, the horrors of fanfiction...
 
Like it or not, the subject of homosexuality is a lead weight in Business - especially if we're talking about a market catering to "children" (before anyone counters this label, the original Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone was marketed to children/adolescents and therefore it is children's literature... even if you enjoy it Mr Adult). I am sure there would have been some frantic editors had Rowling made overt allusions to Dumbledore's homosexuality in the books, because in this world of control and censorship, what doesn't sell doesn't get printed. Gosh, they modified the woman's name for publishing because some PR savvy people thought that using a name that clearly indicated the author was female (Joanne Rowling) would deter boys from reading her work.

I like what she's done with the character (to be honest, I always thought Dumbledore was a bit festive :p and with all the characters in those books, someone was just bound to be gay), but several thoughts ran through my mind when I found out... It would have been nice to mention it earlier while the HP phenomenon was at it's peak. Did her publishers stop her? Surely someone with Rowling's status had more input in the editting process of her own work. Maybe she didn't find it pertinent? Despite this, the (hetero)sexuality of other characters flares up here and there throughout the series. Maybe it's just a stunt to milk the final dregs of HP hysteria? Or maybe she's just offering another brief glimpse into the world which she has created so elegantly through her words.

Either way I like the books and am probably the only english major to admit liking such... mainstream literature >:P
 
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I don't think it's about business or worrying about profits or anything, and I think it's ridiculous to try to make it about that. Authors go through a creative process, they instill their characters with personalities and know things about them that we, as a reader may never see or understand. There is a very simple reason why Dumbledore's homosexuality wasn't made a part of the books and it's because it was something that was not a focal point of the story. His admiration and devotion to Grindelwald was clearly expressed in the last book, and to be completely honest, I think it would have detracted from the story to suddenly throw into the mix "oh and yeah, he was gay." It's foolish to criticize her for not expressing so implicitly because it would have shifted the focus from what the series was about, which was not Dumbledore's being gay.

I'm sorry but I don't see some anti-gay conspiracy in this. She pissed off enough Christians with the simple existence of the story. I somehow think she wouldn't shy away from pissing them off about this. I've read quite a bit about her and her dedication to this series being published, and I feel very firmly that if she had really wanted to make that a major plot point, she would have. Being that her books have made a lot of people a lot of money, I don't see some publishing house saying, "Well Jo, we just really don't want to go there."
 
I admit it's a revelation that will no doubt filter into my future readings of the books, but my point is there's nothing in those books to distinguish him from being gay and being an aging, straight bachelor.

As backstory goes, you only have her word for it that she had it in mind all along. I don't think anyone reading the series could reasonably expect to deduce that about Dumbledore, so I'm not going to go starry-eyed over what is basically a bit of background trivia that appears nowhere in the story.

If it sounds like I'm asking for the extra mile, I'm not. I'm just pointing out the particular inch she gave would've been better if it had happened in the one key place that really matters: the books.

(And the Larry Craig thing was probably way too harsh, but it was mostly so I could work in a Moaning Myrtle reference. I love and respect Dumbledore, while I have nothing but pity and contempt for Craig.)
 
Well if she didn't put it in the book which spanned 7 and has no plans of making any more Potter titles...then what she said is irreleveant, the character is what he is now.
 
I don't know about the rest of you, but I could tell by his wand stroke. I thought that was the dead give away.
 
what does it matter? nothing,

the way it's said in the article seemed like a provocation to the homophobic after they read so many books
 
I always thought he was a bit Wingardium Leviosa in the loafers.

amirite?
 
Zyndara said:
I don't think it's about business or worrying about profits or anything, and I think it's ridiculous to try to make it about that. Authors go through a creative process, they instill their characters with personalities and know things about them that we, as a reader may never see or understand. There is a very simple reason why Dumbledore's homosexuality wasn't made a part of the books and it's because it was something that was not a focal point of the story. His admiration and devotion to Grindelwald was clearly expressed in the last book, and to be completely honest, I think it would have detracted from the story to suddenly throw into the mix "oh and yeah, he was gay." It's foolish to criticize her for not expressing so implicitly because it would have shifted the focus from what the series was about, which was not Dumbledore's being gay.

I'm sorry but I don't see some anti-gay conspiracy in this. She pissed off enough Christians with the simple existence of the story. I somehow think she wouldn't shy away from pissing them off about this. I've read quite a bit about her and her dedication to this series being published, and I feel very firmly that if she had really wanted to make that a major plot point, she would have. Being that her books have made a lot of people a lot of money, I don't see some publishing house saying, "Well Jo, we just really don't want to go there."
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Ah but you see, I think that a romance between Grindelwald and Dumbledore would have been a very interesting plot device... Although now that you mention it, Rowling never explicitly said that they weren't lovers, merely that they were the best of friends. I guess it's up to the reader to apply a queer reading if they so choose.

And publishing houses have always had creative control over an author, especially first timers. Rowling's original manuscript for Philosopher's Stone was heavily edited to fit a certain "market", and was not expected to sell well at all. It doesn't make it any less a great book, it's just the way it came to be the book that we now know. Of course, I'm not saying that the issue of Dumbledore's sexuality was ever a topic of dicussion between her and her publishing house (I believe it's Bloomsbury?), in fact it probably never did. But it is a remote possibility. I like to think that it didn't and that Rowling always had a complete image of who Dumbledore is and did not allow this to be filtered =)

As for why his sexuality should matter (and I believe other people brought this up in the thread), it shouldn't really. I agree. For the very same reason that Harry, Ron and Hermione's sexuality shouldn't matter. They aren't pivotal to the plot, but the romantic relationships of the characters do intrigue us as readers as they add an extra dimension to the personas we envisage in our minds.
 
Who cares? He's dead.
 
Care factor... 0

I torched my copy of the 6th and 7th books after reading them. Personally, I could care less
 
is she going to write any other books you think. I know it won't be Harry Potters but still, i liked her shit.
 
Kage said:
Yeah seriously, why she decided to pull this out of her hat at a time like this is beyond any reasoning.
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If you'd read the article, some idiot point blank asked her if Dumbledore had true love in his life. She answered the question she was asked based on the character she knows better than anyone. I'm sure she didn't ask for the reporters to take it and run with it out of everything else that was discussed, but you know the media. Stop the presses; Dumbledore wasn't hetero! Seriously, it seems to me that she isn't the one making a big deal out of this.
 
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