The latest from Hogwart's....

[Alex]

From Neil Gaiman's blog, some interesting comments on what an author knows about the characters versus what makes it onto the page.

[lashbear]

Ah, did Grindlewald and Dumbledore have their own little affairette ?? That explains all those visits to Brokeback Magical Academy.

...Ah wish ah knew how to kwit yew, Dumbledore.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

...and the Force comes from midichlorians.......Not.

Making stuff up later is lame, no matter what the "fact" is. I reject anything non-book, same as I reject anything non-SW Trilogy, and anything beyond the first Matrix.

[innerSpaceman]

Well, perhaps if there'd been a gap. But J.K.'s been writing the books pretty much non-stop for a decade .... and if she's going to have an encyclopedia out within a reasonable period of time ... anything in it is going to be the "truth" of the Potter universe.


Hey, I don't like that they all married their high school sweethearts, but that's what happened ... and I can't just claim the Epilogue didn't happen because I hated it.



Based on an interview, no, Dumbledore's not gay. But if he's queer in the encyclopedia, then the HeadMaster of Hogwarts is a Homo.

[Nephythys]

...and it's appropos to nothing.

Nothing in the Potter universe even hints at the differing sexualities of it's denizens- nothing. Is Dumbledore the sole gay man? (outside of Grindlewald obviously) making them even more unique and outside than anyone else?

The rest of the characters are very straight- with no hint of anything else anywhere in the books- no incidental character or mention anywhere.

The adults in the books are also not discussed in those terms with any real depth outside of Snape's love for Lily. Hagrid has a brief flirtation with the Headmistress of Beauxbatons- but otherwise they are by and large asexual in their descriptions.

I personally don't care either way- gay or not he is still the character he always was- but I find the "revelation" to be mostly meaningless. Are we going to have an expose on the sexuality of all the main characters?

If anything this marginalizes him and his history by making this part of him a small side note after thought tossed out at a Q&A- it does not mainstream him as it is clear he is on the outside in his world as well.

[innerSpaceman]

Exactly. It relates only to his affair with Grindlewald. And nothing else.


If Dumbledore is gay, then his love life is the only thing effected by that.




And yeah, the stories were "told" from the points of view of young children. The adults were seen primarily as eunichs, but a little less so as the kids got older. That's not to say the adults really were asexual.

An encyclopedia unrelated to a kiddie storytelling perspective should reveal all sorts of interesting things about all sorts of characters.

[Gemini Cricket]

I found this editorial to be an interesting take on the outing of Dumbledore. Part of me agrees.

When J.K. Rowling announced at Carnegie Hall that Albus Dumbdledore—her Aslan, her Gandalf, her Yoda—was gay, the crowd apparently sat in silence for a few seconds and then burst into wild applause. I'm still sitting in silence. Dumbledore himself never saw fit to come out of the closet before dying in book six. And I feel a bit like I did when we learned too much about Mark Foley and Larry Craig: You are not quite the role model I'd hoped for as a gay man.

Source

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, do people come out as "straight?"


Perhaps the entire staff knew he was gay. Maybe everyone at the ministry of magic was in the know. But the student body was under the policy of enforced ignorance of the sex lives of the teaching staff.




Perhaps.

[Prudence]

I can understand an author envisioning her characters to have certain backgrounds and characteristics, even if those characteristics aren't necessarily seen in the books. And I can understand an author telling a screenwriter not to include something that contradicts that vision. If I had created the character of Dumbledore and in my mind Dumbledore was gay and that shaped my development of the character, even if it was never mentioned in the books, I'd not want some screenwriter inventing a girlfriend.

Still, what's the big fuss? Who cares? It wasn't relevant to the books and, unless there's now some new gay sex scene added to the screenplay it won't be relevant to the movies, either. It's a fictional character whose romantic life isn't part of the stories.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Here's some more fuel for the fire as seen on MSNBC.
Be sure to watch the video clip at the bottom of that article.