Dude! Dumbledore sees Harry naked at the train station to the afterlife! Dude!
I like this bit, from the AP story:
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 and a mysterious, troubled past. And explicit scenes with Dumbledore already have appeared in fan fiction.
By that standard, ever character in the Potter books is gay. At the very least.
what's great is that this didn't occur to me, but totally works when you think about it. The mark of a good plot twist.
Having it revealed in the books would have required it to occur to Harry.
And Harry, as we know, is a self-centered tard.
Gay sorcery? That's what is constantly tempting our nation's reactionary preachers to sin.
6: Well, I think one mark of a good plot twist is that it appear in the actual plot, but I absolutely agree that it works.
And while part of me is tempted to accuse Rowling of a copout, what I really think is that her book wasn't about sexuality, and her designation of Dumbledore as gay is really only appropriate outside of the books themselves.
Yeah, definitely no component of sexuality in a series of books about teenagers.
Given that "wand" is just a euphemism for penis, and frequently a euphemism for bifurcated kangaroo penis, all non-muggle characters are gay or bi.
And, by transitive property, all bifurcated kangaroo penises are magical.
Captain Kangaroo had like thirty goddamn bifurcated dicks.
oh yeah, but everybody knew this.
and that gandalf was a total kink--he couldn't even look at ordinary women, but was always prowling for action with orcs. and that time he was caught in flagrante with two ents and a dwarf--tell me that was easy to cover up.
really, though--
this is going to prompt some soul-searching among parents and kids. hard questions: 'so did dumbledore love harry like a parent loves their child, or was he sexually attracted to him as well?'
well, little johnny, it's worth remembering that gay men tend to be attracted to other *men*, not to young boys.
and that straight daddies love their daughters without lusting after them, unless they're from the rural south.
"but do you think dumbledore ever had sex with men? or was it necessary for his job that he remain chaste? is this like what the catholic church says--that priests can have an objectively disordered orientation, provided that they do not act on it? is that how rowling thought about it?'
well, little johnny, it is sounding a bit that way. and that's the last time we let you read encyclicals.
also--
given that the volume of hp-purchases makes it trackable like a commodity ("shares of the goblet of fire were up today with 2 million copies traded on the ftse..."), it will be interesting to see if this news has any effect on sales going forward.
assuming that the publisher would actually give out the figures.
One fan asked whether Albus Dumbledore, the head of the famed Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, had ever loved anyone. Rowling smiled. "Dumbledore is gay, actually,"
Was that supposed to be an answer to the fan's question? I don't see how it implies anything responsive, either affirmatively or negatively.
19: Isn't that a preface to her answering the question?
given that we don't have the fan's question, but only an nyt paraphrase of it, i think it's hard to judge how directly responsive it was.
(e.g., "well, now you have told us what girl neville wound up with; what about dumbledore? did he ever have a girlfriend?" or similar.)
but if you really want someone to provide the proper context, ask the editors, whose job on the mark foley i.m. transcript is the most brilliant job of context-fabrication i've ever read.
Dude, I totally called this. So what's the deal with McGonagall now? Ever noticed how none of the Hogwarts teachers are married?
In the UK, Dumbledore is running a prestigious magic school, and in the US, he wouldn't even be allowed to supervise a Boy Scout troop. Speaks volumes.
13: What, even the Patel twins? You sicko.
12: No component of sexuality of people who are, like, a hundred years old in books about teenagers.
Gay Dumbledore is awesome, but how lame is it that Rowling just kind of says this stuff after the series is over without ever putting it in the actual books? This is like that interview where she tells you what "really" happened to everyone twenty-odd years after Voldemort's death without actually putting any of it in the epilogue - it's sloppy storytelling and weirdly controlling towards the characters ("I didn't even write this bit, but my authorial intent reaches beyond the pages to invent narrative I didn't bother to put there!") Nothing outside the text, lady. If you wanted it to happen you should've put it in the damn book.
Gay Dumbledore is awesome, but how lame is it that Rowling just kind of says this stuff after the series is over without ever putting it in the actual books?
Not very lame. There was no room for it in the stories, but it was something she envisioned as part of the character when writing the stories. As long as it doesn't conflict with what we already knew, it's fine.
27: IANAHPF, but weren't people complaining here about excessive flashbacks? She could have at least put in some oblique reference to be explained later, making it canon, not a Hadith.
What the hell is wrong with this blog that no one has yet said this news is wizard cocksucker?
Hell, just delete all comments and posts after 29 and close the doors. Unfogged is finished.
this news really makes part of the last book better
All the more reason now for the "Young Dumbledore" prequel.
Actually the not-married aspect of the teachers is a basic part of the boarding-school setting. I was just talking with a friend about old Cambridge profs--there's lots of old guys and some older women who have lived alone in small apartments inside a residential school alongside their students for their entire lives. Doesn't mean they haven't had sex lives, I suppose, but the Hogwarts' teachers are completely within this milieu.
There was no room for it in the stories
So in the course of seven books, each hundreds of pages long, Rowling didn't have room to mention a characteristic of a major character which she now says is important? Rubbish. This isn't Hemingway's iceberg principle on display here; this is just pandering or sloppy writing or both. #26 gets it exactly right (as does #5).
I predict the following Onion headline:
"Hermione Also Fat, Rowling Reveals."
funny, Dumbledore didn't strike me as a Republican politician at all.
I suspect 35 is more of the story than 36, and correspondingly will be more odd to US readers.
Really, as is characteristic of the genre, the lives of the adult characters are only developed where needed for the story arcs of the children.
35 is absolutely right, believe me. Such people were commonplace when I was a kid. They may have been gay or straight, but either way their sexuality was so far divorced from their visible lives that you couldn't even speculate about it. This must appear odd to US readers, but think the Protestant/Magical equivalent mindset to the Christian Brothers.