The latest from Hogwart's....

[Gemini Cricket]

Don't ask, don't spell.

[innerSpaceman]

Hehehe, but really ... I guess for all intents and purposes, J.K. had him stay in the (witches) broom closet. But Dumbledore may not have. Just because he wasn't out to the students, doesn't mean he wasn't out to his friends and colleagues. Perhaps it was misguided of him not to come out to Harry - - maybe due to lame fears of impropriety and making the lad nervous when they had all those private pensieve lessons together in Harry's 6th year.

It had nothing to do with the story being told, but I kinda get that J.K. was a little lame for not having Dumbledore come out ... when his orientation and matter-of-fact proudness of same could have been an inspiration to millions of young teens.

As an author, she likely had more of a duty to tell the proper tale than to have political considerations ... but I think it can be argued that she let a large part of her public down by revealing this incourageously late.

[Gemini Cricket]

I also seem to remember Rita Skeeter talking about Dumbledore's "dark" past and that his close relationship with Harry was disturbing. Or something like that.
Interesting... Damn that Rita Skeeter...

[mousepod]

There's an article about it in today's NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/ar...ks&oref=slogin

[Gemini Cricket]

From mousepod's article above.

“Coming next week,” a newspaper article on Skeeter promises, “the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many to be the greatest wizard of his generation.” Skeeter drops teasing hints about Dumbledore’s “murky past,” about his not being “exactly broad-minded” and suggests that in his mentoring of Harry there is an “unnatural interest,” something “unhealthy, even sinister.” As for the idea that Ms. Rowling suggested — that as a teenage prodigy, Dumbledore had a homoerotic infatuation with another prodigious young wizard, Grindelwald (who later went over to what in “Star Wars” is called the Dark Side) — Skeeter hints at this in coded allusions.

[Chernabog]

Poor JK Rowling, damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. Plenty of artists give their own interpretation of their work as well as disclose what they had in mind when they created the work itself. It IS extraneous to the story that she thought Dumbledore was gay when she wrote about him, so she didn't include it.

She's already inspired millions of kids to read books, leave her alone that she didn't explicitly help gays in the work itself too. Screw the politicial considerations. Or should we force the backgrounds of fictional characters out into the open if those backgrounds serve a hot-button topic? That's total crap.

Furthermore I don't bemoan every missed opportunity in popular fictional works that could further an agenda. Not knowing that Professor Trelawney had an abortion, Professor Snape used aerosol cans on his greasy hair, or that the Malfoys fed Dobby meth in their dungeon neither detracts from the work itself nor means that Rowling should be derided in the decision to leave those things out of it.

[Chernabog]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

From mousepod's article above.

How totally obnoxious. I guess if you're TRYING to read everything thru pink triangle glasses, you'll come up with crap like that quote above.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Chernabog

How totally obnoxious. I guess if you're TRYING to read everything thru pink triangle glasses, you'll come up with crap like that quote above.

Rita Skeeter is a character from the books. We're supposed to hate her.

[Gn2Dlnd]

Ha ha! I laugh at my roommate!

I also laugh at the idea of Dobby being a crack-elf.

[Chernabog]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

Rita Skeeter is a character from the books. We're supposed to hate her.

Yes, but are we now NECESSARILY supposed to interpret her comments as "she was referring to the fact that Dumbedore was a gay homosexual"? I certainly didn't interpret it that way when reading it.

It seems that there are a myriad of web discussions who are picking apart every "hint" that may possibly in some way be interpreted as "Dumbledore was gay."

(i.e. this quote from the same article:

Originally Posted by NYT article

"She proposes that when the two friends had a falling out in a dramatic duel, Grindelwald did not fight but “conjured a white handkerchief from the end of his wand and” — the passage then gives way to an obvious (in retrospect) sexual double entendre."

Oh, isn't it so OBVIOUS now in retrospect? How could we all have been so blind? There's gay gay gay written all over Dumbledore!

Doing that isn't an INVALID reading of the HP books, but it isn't a NECESSARY reading either. That NYT article conveys that idea well.

However, I don't think Rowling went "too far" though in outing Dumbledore, like the NYT article says. I don't think she's ever said "Dumbledore is gay and if you don't think so from reading Harry Potter then you're wrong".