It shouldn't matter, but it does
Oct. 21st, 2007 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaAbout the whole "Dumbledore is Gay" thing.
It shouldn't matter that Dumbledore was Gay, it doesn't in fact, have any bearing on the Harry Potter plot, because the story isn't about Dumbldore.
What it does have bearing on, is JK Rowling's credibility and integrity as an Author.
For a woman who wrote a seven book story arc in which we encounter allegories and metaphors to real world prejudice, which she has said are "wrong", she doesn't seem to think that ones sexuality is as essential to ones identity as, say... being a Werewolf or a Metamorphmagus? And even is she is trying to say, in a very roundabout way, that ones sexuality has no bearing on who they are when they interact with other people, she makes certain that in the Wizarding world ones Blood Status (Pureblood, Mudblood, Blood Traitor) is very important. That ones Humanity makes them inherently superior to non-Humans (Goblins and House-Elves are inferior, and Werewolves are greatly discriminated against).
It really could be that JKR didn't think sexuality and Dumbeldore's relationships didn't have anything to do with his choices, except you know, she spent a great deal of the seventh book describing in excruciating detail, Dumbledore's childhood, adolescence and the fact that Dumbeldore and Grindlewald were "close friends". JKR, outside the plot and after the fact said in answering a question that Dumbledore was gay and that his love for Grindlewald blinded him and was "tragic" and "unrequited".
The only thing, and I mean it, the only thing JKR needed to do in order to prevent that question from being asked AND giving us the information would be this sentence, somewhere, somehow in Dumbledore's history - "Albus was in love with Gellert, but sadly it was not to be".
Would that have ruined her sales? Perhaps. But I would have appreciated a whole lot more an author.
And the biggest thing that ticks me off. Lupin was read as Gay, Tonks was read as Gay, JKR knew this... so what does she do? She pairs them up and kill them off.
Together!
Aaaargh, my fannish frustration known no bounds!
In addition, the genocide in Darfur must be stopped.
וכמו כן, צריך לעצור את רצח העם בדרפור.
It shouldn't matter that Dumbledore was Gay, it doesn't in fact, have any bearing on the Harry Potter plot, because the story isn't about Dumbldore.
What it does have bearing on, is JK Rowling's credibility and integrity as an Author.
For a woman who wrote a seven book story arc in which we encounter allegories and metaphors to real world prejudice, which she has said are "wrong", she doesn't seem to think that ones sexuality is as essential to ones identity as, say... being a Werewolf or a Metamorphmagus? And even is she is trying to say, in a very roundabout way, that ones sexuality has no bearing on who they are when they interact with other people, she makes certain that in the Wizarding world ones Blood Status (Pureblood, Mudblood, Blood Traitor) is very important. That ones Humanity makes them inherently superior to non-Humans (Goblins and House-Elves are inferior, and Werewolves are greatly discriminated against).
It really could be that JKR didn't think sexuality and Dumbeldore's relationships didn't have anything to do with his choices, except you know, she spent a great deal of the seventh book describing in excruciating detail, Dumbledore's childhood, adolescence and the fact that Dumbeldore and Grindlewald were "close friends". JKR, outside the plot and after the fact said in answering a question that Dumbledore was gay and that his love for Grindlewald blinded him and was "tragic" and "unrequited".
The only thing, and I mean it, the only thing JKR needed to do in order to prevent that question from being asked AND giving us the information would be this sentence, somewhere, somehow in Dumbledore's history - "Albus was in love with Gellert, but sadly it was not to be".
Would that have ruined her sales? Perhaps. But I would have appreciated a whole lot more an author.
And the biggest thing that ticks me off. Lupin was read as Gay, Tonks was read as Gay, JKR knew this... so what does she do? She pairs them up and kill them off.
Together!
Aaaargh, my fannish frustration known no bounds!
In addition, the genocide in Darfur must be stopped.
וכמו כן, צריך לעצור את רצח העם בדרפור.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 05:56 pm (UTC)Oh, by the way, about Tonks and Lupin - I've never read them as gay, neither of them. Just as non-conventional people. And non-conventional people don't necessarily have to be gay... :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 06:05 pm (UTC)That's cool, different people - different brains :-) And right you are non-conventional don't necessarily have to be gay... One the most non-conformist people I know is Straight.
Lupin's Lycanthorpy always seemed like code to me, so he was always the gay one, plus the fact that he and Sirius were living together all the time... though that you can blame on my slash-tinted goggles :). Tonks was just tom-boyish to me until the sixth book where JKR seemed to foist her onto Lupin and it just seemed to fit with the Lavender wedding thing.