News from the Woman herself

[eumelia]

Rowling says Dumbledore is Gay!.
She says it here as well!.

Now all J.K.R. has to do is admit that the relationship between Tonks and Lupin is a sham and a cover up to their Gayness - Lavender Marriage anyone?

Now, it's not that I don't appreciate her being all forthright with this, I mean, it's really cool that the Master Mind and basic father figure to Hogwarts was gay and all, but revealing it almost four years after she killed him off and barely alluding to it in canon... it strikes me a little bit as fan service.

I mean the whole book was one big Heterosexuality festival! Bill and Fleur get married, Tonks and Lupin get married AND have a baby and die together, Harry and Ginny get together, Ron and Herminoe get together, fuck, we even discover that Snape's motivation to "reform" was his love to his childhood friend - BTW, I have serious issues with that, since it makes Snape to be shallow and ambivalent, two things which, IMO, contradict the cannon of all seven books, until his tale is revealed.
The Epilogue was sweet, but very saccharine and in a way self-indulgent and unnecessary, she didn't even bother to give up information about all the main characters. Where was Luna? And why did we have to discover in a chat on-line that Ginny had a sports career before becoming a journalist and a mother? Why is the information about Hermione's kick-ass job in the MLE only found on-line? And why isn't Snape's portrait mentioned in the book!?
But it's about the kiddies!

And the heteronormativty.

So yeah, it's all very nice that one of the main characters was gay in canon - I can't even fathom the amount of Dumbledore/Grindelwald slash that is going to spawn. But you know what would have been nice... if Crabbe and Goyle had been a couple, or if Thomas Dean and Seamus would have been a couple on the sidelines... or Parvati and Lavender, because it's not about the main characters being gay, it's about the fact that when you're a young teenager and an older one, you explore who you are, and an old man being gay and discovering this after he had died and it had absolutely no bearing on the sales of the book... well like I said, it feels like fan service.
It's good, but it feels like too little too late in that regard.

But who am I to talk, I'm just an extrapolating fan who likes slash and never really liked Dombledore - manipulative megalomaniac bastard - and no he was not as bad as Voldemort; Albus, unlike Tom, was not a bigoted sociopath.

In addition, the genocide in Darfur must be stopped.

וכמו כן, צריך לעצור את רצח העם בדרפור.

Comments

[lord-dingsi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was pretty underwhelmed. Like, minor whee, much wincing. And bitterness.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

When I read about it, I was like "Whoa! No Effing way?!" and then I was "waaaaait just one effing minute..."

*sigh*

[raggedclause.livejournal.com]

I came here off queer_rage and I must say I agree wholeheartedly, especially about the heterosexuality festival.

The ending of the series was like, "Look! The social order! Look how it saved through heterosexuality and BABIES EVERYWHERE!"

(And the Snape thing made me really angry. Come on, his motivations had to be because he was in love with Lily? You couldn't do better than that? Underneath it all, he too is just a big Hallmark-card loving, letter-ripping softie?)

Great post.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I got into a discussion about on a forum I frequent and someone said this made them appreciate JKR more, which surprised me, because she basically hid what is usually an essential part of someones identity, especially when she spent a huge portion of the 7th book dedicated to Dumbledore's past.

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I was sooo unimpressed by this. I'm really wondering whether this is something she had conceived of beforehand, because if so, why was it not in Deathly Hallows when that book concentrated so much on that particular period in Dumbledore's history? To me, if something like that is revealed about a character outside of the books entirely, it's a huge disservice to the character. You shouldn't have to read press clippings to figure something so major out. Once the book is out there, it's all open to interpretation and it's too late to tack extra information on there. If it's important, it should have damn well been in the book. Think of all those queer kids out there that could have found some solace in seeing queer representation in such an important series. That just doesn't have the same impact if it's not actually written in.

As much as I love Harry Potter, I find JK and her politics to be somewhat infuriating...

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

why was it not in Deathly Hallows when that book concentrated so much on that particular period in Dumbledore's history? To me, if something like that is revealed about a character outside of the books entirely, it's a huge disservice to the character.

Exactly! Also a lot of the information about Dumbledore in the books are from "outside" sources (newspapers, the unofficial biography), why not even there was something mentioned, she could have even made it slanderous, which someone like Rita Skeeter, if she'd found out that little tidbit would have milked to the end. And the relationship between Grindelwald and Dumbledore, well with Slash coloured goggles I could see it, but if it's cannon, make it cannon, like the other relationships we hear about in the books, especially if it affected the character and the plot in such a significant way.

[manzai.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, it's all a big "So what?" to me. If she was actually going to reveal something substantial, she had her chance when she was writing Deathly Hallows. Not putting something so germaine to Dumbledore's character into the book demonstrates she's pandering. Frankly, I don't like it at all.

I really don't care about the sexual orientation of any of her characters - I just want her to be true to them, and not write them (a) like eunichs, (b) like flaming heteros when they aren't, or (c) like flaming homos when they aren't.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

Hi, here from metafandom:

My own personal perception of the wizarding world is that it is *not* gay-friendly, and that gay wizards would probably have to hide. Couples would probably have a hard time of it. I also agree entirely with the Tonks/Lupin marriage being quite "lavender." The whole thing seemed false and contrived. But all these difficulties *could* have been tackled in the stories.

While there are things I don't like about Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, JKR's repeated after-the-fact plot fiascos make me respect Pullman more than I did. Because writing for young people does *not* need to be entirely sexless, non-controversial, and non-ironic. Especially after you earn your first billion dollars. At that point, who *cares* who you torque off?

Thank you also for the comments about Lily and Snape. I didn't find any of it convincing.

Here from Metafandom

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Most of what I've read in response has just been kind of depressing. I feel like I've read 8 dozen reasons in the past 24 hours for why gay characters should not be included in books--and those are responses from people who are pro-Gay-Dumbledore.

I think if she'd done something really groundbreaking we all would have known it when the actual book came out and her character would have been outed in the book rather than in the news like Tinkie Winkie.

[lord-dingsi.livejournal.com]

I feel like I've read 8 dozen reasons in the past 24 hours for why gay characters should not be included in books--and those are responses from people who are pro-Gay-Dumbledore

Argh, yes. I made a list, even. The 'reasons' are manifold: Harry is just too stupid to notice so it's not mentioned; Jo is totally pro-gay but the evil editors made her rewrite the whole book; writing one sentence about how Gary loves Steve means your children will want to know about assbabies and gay bdsm porn; the fundamentalist christians burning her books because of the witchcraft would have burned her books even harder; anything that acknowleges queers exist at all is just pandering to some political agenda; mentioning a gay couple in, say, book 4 would have meant every reader would have thrown away the book in disgust and exclaim "now I don't want to know how it all ends, and also I want my money back, you stupid bint!" and thus ruined her career forever; she didn't have the time to squeeze it somewhere into the previous thousands of pages; she meant to write it in book 7 but then her cat sneezed; authors don't have to think about what they write as long as the result is a book.*

Imho it's getting beyond hurtful and successfully crosses the borders into LaLaLa-I-can't-hear-you land.


* no, this is not even the complete list. And I made up the cat thing, but I'm waiting for someone to bring it up as a possibility.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Obviously I'm favour of more queer visibility in young adult literature... fuck any literature.
But it's so effing hypocritical of her to dig up Dumbeldore's history and tell us outside the plot, outside the book, outside everything, that he was Gay and loved a character who was the catalyst to a major character development (his that is)... plus the fact that was celibate, childless AND gay, makes it all so much more shallow.

Not to mention the zoophilic brother - obviously (NOT!) sexual deviance is a family thing.

Aargh!

here from metafandom too

[sapphoq.livejournal.com]

That whole interlude about Snape and Lilly was lame and not believable at all.
spike

[tabaquis.livejournal.com]

Here from metafandom and venting.

My main problem with her announcement is duo-natured.

First off, yes, she gave us a gay character. An unattractive, elderly, and in fact years-dead gay character. She gave it to us OUTSIDE of the books in these ludicrous interviews she keeps giving (and really, as an author myself, I have to say that if you have not managed to convey what you wanted or were trying to, WITHIN the text of the book, then shut up about it, you failed) and never hints at it within the context of the book. Right after really transparently and skillessly stomping all over the very obvious Lupin/Sirius pairing that practically everyone saw in the first five books. So I can't help but feeling that the GLBT fandom was thrown a wrinkled up, smelly, and in fact DECAYED "bone" as a sop. Yay, us. Thanks.

And of course, due to JKR's ridiculous notions of love, marriage and romance (ugh) you can only hook up with a school-aged sweetheart and if you miss the window you WILL LIVE ALONE AND LOVELESS FOREVER. Like Snape, and apparently like Dumbledore. Again, ugh.

Secondly, the MANNER and PERSONAGE of her only "canon" gay character is outright homophobic and offensive. Because WHO did she reveal was Dumbledore's One True School-aged Love? Gellert Grindlewald. That Dumbledore bought into what (she feels) is his ONLY evil act (acting all ambitious like a Slytherin, you bad man you) because of omg teh ghey lurv.

So the only "canon" GAY love in the books leads to evil, disappointment, the death of a sibling, and a long, loveless life alone.

Gee, thanks JK. Please, don't help us anymore. Don't give us any more gifts. We're fine without you, thanks.

And for the love of god stop giving those interviews.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

Thank you. You've encapsulating what's been making me grit my teeth over this, especially as fandom seems to be generally eating it up with a spoon.

[stopwatchhearts.livejournal.com]

Maybe Rowling was being a little selfless by admitting after the fact that yes, she had certain visions for her characters, but she managed to write selflessly and spare CHILDREN the nitty-gritty details. Harry Potter is first and foremost a children's series, and I think a lot of us older fans, who understand and even appreciate homosexuality, get so wrapped up in the storyline that we wish we could have wrote it ourselves. Because damn it, we would've done the characters justice; we would have indulged in every facet of Dumbledore's gay relationship, including sex and displays of affection, which many, many children do not even begin to understand.

Are you upset that Rowling talked about her book in light of how she had envisioned it because now you know her books could have been potentially more three dimensional?

Get off of Jo's back because she had to settle by leaving that part out and then shared it with her fans afterwards. How do you know it was a superficial and hypocritical confession? I think it was a bold statement, and it makes me reevaluate the entire series with a different mindset. JK Rowling is a writer, not your psychic personal servant who knows exactly what she should say for you to like her books more; she doesn't have to explicitly write every single detail in order for the theme of the novels to emerge.

Personally, as bored as I was with the epilogue, I would have yawned right through Ginny's sports/journalism career and Hermione's job in the MLE...because in the scope and focus of her series, that information is pretty excessive and sort of veers off on a tangent.

If I could complain about any aspect of the story, I would express my disappointment in Rowling's killing of Fred and the scene's lack of any emotion, but then again, I may be biased because I'm a twin.

I think people need to ease up on the criticism just because the last few books didn't head in the direction they wanted them to. Big deal. It's her series, not yours.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Sparing the children what nitty-gritty details exactly? That an adult, a mentor, has feelings? Nobody, from the meta I've read, is talking about graphic sex scenes and the storyline slipping away from Harry. It's about the character's inherent truth. And due to the slanderous nature of Dumbledore's telling in the 7th book, if JKR though being gay was "no big deal" she'd have bothered fixing his reputation inside the cannon and not at a press release where the answer to the question would be either "yes" or "no", not "actually, he was gay".
Overall, the message in the books are that tolerance and love conquer all... I'm disappointed that a writer whose work I enjoy and admire seemed to cheapen her work by releasing this information in the form of interviews.

And I beg to differ on the fact that it's her series. She may have written it, but the moment the work is out there, just like any piece of literature and art, it's up to readers and viewers to interpret her work. The way I interpret her characters may not be the way you do and that's fine, in fact it's great and it creates discourse and discussion. But if she throws out a bit of information which could have and perhaps should have been in the books, then criticism and speculation will abound. If she didn't want the attention she wouldn't be giving interviews and chats and throwing out "post-cannon" information.