I've Been Saying I Got Heavy Gay Vibes From Dumbledore Since I Read The Book...

[said_scarlett]

I don't mean to spam, but I need to post this while it's fresh in my mind.

So JK Rowling has revealed that Albus Dumbledore was, in fact, gay. And in love with Grindelwald. I won't spam you with the link to the Newsweek article on it, since I'm sure you've seen it a dozen times already, but...

I hope that other fantasy authors take this as a lesson. Dumbledore's sexuality was never an issue, never a selling point of his character. It wasn't even revealed until someone asked about his love life. It was just one small aspect of the character that the author had decided on to flesh him out and make him 'real'.

Maybe now we'll have less of the 'ZOMG LOOK HOW PROGRESSIVE I AM! LOOKIT MY GAY CHARACTERS! SEE HOW GAY THEY ARE? LOOK AT THEM HAVE GAY SEX BECAUSE THEY ARE GAY AND I AM WRITING THEM BECAUSE I AM SO EDGY AND COOL!' crap that is so prevalent in fantasy fiction.

I also hope more children's authors will see that having a character who's gay isn't a bad thing.

And besides all that, it's really awesome to have this brilliant, amazing, iconic character... who also happens to be in the queer camp. ;)

Comments

[pervert-bitch.livejournal.com]

Iconic uh? Now "Dumbledore's Army" has a new meaning :P

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

I think Dumbledore is enough of a recognized character and household name to be considered iconic. :D

[pervert-bitch.livejournal.com]

So, was it known in the wizarding world? Was that what Rita was implying when she wrote that Dumbles had a unnatural interest/relatioship with Harry? :P

[colortheory.livejournal.com]

That's what I got from it, at least.

[chaneystarr.livejournal.com]

DUDE. I have not seen this article. WHERE IS THIS ARTICLE??

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/50787 <---- THERE!

[chaneystarr.livejournal.com]

Haha, dude. So awesome. I am thrilled. XD And awww, Neville and Hannah got married. That's adorable too. I wish she'd just release a huge epilogue or end note on what happened to everyone.

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

Aww, there goes my Luna/Neville ship. XD; Ah well.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOUR A++++ LOGIC.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU GOOD MADAME!

[ranchangrnl.livejournal.com]

Well, pffft. Ever since book seven I detected a Dumbledore/Grindewald vibe. I mean the tension was there and it was great because they were at odds and Dumbledore had to defeat him but he waited because holy crap he couldn't because he loved him...

But I thought I was reading into it.

Guess I get a cookie.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

No you totally weren't. Dumbledore was in love with him. It's not just us really, really wanting it to happen!

*hands you cookie*

[ranchangrnl.livejournal.com]

-munches on cookie-

Haha. You know, we all saw it but convinced ourselves that it was just wishful thinking like all the other ships that seemed implausible but there was subtext of doom. It's great to see one subtext of doom was true.

[cirakaite.livejournal.com]

Totally. I totally, totally agree. I want it to be an afterthought, and something that's not so important that it has to take over everything else. It's just plain cool :D

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

Yes! Exactly! I know there will be people who will claim this is a cowardly way of doing it or some crap, but I think it's the right way to do it. Don't make a big deal. Don't emphasize that gay is 'different' and 'noteworthy'. Treat like any other little detail she worked out in her mind but never added.

[cirakaite.livejournal.com]

Yessss. I want this to be the normal way of things, where it's no more worthy of comment than heterosexuality. We're a long way from that in general, but . . . every little thing counts, and JKR's influence is far from little.

[ladydreamer.livejournal.com]

Well, she could have definitely been more forward, but I think it was smart to leave it until now... and what can parents say about it? They already bought the damn books and exposed their kids to a *gasp* gay character. Who was the headmaster AND a teacher! Suckit bigots. Just like everyone else.

[khym-chanur.livejournal.com]

But, but, but, look at that wonderful soap-box that she put to waste! She could have turned every chapter of every book into a Very Special Episode, and with all the children waiting with bated breath for her everywhere word she could have dragged the world into a new era of enlightenment, but noooooooo.

[climbatize.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything in this post so much! :D I can think of so many books that would be a lot better if the gay characters in them had been treated like Dumbledore.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

Most definitely. I don't generally get into long dissertations on the portrayal of homosexual characters in fantasy fiction, but it is something I've written about and have strong feelings about. And JKR, despite people's protests that it's an after-thought - handled it the way I've wanted to see it handled for a long time now.

[destinydivine.livejournal.com]

It seriously makes me wonder what she thinks of the Sirius/Remus shippers considering there was so much subtext surrounding them. Especially since she had Remus and Tonks get married OUT OF NOWHERE.

Also, I don't think it was a cowardly move on her part to announce Dumbledore's sexuality after the release of all 7 books, but it makes me a little curious what she thinks of ALL the pairings in fandom.

[theangstmonkey.livejournal.com]

I personally think she thinks the Sirius/Remus shippers are amusing. I think her selecting the art that she did when she first start posting fansites on her webpage was just to tease us. XD You know, the one where Remus and Sirius are leaning all close like while working on the map and Remus has like his hand on Sirius' shoulder and they look all couple-y? Yeah, Jo pointing it out and saying she thought the artist had "good rendition" of the characters was her TOTALLY. TEASING. US.

*is so totally a S/R shipper*

Also, it's clear from statements she's made about Draco that she's very disturbed by the rapid Draco/Harry shipping. Or at least it makes her go "BUH? O.o"

[cacodaemonia.livejournal.com]

LOL, I hadn't actually heard about that. It... kind of makes sense, though. :)

[jessicaqueen.livejournal.com]

I also think it's a good thing that JKR didn't make a completely big deal out of it. However, it really felt too after-the-fact to me. JKR wrote this book that contained very few relationships that weren't heterosexual married couples who had children within wedlock once they'd graduated school. The couples had even generally always met each other during school. There was a lot of uproar about the lack of realism after DH was released. To me, it feels like she's decided to remedy that to some extent by doing a complete 180 degree turn. Yes, she says, it's acceptable for characters have different kinds of relationships. But you'll notice that any relationships that are different (e.g. Snape's parents being dysfunctional, Dean having a step-father, Voldemort's parents being ... well, as they were, Dumbledore being gay) are very much off-screen.

There's a difference between not rubbing people's noses in your progressiveness and just including vague backstories so that you can point to them and say you had variety after all.

[theangstmonkey.livejournal.com]

I think it's also written that way because the books are from Harry's point of view, though. Harry would never had learned about Dumbledore's sexuality, Dumbledore was very secretive about his personal life, so it's not in the book purely because of that.

And Harry is so preoccupied with his own dysfunctional family that he focuses on the "functional" ones, so the book does too.

I think the fact that Jo included these types of relationships at all is a good way to do it, because the story is still about Harry and his journey and his feelings and his life, whatever else point she was trying to make, if Harry didn't notice it then she couldn't focus on it either. Then the story would have been an entirely different one.

[nijiironohako.livejournal.com]

It IS good that there's a gay character and it's not all 'ZOMG GAY EQUAL RIGHTS LOL' or that he got his happy ending.

But then, we find this out AFTER the series finished (how many more people whould have flipped out about the bad messages (go satan ¬_¬) if they'd been told sooner?).

And do we assume it's a case of 'it's fine to be gay, it doesn't make you who you are' or is this affected by his shame? When he WAS lusting after a man, homosexuality was considered a crime. So it's not overly positive to keep it a secret, exactly. But then it really doesn't make a huge difference, he was still Dumbledore the greatest wizard etc.

Unless he really WAS perving over Potter ;)

Good point about the Harry's POV touch, but there are still ways it could have been hinted more, perhaps. He didn't HAVE to find out about the other Statistics and odd sorts either.

But yeah. How much fanfictions gonna come out of this? XD

[sassyinkpen.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that sees it that way. I mean, I'm thrilled that she said it at ALL, because now it's out there it's making people think and talk, but...

I really wonder just when she decided that Dumbledore was gay? There's a cynical part of me that wonders if she didn't come up with that sometime AFTER book five and the backlack from some parts of fandom after she spent the end of that book manically pairing everyone up in het relationships. (Book seven does read like she had that in mind, though, so I'd like to think it was true)

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

For me, it didn't feel this way. Probably because it's not like this is the only thing she released after the fact. She didn't bother mentioning a lot of character things until afterwards when she was asked. Character's professions, who other characters ended up with, etc etc. For me, slipping homosexuality in with every other mundane little character detail says exactly what I want more writers to say: homosexuality is mundane and normal and nothing to make any sort of big deal over.

And as a lot of people have mentioned, reading Book 7, it definitely reads with the implication that Dumbledore was indeed gay.

The thing about that is that all those relationships aren't exactly something Harry's going to be focusing on. We see things from Harry's POV, and what is one of Harry's biggest issues? Having what he sees as a normal family. So it's not surprising or bothersome to me that Harry, the book's narrator, focuses on the family situations he himself envies. And I personally can't see JK being able to blatantly write in Dumbledore being gay without it seeming really....eh, what's the word I'm looking for? Forced, I guess. And without turning the books into something they aren't.

Yeah, I guess I just don't see it that way.

[13thleprechaun.livejournal.com]

Oh, that interview wasn't fake. XDDDD I was almost afraid it was.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

No, it's very much real.

[theangstmonkey.livejournal.com]

I so totally agree with you. I'm linking this in my post about it, because you make good points. Hope you don't mind, but I want to archive this moment in my mind forever. ^_^

So. Happy.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

Go right ahead, I don't mind at all! :D

AS AM I!

[aqua-karen.livejournal.com]

Wow. Also, wow.

My first reaction, I admit, was also "Hey, why after the fact?" But after a moment of thought--this is the only way it could be. If she'd told or had it in the series beforehand, it would have eaten the entire story and transformed the series and the reporting on it all into "OMG TEH GAYZ" drama no matter how she actually wrote or spoke about it.

It's wonderful to have a gay character like this in family literature. Not That Old Gay Guy, but someone a gay kid OR a straight kid (and various variations of course) can look up to and admire as an example of something they can become, beyond stereotypes or being defined by sexuality. I wish there had been more gay and lesbian figures that were like this when I was younger and trying to work out my sexuality.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

YES! Exactly! I was trying to get this point across above-thread, and I just couldn't figure out how to phrase it. But this is exactly what I was going for.

Yeah, same here. We've got a long, long way to go when it comes to having homosexuality be considered perfectly normal and not even worth mentioning or making a point of, but having more characters in mainstream literature who just happen to also be gay is a big step towards it.

[lovelies.livejournal.com]

It's so awesome she came out with this.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

It really is. Totally made my night last night!

[ex-talia-sp.livejournal.com]

Yeah I totally didn't see it until after I read it here in your journal. I had no idea even about the article. But I can't say I am not surprised. I always thought that the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore was unnaturally close.

But yeah, I think this is awesome. Children's authors should not be afraid of parental angst towards homosexual characters. The children's literary world needs some variety.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

Yay, I was able to bring the news to people! Yeah, for me, I picked up on Dumbledore and Doge, and Dumbledore and Gellert. And I figured that JK had intended to have heavy gay subtext, but I never thought she'd confirm!

[redrose999.livejournal.com]

It's very cool. It's nice to see someone in his position, a responsible adult to children is gay. I find it very upsetting we've had this No GAY teachers fear in our culture and it's awesome to have a fictional character who is looked up to in many ways be gay.

[demeter918.livejournal.com]

Maybe now we'll have less of the 'ZOMG LOOK HOW PROGRESSIVE I AM! LOOKIT MY GAY CHARACTERS! SEE HOW GAY THEY ARE? LOOK AT THEM HAVE GAY SEX BECAUSE THEY ARE GAY AND I AM WRITING THEM BECAUSE I AM SO EDGY AND COOL!' crap that is so prevalent in fantasy fiction.

I suddenly love you so, so, so much. SO MUCH.

While I was absolutely thrilled (seriously, this hits every single one of my love buttons, including older men, tragic ending, grand love story, unable to stop the other possibly because of love, knowing the other is LOCKED UP for the rest of your lives, unrequited (yet requited?), being fricking alive and never seeing each other again, NEVER GETTING INTO ANOTHER RELATIONSHIP OMG) I wasn't surprised in the sense that, dude, I'd never think Dumbledore was gay.

I was surprised that she said it at all, definitely. And I kinda disagree with the thoughts that she was a coward for not bringing it up in the books. I mean, at what point was there to say that he was gay and in love with Grindelwald? For one thing, how does she bring that up when the story is told from Harry's point of view? One day he just happens to notice that Dumbledore wears purple robes and that might mean something? Harry himself didn't notice girls til the third book. I doubt he would have noticed his older-than-old Headmaster's love life. Or lack thereof.

After the seventh book, I liked Dumbledore more. Way more.