<p>I love it!</p>
<p>My daughter loves the news. I think it is a bit sad that even in the wizarding world the gays have to stay in the closet. </p>
<p>I’ve started wondering about Prof. McGonnagal. Did she have any love interest?</p>
<p>Hooch, perhaps? ;)</p>
<p>Rowling can say anything she wants, but if it’s not on the page, it’s not part of the story. It’s amusing to attribute off-page characteristics or history to characters, but if it’s not on the page she has no more right to the characters than any reader does. That’s part of the magic of novels, actually.</p>
<p>Isaac Asimov was famously irritated when told that many of his stories in the late 40s and early 50s were lightly disguised versions of real Cold War events and themes. The critics pretty much said that just because he didn’t understand the subtext and hidden meanings didn’t mean they weren’t there.</p>
<p>So, if D’s sexual orientation had anything to do with the story she should have written it, otherwise my theory that D had an unrequited Oedipal obsession toward his mother has just about as much validity as Rowland’s does. (Actually, I don’t have any theories about Dumbledore’s off-page persona, but that’s not very interesting.)</p>
<p>I agree with washdad-- I’m sticking to the books, where Dumbledore’s love was for Hogwarts and it’s students. I’m not going to go back and read things into the stories after the fact.</p>
<p>I hope he doesn’t get dismissed by the school district.</p>
<p>Brokeback Castle!! I love it, drb.</p>
<p>But it is “on the page”. It is the explanation for why Dumbledore, a generally astute judge of character, was seduced (at least psychically) by someone from the Dark Side. I agree a young reader would not make this conclusion, nor is it at all crucial to the plot, but it is not some politically correct liberal notion retrofitted to the story - it was part of the author’s concept of the character all along. And what has Asimov got to do with it - he was disputing critics’ misinterpretation of his work - Rowling was providing an interpretation of her own.</p>
<p>Asimov has quite a lot to do with it if you still believe in what was called the New Criticism–now quite old, in fact. That was my original point, which clearly many of you dispute. The text should stand alone. I still think so.<br>
And yes, many of us do get rid of books we have read. (And for many people, enough is never enough.) Mine get given away, in large part because I live in an RV, but lots of people give things away, I would guess. No matter; believe it if it makes you happy. I’m far more concerned with my own gay stepdaughter than with a fictional character whose sexuality really seems to me to be irrelevant to story.</p>
<p>Yeah, you’re probably right. According to Forbes, Rowling’s net worth is $1 billion. I am sure she stays awake nights plotting how to sell paperback books to that huge demographic of "people who got rid of their hardcover copies and will now feel compelled to get new ones so they can “seek out the clues”.</p>
<p>Still not clear on what New, Old, or Delusional Criticism has to do with anything. This was the author’s explanation of her conceptualization of the character, not anybody else’s.</p>
<p>I wasn’t surprised at all, I thought it was pretty obvious in the last book.</p>
<p>Honestly, why does it matter? Sure, it’s an interesting new fact, but as a die-hard HP fan, it changes nothing. He’s still the same old Dumbledore.</p>
<p>If JKR says that Dumbledore is gay, then he is. You can’t wish it away. Unless JKR invents a new spell that changes sexual orientation and makes him straight (in wizard heaven, of course). </p>
<p>And besides, it makes a lot of sense with the whole story. As mathmom says, some of the more perceptive readers had already figured it out.</p>
<p>Yup, I’d always wondered. 
But like I said, it really shouldn’t change the view people have of him…I don’t know why it’s getting so much attention.</p>
<p>
Uh oh. I have the feeling we may be entering into a debate of literary theory. Where’s JHS when you need him?</p>
<p>So, WashDad, you don’t believe in implication? Or look up the meaning of “subtext.”</p>
<p>Listen to any good author, and their characters have pasts, experiences, that brought them to the place they are at when the reader picks up the book…its not true if its not the page it doesn’t exist…and not everything needs to be speled out in an obvious fashion for it to be part of the characters persona as it were</p>
<p>TheDad, I do, and I’ve been acting and writing since I was in high school – I might have come across “subtext” once or twice.</p>
<p>Generating backstory is a “just-so” exercise. Assigning Dumbledore a sexual orientation when developing the character might help explain his motivations, but you certainly can’t go backwards and say that Dumbledore must be gay because of his actions. I can think of a half-dozen reasons off-hand for Dumbledore’s personality that don’t involve him being gay. Even the simple explanation that young You-Know-Who was a charismatic leader would explain his behavior. I won’t drag you through the more fanciful possibilities.</p>
<p>I hugely prefer writers who remain evasive about stuff like character back-stories. If it’s not important enough to put in the book, it’s certainly not important enough to blab about later. Once a writer publishes fiction, the work belongs to the reading public (emotionally, not legally, of course). If I thought the Harry Potter series was a heart-warming coming-of-age saga of a young wizard, but Rowling instead says it is a parable of the conflict between the industrialized west and the spiritual east, I get to hold that my interpretation is just as valid as the author’s. I paid my $20 and invested the hours for that privilege. At least that’s the version of literary criticism to which I subscribe.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, the reason Rowling didn’t go into Dumbledore’s sex life is that it wasn’t relevant to the story. The story is about a young wizard who wants to find out what really happened to his parents and then grow up into a successful adult. It’s Harry’s story, not Dumbledore’s. Rowling is not an author of “great literature” – she’s a working writer of good yarns. She’s really good at plot. She knows that if you forget that the writing serves the story you end up with “art” that no one buys or reads. I applaud her self-control in not indulging her desire to throw in extraneous junk about her characters, but I’m not sure why she’s doing so now.</p>
<p>(I really don’t care if Dumbledore is gay or not. I really don’t. I just know that if it was relevant to the story, it would have been clear and unequivocal in the book.)</p>
<p>yes you can, if that is what the author decided in creating the character…</p>
<p>and if you don’t think its at least Dumbledore’s story, well you are mistaken</p>
<p>she is doing it NOW, because she is done writing for these characters, and it is a good think for future writers to learn about the process</p>
<p>seems she wanted to explain how she created her world and its about creating pasts and aspects to people that don’t NEED to be in your face</p>
<p>Another big factor in keeping out of the pages of the book is that many muggle gays, especially the older generation, remains in the closet. It is more ‘realistic’ for Dumbledore to have stayed in the closet than to be an openly gay headmaster of Hogwarts. Outing him in this world still keeps him in the closet in the fictional world. </p>
<p>WashDad, sure, you have every right to believe what you want about Dumbledore. To me, he is gay.</p>