The Lionising, the Wizard and the Closet

[desperance]

Hmph. So Rowling says Dumbledore is gay. After all the books and all the reviews are written, after all the fuss is over, she trots this out.

Two things. If this is the case, it really shouldn't need saying, surely? It should have become evident, it should be at least inherent if not explicit somewhere in that vasty text. If it's not there to be read or interpreted, then it's not material and it really doesn't need saying. It either matters, or it doesn't; if it matters it needs to be there, and if it doesn't matter then who needs to know? Etc. That old phrase "show, don't tell" comes bubbling to mind; if she has to out him after the series is finished, then she hasn't done it right.

Also, I'm unimpressed by her choosing to do it now, at this cold dead end of all the hoo-ha. While the books were still happening, it might have been significant, even if only of a creative failure; now it feels both morbidly cautious and somewhat cynical, as though a final poke at the cooling ashes might ignite just a little more media glow.

Comments

[xnamkrad.livejournal.com]

So what? Does his sexuality affect the story line one way or the other? If it doesnt then it is no interest at all.
(says he of no writing experience at all)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

'Zackly my point. Creatively, it's meaningless to declare this now. Which means she has some other reason for it, and God knows why, but the phrase Marketing Ploy keeps coming to mind. That's safe Marketing Ploy, when it can't actually do any harm.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

She doesn't need the money - so I feel it's the "internationally beloved weaver of dreams" tag she's after now. It's marketing for her as the writer, increasing her fanbase.

[szandara.livejournal.com]

This was exactly my reaction. Dumbledore's sexuality was never an important issue in the books; it wasn't relevant to his role as head of Hogwarts, or as Harry's mentor, or anything else. Bringing it up now seems pointless, and it plays into the school of thought that defines people (and characters) by their sexual preferences and forces any analysis of their words and actions to revolve around who they want to sleep with.

Sexuality is only one aspect of who we are, and not neccessarily the most important one. I wish popular culture would figure this out.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

That was my reaction, too. While I'm perfectly willing to agree that "Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald", that story in no way read to me as a romantic interest. It was a *crush*. I really don't think you have to be gay to have a crush on somebody of the same sex (or, indeed, that if you are gay, having a crush on someone of the opposite sex means you've suddenly become straight).

I also thought "Potter readers on fan sites and elsewhere on the Internet have speculated on the sexuality of Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women" seemed odd, given his friendship with McGonagle, but perhaps I'm supposed to assume that because it was a platonic friendship he must be gay. I suppose that means Minerva is too...

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

What's in her head about the character's...erm...backstory is just that - in her head. If it's not in the book, it doesn't count. And as you say, if she has to tell us afterwards then she's messed it up. What does this add to man or beast? Nothing.

Come to think of it, were there any gay characters in the books? Is she just saying this now in order to safeguard her right-on credentials, or in a cynical attempt at brand extension?

BTW: Rowling was never exactly the mistress of subtext. She could write an enjoyable yarn, but needed judicious editing in the later years but no-one dared to say "YAWN" to some of the padding.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

She could write an enjoyable yarn, but needed judicious editing in the later years

Yup. I was actively bored by the last one I read (number four, perhaps? I was in Taiwan, out of reading matter and raiding my hostess's shelves; happily she had an English reading habit, because my Mandarin, well, no...).

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

The fourth one was the lowest point. The later ones were better (although the last one was evidently rushed and suffered greatly from an excess of exposition).

[angelsasha.livejournal.com]

I always suspected he was but, as you say, if it didn't have any impact on the plot of the books then what does it really matter? And if it doesn't much matter, why out him now?

I think it's a shame she didn't find a way to write it into the books, it would be good to see such popular kids/YA fiction with a gay role-model. Letting it slip now does just seem like a PR stunt. "Hey! Remember me?! Everyone's stopped talking about Harry Potter, so guess what? Dumbledore's gay!" Bah :P

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

"Oh, my god," Rowling concluded with a laugh, "the fan fiction."

That quote struck me as significant. Speculating wildly, but I read that as being a product of her (fruitless) desire to control fanfic and other responses to her books.

[lady-findel.livejournal.com]

True, outing Dumbledore now (or even at any time) has no relevance whatsoever. Dumbledore's romantic interests have no relevance at all. It could be that she had this in mind writing Dumbledore all along, but if she thought it was important, she should have shown it in her books. I did read a more than average interest in Gellert Grindelwald into the episode in Book 7, however, to me, it seemed an almost natural reaction of a precocious young adolescent who finally met his match.

[takrann.livejournal.com]

I've always taken any pronouncement from J.K. Rowling with half a pound of salt after trying to reconcile her disingenuous 'didn't know I was writing fantasy' remark in an interview once (from someone who isn't a fan I could concur but for lots of other reasons) with her more recent 'I'm subverting fantasy' one! Yes, they are not exact quotes but the essence is there, in context if you have the time to find them - life is too short for me when it comes to HP Sauce - to go seek them out. The whole madcap thing has always been for me a triumph of phenomenon over substance.

One can of course take things out of context.

"Everyone keeps saying, 'it must be so onerous. Doesn't it hurt your hand?'" she said. "But, honestly, that's the bit I really enjoy." Hmm. Snicker. In reference to what? Her writing? No. This in response to all the book signing she is doing on her current US tour.

The fact that Dumbledore has been 'outed' by his author is typical to me of the sort of mawkish, PC right-on all inclusiveness of Harry Potter as a whole - with its veneer of jolly hockeysticks Englishness so appealing to folk outside its shores - and why I have found it antiseptic in the extreme. No fabulous literary botany there. And perhaps one reason why it has been so vastly successful!!

The fact that she has amassed £500,000,000 out of it is not sour grapes at all!

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/howard_jacobson/article2811630.ece

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/howard_jacobson/article94818.ece

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

I find this revelation really weird...and I like the Harry Potter books a lot. Whatever faults they may have, I understand their appeal. But saying this about Dumbledore clangs, mainly because there has been no substantial time given to any of the Hogswart faculty having love lives of any kind, gay, straight, or anything else.

I felt that the whole bit about some of the parents being up in arms about having a werewolf teaching their children was a very canny swipe at the real-world hysteria over gay teachers.

The whole focus of the books was always on Harry and the students, or it was supposed to be, I thought. Who cares if Dumbledore is gay or has sixteen ex-wives all screaming for back alimony?

And I'm sorry but once you've written the last book, and you insist that you're not ever going to write any more of them, you may not then testify to facts not in evidence, as it were. That's cheating.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

And I'm sorry but once you've written the last book, and you insist that you're not ever going to write any more of them, you may not then testify to facts not in evidence, as it were. That's cheating.

Exactly.

[takrann.livejournal.com]

All right, then. If getting closer to the ocular proof is necessary. You can seek out the original quotes by beginning with these two gentlemen's sixpence worth on and around the subject:

http://www.wizardnews.com/story.20050802.html

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/07/storms-and-teacups.asp

Neil Gaiman's site carries the original letter Terry Pratchett wrote to The Sunday Times and which was incorporated into a would-be controversial article by a journalist.

[danjite.livejournal.com]

Point well made and will my full agreement.

Maybe next she can do a collaborative series with dan Brown.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

Isn't fun to be used as a cultural fetish object? *Somebody* in HP had to be gay, preferably someone important, so HP could be all hip and relevant you know?!! This reminds me of the myriad conversations I've had in my life that go something like:
"Your dad was a Native American you say? Well, in *my* family tree, we have Native Americans too. My great-great-great grandma was an Indian Princess(tm) who married a dashing cavalry captain. . ."

[desperance.livejournal.com]

*Somebody* in HP had to be gay, preferably someone important, so HP could be all hip and relevant you know?!!

Yes, but let's announce it afterwards, y'know? So we don't actually have to write any of that nasty icky man-on-man stuff and risk upsetting someone...

[julesjones]

Well, there were enough people writing the man-on-man stuff for her...

(Was meditating this morning on how I'd feel if people started fanficcing my stuff, and hetted my characters. Still not sure...)

[elsue.livejournal.com]

I'm reading this and going... Hey, didn't I have a moment in HP and the Deathly Hallows where I was going "OMG! Dumbledore is gay! That makes so much sense!"

I'm pretty sure I did. If I weren't due somewhere in a few minutes I'd go look....

Can't find it....

[elsue.livejournal.com]

....and I'm done looking. I read sections of book 7, skipped around a lot. And having just done the same trying to find why I thought D. was gay, I now suspect I had hit a line that doesn't read that way if you've read all the other Dumbledore/Grindelwald stuff in the book, which I hadn't.

Context can make *such* a difference.

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

I agree with you entirely. It seemed a bit of cynical press-grabbing attention seeking to me. Far too late to actually matter.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

And not just gay, but tragically gay.

I grow less impressed with Rowling everytime I hear more of this Harry Potter thing.

(Yes, read them. All of them. And there are a couple of afternoons of my life that I kinda want back now...)

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

I admit a moment of bafflement when I read the announcement, so I know that it wasn't extremely overt in the text.

But I have to say that, while some of the criticism here may have some substance...there are probably people who haven't read the books. And there are definitely people who will read the books again. And now something in the text has changed, just because it will be read in a different light.

Good or bad I can't say. But it's not really too late to change the text, at least in people's heads.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ye-es - but if their relationship to the text is changed by something the author has to say outwith the text, then I don't believe the text is working as it should.

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

You might be right.

I'm becoming quite an Umberto Eco disciple lately, and he says that novels are machines for generating interpretations.

I suppose, one could argue that if the machine needs to be helped along, then it is a slightly flawed design.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I am unable to believe she wanted us to figure out he was gay from the text. I think she wanted ambiguity, if anything. Now she wants to control the information, but that horse has already run.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

A character so old and withered that he has forgotten whatever he knew of sexuality and who died in the last but one of an excessively wordy series of seven books is declared gay by the author, decidedly post hoc. This has what relevance to the text, to the story, to anything at all?

Like, who cares?

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

"A character so old and withered that he has forgotten whatever he knew of sexuality "

Um, hang on...she may be wrong, the books may stink, or what-have-you. But are you actually saying that a person's sexuality doesn't matter after a certain age?

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. Everybody is different. Who knows what its like to be 173 like Dumbledore? In the books, however, it wasn't mentioned. Which could be - yet another - failing in the book if sexuality is such a life defining fact of life.

Or is it just me generalising from the particular? Many of my family work with the elderly and tell me that attitudes to sexuality vary from hanging on to their willies for dear life to utter disinterest. As I say, people are individuals. What is true for me need not be true for you. As a writer, sexuality is just one life defining fact and not always anything like the most important. Which isn't to say that it always isn't.

Dumbledore, however, was written agedly neuter.